Fall 2007

AHC 325 • History of History-W

Course Description

Course Description This class is intended to provide an introduction to the Western historical tradition. We will begin by looking at the first writers of history as we know it, the ancient Greeks, and will then move chronologically through Roman and Byzantine historians to the historians of Western Europe--medieval, early modern, and modern. The course will examine how the meaning of "history" has changed over time, and how historians have changed the ways in which they have understood their work at different places and times. Grading Policy Work for the course will include the weekly discussion of assigned reading (30% of grade), a first (20%) and final (40%) draft of a term paper analyzing the work of a single historian, and a written evaluation of the papers of all the other students in the class (10%). Texts Readings will include substantial parts of the writings of the following historians: Herodotus, , Suetonius, Eusebius, Procopius, Gregory of Tours, Bede, Jocelin of Brakelond, Guicciardini, Gibbon, Maitland, and LeRoy Ladurie.

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