World History since 1914
Major political, social, economic and cultural trends of the 20th-century, with prime focus on developments in Europe and the way they have affected the rest of the world; the decline of Europe in global political and economic terms. Topics include the world wars, the Russian Revolution, fascism, the Holocaust, the Cold War, decolonization and conflict and its resolution in the international, political and social spheres.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
The Americas
Comparative themes in the history of the Americas from pre-Columbian times to the present, with an emphasis on class, colonialism, economics, gender, labour, political systems, race, religion, revolution and war.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Early Medieval Europe
Societies and culture of Western Europe from the late Roman Empire until the Crusades and the 12th-century Renaissance. The agricultural base of society, its cultural context, the nature and roles of early Christianity and the ultimate survival and expansion of Christendom in the face of both pagan and Muslim challenges.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
The High Middle Ages
The economy, society, culture and politics of Western Europe, 1050-1350. Ecclesiastical problems, religious beliefs, scholasticism, material culture and family structures in the context of urban and mercantile expansion.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
The Origins of Modern Britain, 1485-1832
Political, religious, and economic forces that shaped British society and led to the country's emergence as an industrial and global power.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Modern East Asia
Survey of East Asian history from the 17th-century to the present focussing on China and Japan.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Origins: Canadian History to 1800
Social, economic, political and cultural developments in Canada from earliest French contacts to the end of the 18th- century.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Canada in the 19th-Century
Political, economic, social and cultural developments in British North America and the Dominion of Canada, 1800 to 1900.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Canada in the 20th-Century
Political, economic, social and cultural developments in 20th-century Canada.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Glory and Despair: The United States 1608-1865
United States history and culture from the invasion of the North American continent by Europeans to the breakup of the Union in the Civil War. Topics include contact with Native peoples, origins of slavery, Puritanism, economic development, the Revolution, the Constitution, growth of transportation, political parties, abolitionism, sectional conflict, and the Civil War.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade in HIST 2F97, 2P79, 2P80, 2P81 and 2P82.
Ambiguities of Greatness: The United States 1860 to the Present
United States since the Civil War. Emphasis on industrialization and post-industrialism, empire building, race, gender relations, world wars, Cold War, consumerism, youth rebellion and popular culture.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade in HIST 2P83.
Renaissance Europe, 1300-1500
Some of the more problematic shifts and continuities in Western European society in an age of demographic crisis and economic dislocation. Family structures, technological innovation, elite and popular culture will be emphasized.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Europe during the Reformation, 1480-1600
Economic, demographic and political environment within which Luther, Calvin and other innovators attempted to reform Europe's religious life. Political and mercantile change and overseas expansion.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Seventeenth-Century Europe, 1566-1715
Survey of the history of continental Europe between the Netherlands Revolt and the death of Louis XIV. Topics include absolutism and its limits, religious controversy, developments in science, the witch craze and the effects of colonial expansion.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Eighteenth-Century Europe, 1715-1789
Demographic, economic and structural changes as they affected the nobility, bourgeoisie and popular classes; changes in patterns of criminality, riot and popular mentality; war as a stimulus of social reform; the Enlightenment in its social and cultural context and the origins of the French Revolution.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Revolutionary Europe, 1789-1815
The French Revolution and its European impact, emphasizing its origins, its role in the development of European political culture and its impact on the experience of women. Topics include the failure of the constitutional monarchy and the counter-revolution.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Europe 1815-1914
Political, social and cultural changes in the subcontinent when liberal, imperialist and industrializing Europe was still a dominant global power.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Twentieth-Century Europe
Themes in 20th-century European history.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Medical History
(also offered as CHSC 2P60)
Rise of the medical professions through history. Development of the role of health care professionals in society and the formation of public policy.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Restriction: open to CHSC and HIST (single or combined) majors until date specified in BIRT guide.
Piety, dissent and reform: the roots of the Reformations
Various forces that underlay efforts to revitalize and reform the Christian church between 1300 and 1530.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade in HIST 2F90.
Course of the Reformations
Sixteenth-century fragmentation of a united Western Christendom and its effects on the lives of ordinary people.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade in HIST 2F90.
Early Russia
Russian history from its beginnings in the Kievan period (ninth-century) to the end of Catherine the Great's reign (1796).
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Modern Russia
Politics, society and culture from 19th-century Imperial Russia to the Soviet Union.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Ideas and Culture, 1700-1850
(also offered as GBLS 2P99)
Intellectual and cultural developments in Europe and North America during the 18th and early 19th centuries.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Canada: A Nation Transformed
Themes in late 19th- and early 20th-century Canadian history.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Women in North America
(also offered as WISE 2Q95)
Major themes in the history of women in Canada and the United States: native and European women in New France and British North America; women in the American Revolution; the lives of enslaved women; women and industrialization; women in the west; suffrage and social reform; women and the two world wars; and feminism in the 1960s and 1970s.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Women in Medieval and Early Modern Europe
Women's lives from the Middle Ages to circa 1800; how women's experience of historical phenomena differed from that of men; special problems in studying "women's history."
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
History in its Environment
(also offered as SPAN 2V90-2V99)
Study of the history of a country or region in its own cultural and geographical context. Background preparation and research preceding an intensive study period on location.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Restriction: permission of the Department.
Note: given in English. Students are responsible for travel, accommodation and other expenses.
2001-2002: Central American Issues
(also offered as SPAN 2V91)
Focusses on one or more of the following topics: indigenous cultures, collapse of the Central American Republic, Manifest Destiny, the Monroe doctrine, revolution, Liberation Theology, and plantation agriculture.
Note: given in English. Students are responsible for travel, accommodation and other expenses. See History Department's home page for details.
Modern Britain
Politics, economy, society and culture in the British Isles from the early 19th-century to the present.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Modern Latin America
Latin America since 1810. Emphasis on wars of independence, personalistic rule, labour, immigration, the role of the Roman Catholic Church, militarism, revolutions, failures of modernization and inter-American relations.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Ideas and Culture since 1850
(also offered as GBLS 3P00)
Intellectual and cultural developments in Europe and North America during the late 19th and 20th centuries.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Directed Research
In exceptional circumstances, a student with honours standing may be permitted to pursue directed research using primary sources. Topics to be defined in consultation with a faculty member who is willing to supervise the student.
Restriction: permission of the department.
The World of Genghis Khan: Inner Asia since 500 BCE
The history of Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang. Political, economic, social and cultural topics. Emphasis on the nomadic encounter with the settled world (China, Russia, etc.), including the medieval nomadic invasions, the Great Game and nationalistic policies in the 20th-century.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Note: seminars will include films and primary sources (in translation).
Diplomacy of the Pacific Rim
History of relations among the major powers along the Pacific Ocean. Focusses on China and Japan and their interaction with the world since the 16th-century.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Canadian Immigration and Ethnic History
Immigrants, immigration movements, problems of adjustment and government policies.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Canadian Labour History
(also offered as LABR 3P75)
Canadian workers and the labour movement from the mid-19th-century to the present, combining studies of trade unions with the broader context of the social, community and political life of workers. How gender and race/ethnicity have shaped the working class experience.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade in HIST (CANA/LABR) 3Q95.
The Rise and Fall of the Russian Empire
The Russian empire and its components over the past 500 years. Topics include expansion, nationalities, diplomacy and the politics of dissolution in the post-Soviet era.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
North America's First Nations
Topics in the history of North American aboriginal peoples.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Literacy, Culture and Typography in Europe, 1300-1600
The shift from script to print, the gap between high and low cultures and the cosmology of the Early Modern period. The consequences of typography for scholars, writers, governments and ordinary people.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Twentieth-Century Latin American Revolutions
(also offered as SPAN 3Q94)
The social, economic, and intellectual roots of revolutions in Mexico, Bolivia, Guatemala, Cuba and Nicaragua. The seminal role of the Mexican Revolution.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
French Canada
The cultural, economic and political institutions of French Canada; analysing the sources of French-English conflict with emphasis on questions such as education, cultural values, imperial defence and conscription.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
The Challenge to Social Order in 18th-Century England
The basis of Hanoverian stability and the threat to it from political factionalism, popular dissent and economic upheaval.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Canadian Regional History
Selected themes in the history of Canada's regions.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
African American Experience
African American history and culture since the first introduction of peoples from Africa to the North American continent to the present day. Topics to be examined include: the origins of slavery, the development of slave culture, the varied forms of slave resistance, the Civil War and emancipation, the rise of sharecropping, the formation of ghettos, segregation, the Harlem Renaissance, African Americans in the World Wars, the Civil Rights Movement, urban housing and social problems, the rise of rap music.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
History and the North American Environment
Overview of human interaction with nature in North America; nature and natural resources as they shape patterns of human life; how attitudes toward nature shape cultural and political life; the consequences of human alterations of the natural world for natural and human communities.
Seminar, 3 hours per week.
Topics in Canadian Cultural History
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite: CANA 2F91 or two HIST credits numbered 2(alpha)00 to 2(alpha)99 or permission of the instructor.
2001-2002: Myth, Memory and Meaning in Canadian Cultural History
(also offered as CANA 3V91)
Examination of how different groups and different individuals have remembered, commemorated and assigned meanings to the past, focussing primarily on the post-Confederation period.
Prerequisite: CANA 2F91 or two HIST credits numbered 2(alpha)00 to 2(alpha)99 or permission of the instructor.
The Crusades
Historical overview of the first- through fifth- crusades, including sections on the growth of the crusading movement in western Europe, crusades outside the Holy Land, and the Islamic response to the crusades.
Seminar, 3 hours per week.
The Viking Age
Major themes and events of the Viking Age in Scandinavia and Europe including development of towns and trading networks, the rise of the Scandinavian kingdoms, the role of women, and the conversion to Christianity.
Seminar, 3 hours per week.
Honours Tutorial
Directed reading and discussion in the student's selected field in preparation for a comprehensive examination. Honours students who are interested in this course may begin their reading for HIST 4F99 in year 3.
Restriction: open to HIST (single or combined) majors with approval to year 4 (honours) until the date specified in the BIRT guide and then open to other students with permission of the department.
Note: students must make arrangements before the end of April for tutorials to begin the following school term.
Advertising, Mass Media, and Culture
(also offered as COMM 4P55 and PCUL 4P55)
Advanced historical research into the development of Canadian advertising practices in an international context. Examination of the cultural and economic impact of advertising on the mass media, the role of advertising in the formation of a consumer culture.
Restriction: Open to COMM (single or combined), HIST (single or combined) and PCUL (single or combined) majors with approval to year 4 (honours) or permission of the instructor.
Themes in Literature and History
Seminar, 3 hours per week.
Restriction: open to HIST (single or combined) majors with approval to year 4 (honours) until the date specified in BIRT guide and then open to other students with permission of the department.
Problems in History
Studies of selected problems in different eras of Canadian, American and European history. Topics studied in any given year will focus on a particular theme.
Seminar, 3 hours per week.
Restriction: open to HIST (single or combined) majors with approval to year 4 (honours) until the date specified in the BIRT guide and then open to other students with permission of the department.
2001-2002: Witchcraft Episodes in Britain and America, 1500-1700
Persecution for witchcraft examined within the context of religious change, socio-economic friction and gender relations. Comparative focus on the nature of witchcraft episodes in England, Scotland and New England.
2001-2002: Aspects of French and German Military/Imperial History
Relationships between France and Prussia/Germany before and during key wars, and selected topics in the history of French and German imperial expansion since 1750.
2001-2002: Histories of the End: Apocalypticism in Perspective
The history of apocalyptic thought and millenarian movements in Europe and the Americas studied from a comparative perspective.