Spring 2007

HIS 381 • Big History

Course Description

This course will look at the historiographic challenges of writing "Big History" - historical works taking on very large subjects, such as a long stretch of time, a large area, or a big theme.

Texts

Partial reading list: James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State Fernand Braudel, Memory and the Mediterranean Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel Felipe Fernández-Armesto, Millennium Herodotus, The Persian Wars E.H. Gombrich, A Little History of the World Michel Foucault, The Order of Things Philippe Ariês, The Hour of Our Death Arthur Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being Thomas Laqueur, Making Sex Rachel Laudan, "A Plea for Culinary Modernism" Ellen Mosely-Thompson, TBA

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