291 - 300 of 788 results for: HISTORY

Nationalism has been one of the most powerful and contested forces in modern history. It has inspired revolutions and unifications, justified wars, fueled exclusions, and animated art, literature, and music. This course explores nationalism as an idea, ideology, and lived experience across two centuries, asking: What makes a nation, and who belongs? Must nations always become states? How have myths, monuments, gender, and religion shaped national identity? What happens when nationalism turns violent or when it is reimagined as liberation? The course unfolds in three acts. Act I: 'Imagining Nations' traces the revolutionary and romantic origins of nationalism in nineteenth-century Europe. Act II: 'Institutionalizing Nations' examines how nationalism was embedded in schools, armies, religion, and memory, and how exclusions of race, antisemitism, and gender defined its boundaries. Act III: 'Nations Unbound' confronts the crises and reinventions of nationalism in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, from fascism and Soviet nation-making to anti-colonial liberation and globalization. We will read classic theorists, novels and poetry, and engage with films and art. With a mix of discussion, analysis, and creative assignments - including the chance to "invent your own nation" - this course offers a journey through the drama of modern nationalism.

What are the modern laws of war and how have they changed since they were first codified in the 1860s? What does it mean to wage a lawful war? Course readings focus on central through lines of the history of the laws of war: colonial hierarchies and exclusions, the problem of new weaponry, the conflict between humanity and military necessity, and law as wartime morality. We will also reflect on past and ongoing violations of the laws of war and discuss responses to such transgressions. Chronologically, discussions will range from the 1864 Geneva Conventions to the role of international humanitarian law in the Syrian Civil War and the Russo-Ukrainian War today.

This course examines the evolving nature of warfare and its impact on society across the Eurasian continent up to the Gunpowder Revolution and rise of the nation-state. Beginning with an attempt to define war, it will trace the evolution of military technology from the Stone Age through the rise of the chariot, the sword, and the mounted rider, and examine how changing methods of conducting warfare were inextricably linked to changes in the social order and political structures.

This course explores the history of Islam and Muslim communities across Russia and its southern frontiers adjoining the Black Sea, the Caucasus, Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Xinjiang. Students will investigate the interconnected histories of these regions through the study of original primary source documents, poetry, novels, art, and film as well as through interdisciplinary scholarship.

In the wake of the Great War (which we now know as WW1), the notion of self-determination, championed by the US president Woodrow Wilson, became an ideal of governance, spreading like wildfire across continents. It was received enthusiastically and reinterpreted creatively by former subjects of the defeated empires and those under the rule of the winners: middle class French suffragists, Black American activists, elite Egyptian women, Indians and the Irish under the British rule, warring Poles and Ukrainians, Korean students, Arab royalty, industrial laborers, and Zionists on both sides of the Atlantic. The shape of the new postwar world was to be decided at the peace conference in Paris and these groups (and more) demanded to be heard and listened to. Self-determination transformed how the contemporaries thought about empire, revolution, nation, minority, race, and gender. Paris in 1919 was the epicenter of the transformation. The objective of the course is the development of historical imagination (the ability to consider people and ideas in historical contexts and from the vantage point of their era) and critical empathy (the ability to analyze and understand the personal 'logic' of historical actors) as well as the crucial skills of public speaking and argumentative writing.

This course will examine the notions of agency and resistance as it relates to the global history of slavery. Students will engage with the ongoing debates among scholars as well as a wide range of primary sources from different regions. The course will cover an extensive timeline, spanning from around the 9th century and up into the 20th century. This is a research-oriented course designed to provide students with insight into the challenges and possibilities that are unique to the study of slavery.

The significance of cartographic enterprise across the early modern world. Political, economic, and epistemological imperatives that drove the proliferation of nautical charts, domain surveys, city plans, atlases, and globes; the types of work such artifacts performed for their patrons, viewers, and subjects. Contributions of indigenous knowledge to imperial maps; the career of the map in commerce, surveillance, diplomacy, conquest, and indoctrination. Sources include recent research from Asia, Europe, and the Americas.

Required of History majors. How to conduct original, historical research and analysis, including methods such as using the libraries and archives at Stanford and elsewhere, and working collaboratively to frame topics, identify sources, and develop analyses. Autumn quarter: Professor Allyson Hobbs' section will focus on American Identities, and Professor David Como's section will focus on using Stanford Archives and Special Collections. Winter quarter: Professor Nancy Kollmann's section will be Open Topic and Professor Steven Zipperstein's section will be Open Topic. Spring quarter: Professor Ana Minian's section will be Open Topic. This course requires a permission number to enroll. Please email Kai Dowding at kdowding@stanford.edu for the permission number.

This course explores how different groups of people experienced Nazi rule in Germany and German-occupied Europe. While we will cover the general history of Hitler's rise to power, the prewar years of his rule, and the Second World War, our focus will be on the effects of fascism on everyday life and relationships between neighbors, family members, partners, friends, and coworkers. How did class, race, gender, religion, and sexual orientation interact with Nazi rule and occupation? The course pays special attention to the fate of European Jews and the Holocaust. On a theoretical level, we will discuss the opportunities and challenges of "Alltagsgeschichte," or the history of everyday life, as an approach to studying Nazi rule. The course provides tools to manage efficiently a fairly high reading load, a skill that will greatly help students to succeed in future academic endeavors.