History

The course provides students with an understanding of the key issues in the historical, philosophical, ethical, and sociological approaches to the study of war and the military. It develops students’ understanding of the relationship between armed forces and the societies they protect, and it engages with war as a moral problem and the tools that philosophers have created to limit its brutality and guide belligerents. It explores why, in spite of these tools, wars can descend into barbarity, crime, and genocide, making a special case study of the Holocaust in the Second World War. It looks at dynamics of protest against war and then goes on to interrogate the intellectual, economic, and financial factors that drive outcomes and shape war as a social dynamic. The term concludes with explorations of what war teaches us about human nature and the social contract, humans’ relationship with their environment and national identity. Students in this course undertake the spring-term portion of the yearlong course War And Society.

This course provides a critical analysis of the dynamics of growth and convergence of European economies from 1870 to today, and the contribution of the EEC and EU to monetary integration and macroeconomic stability in Western Europe. 

This course covers the history and political evolution of France since 1940. The course examines the following topics: World War II, the Resistance, the Vichy Regime, the Collaboration, the Liberation and reconstruction, growth and crises, social changes and transformation of the political structure, and the Fourth and Fifth Republics.

Combining history with current affairs, this course examines the rise of the global drug regime and considers its present-day governance lessons. It covers how the anti-narcotics system was constructed in the 19th and 20th centuries through a specific historical process, beginning with the opium wars and culminating in a UN-centered global system; and with what consequences. The course evaluates various historical drug regimes, including the full tolerance once practiced in the United States and United Kingdom, the Asian opium monopolies, and the Portuguese decriminalization of possession. It considers contemporary challenges to prohibition, such as cartel violence, the opioid epidemic, marijuana legalization; and finally, paths for reform.

This course analyzes corruption in the United States. It highlights how abuse of position for personal gain has long been a political and social issue with minimal impact because of significant economic growth. It focuses on scandals throughout United States history that have exposed official venality and the U.S. political authorities that have passed laws and regulations to respond to corruption.

This course examines the African American experience in the United States from the colonial period to the contemporary era. It is interdisciplinary in design, using different approaches to considering the history and culture of Africans who gradually became African Americans as the British American colonies became the United States.