History

Examines interactions of the many peoples who created the United States. Topics include Native Americans, the American Revolution, and Civil War, and how colonization, immigration, gender, race, politics, class, and geography shaped the nation.

This class surveys the intellectual, social, economic, and political changes that shaped the development of Europe from 1715 to the present. Topics may include the French and the Industrial Revolutions; nationalism and the emergence of nation states; the rise of Marxism; high imperialism; the two world wars; totalitarian governments of the 20th century; comparative histories of everyday life; and European integration.

This course provides a geographical perspective on the historical development of Maine over the last 500 years. The course begins with what we know about Indigenous peoples living in Maine and Eastern Canada at the time of European contact in the early 1500s, followed by early attempts at European exploration of this area. The class will then examine the evolution of Maine as part of a borderland claimed by both France and England in the seventeenth century and first half of the eighteenth century, the American settlement of Maine in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the growth of industrial manufacturing and tourism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the de-industrialization and development of a service economy in Maine today. The course pays particular attention to environmental, cultural, and cross-border issues, as well as the history of Maine's Indigenous peoples. (HTY 212 and GEO 212 are identical courses.)

An investigation of the history of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt from the Neolithic through the Persian Empire. This course will cover the "rise of civilization," investigating key social and cultural institutions alongside central innovations in human history from the agricultural revolution to the invention of writing to the emergence of Empires. We will investigate the cultures behind well-known artifacts, persons, and monuments, such as the Great Pyramids, the tomb of Tutankahmun, the Law Code of Hammurabi, the Hebrew Bible, and the Epic of Gilgamesh. We will combine archaeology and primary texts in order to explore the literature, religion, belief systems, political structures, social norms, and economic structures of the ancient world. Along the way we will gain a better understanding of our own world and the continued relevance of these cultures in modern contexts and their contribution to the western tradition, while examining ethical questions surrounding museums, looting, the antiquities trade, and the preservation and conservation of the past. If this course was taken as a topics course in HTY 199, it cannot be repeated for credit.

A writing intensive seminar that introduces students to the historiography and methodology of important themes in history. Its topics vary. This is a required seminar for all History majors as preparation for the Senior Seminar. Utilizing secondary and selected primary sources students will consider how historians construct different interpretative narratives of past events.

Greece is the birthplace of democracy, western philosophy, and much of modern western thought. In this course we explore the political and social history of ancient Greece and the development of Greek culture. This course covers ancient Greece from the stone age through the Hellenistic era following the death of Alexander the Great with a focus on the culture and institutions of classical Greece (ca. 500-350 BCE).

Intensive reading, research, and writing under the close supervision of an instructor on a selected problem in American or European history. Required of History majors.

1. American History 2. European History 3. British and Commonwealth History 4. Canadian History 5. African History 6. Asian History

Field work in local museums, state agencies, and other historic laboratories. Involves preparation and repair of exhibits, research and preparation of historic preservation documents, and beginning archival and artifact handling.