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HIS-100 Early Western Civilization Greeks/Renais

This course explores the social, political, intellectual and cultural origins of the Western tradition in Europe, the Aegean, the Mediterranean, and the Near East; from Classical Greece and Imperial Rome through the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation and the Age of Global Exploration. We will trace the evolution of distinctively Western institutions and values over the course of two millennia (5th century B.C.E - 17th century C.E.), and will examine the frequent interactions between the West and the wider world in the ancient, medieval and early-modern eras. This course carries SUNY General Education credit in World History and Global Awareness.

Credits

3

Department

  • Social Science

Course Rotation Schedule

  • Fall: In Person, Online, Hyflex
  • Spring: In Person, Online
For more detailed course information view the Course Outline

HIS 100: Early Western Civilization Greeks/Renais

Department

Social Science

Course Description

This course explores the social, political, intellectual and cultural origins of the Western tradition in Europe, the Aegean, the Mediterranean, and the Near East; from Classical Greece and Imperial Rome through the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation and the Age of Global Exploration. We will trace the evolution of distinctively Western institutions and values over the course of two millennia (5th century B.C.E - 17th century C.E.), and will examine the frequent interactions between the West and the wider world in the ancient, medieval and early-modern eras. This course carries SUNY General Education credit in World History and Global Awareness.

Credit Hours

3

Contact Hours

Lecture3
Lab0
Other0

Grading Scheme

Letter

SUNY General Education Course

  • World Languages

Course Learning Outcomes

  1. Students will identify the major events, themes and issues of Western history, from the 5th century B.C.E. through the 17th century C.E.
  2. Students will describe the interactions and interrelationships between the cultures of the West and those of other regions of the world in the premodern era.
  3. Students will describe the distinctive features and unique structures and systems of Western civilization during the ancient, medieval and early modern periods, and their impact on well-being and sustainability during these eras.

Topic Outline

  1. 1. Pre-Classical era, 1st–3rd millennia B.C.E.
  2.     a. Theocracy and autocracy in ancient Egypt and the Near East
  3. 2. Classical Greece and the Aegean, 4th–5th centuries B.C.E.
  4.     a. The Greco-Persian and Peloponnesian Wars
  5.     b. Inside the Greek mind: the classical Greek outlook
  6.     c. The humanist and rational revolution
  7.     d. Athenian politics and law: democracy and demagoguery
  8.     e. Greek society: citizens, slaves, and women
  9.     f. Greek philosophy: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle
  10.     g. Natural philosophy and science
  11.     h. Greek athletics
  12.     i. Greek culture: art, literature, poetry, theater, and architecture
  13. 3. Hellenistic world, 1st–4th centuries B.C.E.
  14.     a. Philip II and the rise of Macedonia
  15.     b. Alexander the Great: psychology, career, and impact
  16.     c. West meets East: multiculturalism and the Hellenistic fusion
  17.     d. Hellenistic philosophy and religion
  18.     e. Social, economic, and cultural change in a cosmopolitan age
  19.     f. The "first scientific revolution" and technological innovation
  20. 4. Republican and Imperial Rome, 5th century B.C.E.–3rd century C.E.
  21.     a. The Republic
  22.         i. Cross-cultural influences on Latium: Magna Graecia and the Etruscans
  23.         ii. Law, politics, and the Senate in the Roman Republic
  24.         iii. Roman slavery and the Spartacist uprising
  25.         iv. Plebeians, patricians, and "bread and circuses": social and economic
  26.             change during the Roman Republic
  27.         v. Patria potestas: women in ancient Rome
  28.         vi. Rome, Carthage, and the Punic Wars
  29.         vii. Fall of the Republic
  30.     b. Imperial Rome
  31.         i. The Augustan Age and the psychology of empire
  32.         ii. Forging Rome's "empire without borders"
  33.         iii. Mare Nostrum: Rome's Mediterranean-wide melting pot
  34.         iv. Intellectual, literary, cultural, and scientific achievements of the
  35.             Pax Romana
  36.         v. Rome's engineering miracle
  37.         vi. Class consciousness, amphitheater culture, and the politics of social
  38.             control
  39.         vii. Civis romanus sum: Roman civil and natural law
  40. 5. Late Imperial era and the collapse of Roman civilization, 3rd–5th centuries C.E.
  41.     a. Fall of Rome: internal factors
  42.         i. Dominus: political collapse and the late imperial state
  43.         ii. Economic and military decline
  44.         iii. Medical factors: plagues and pandemics
  45.         iv. Late Roman society
  46.         v. The Tetrarchy and administrative reform
  47.         vi. Age of anxiety: intellectual, psychological, and philosophical malaise
  48.     b. Fall of Rome: external factors (global population movements and
  49.        Germano-Persian invasions)
  50.     c. Rome's enduring legacy
  51. 6. Origins and early history of Christianity, 1st–4th centuries C.E.
  52.     a. Historical sources for the Christian tradition
  53.     b. Origins
  54.         i. Judaic roots
  55.         ii. Role of Jesus of Nazareth
  56.     c. Early Christian belief and the pagan and Hellenistic synthesis
  57.     d. Populism, class, and mass appeal
  58.     e. Women and early Christianity
  59.     f. Christianity and the Roman state
  60.     g. Persecution and survival
  61.     h. Constantine, Theodosius, and the Council of Nicaea
  62. 7. Early medieval era (Dark Ages), 500–1000 C.E.
  63.     a. Western Europe in the Early Middle Ages
  64.         i. Collapse of Roman civilization and the emergence of the
  65.            Roman Catholic Church
  66.         ii. The mental universe of the "Dark Ages"
  67.         iii. Germanic traditions and culture
  68.         iv. Climatic and environmental change
  69.         v. Feudalism, manorialism, and the early medieval economy
  70.         vi. Early medieval society
  71.     b. The Byzantine Empire
  72.         i. Constantinople: "emporium of the world"
  73.         ii. Emergence of the Eastern Orthodox Church
  74.         iii. Justinian I and church-state relations in the 6th century
  75.         iv. Byzantine intellectual and cultural achievements
  76.         v. Hagia Sophia, the Hippodrome, and Byzantine engineering
  77.         vi. Pandemic: the "Plague of Justinian"
  78.         vii. Byzantine society
  79.         viii. Corpus Juris Civilis: Justinian's Code and the legacy of Byzantine law
  80.     c. The golden age of Islamic civilization
  81.         i. Muhammad, the Koran, and the origins of Islam
  82.         ii. Women in Islamic society
  83.         iii. Commercial and cultural interactions with Europe and Asia
  84.         iv. Medieval Arab slave trade
  85.         v. Islamic scholarship, architecture, and art
  86.         vi. Islamic civilization's scientific, mathematical, and technological
  87.             revolution
  88.         vii. Medical advances: Avicenna, Rhazes, and Albucasis
  89. 8. High and Late Middle Ages in Western Europe, 1000–1500 C.E.
  90.     a. Europe's "great leap forward"
  91.         i. The agricultural revolution
  92.         ii. Magna Carta and the emergence of Parliament and common law
  93.         iii. Twelfth-century Renaissance
  94.         iv. Emergence of the university
  95.         v. Romanesque and Gothic architecture
  96.         vi. Chivalry and women in medieval society
  97.         vii. Medieval art and illumination
  98.         viii. Medieval technology
  99.     b. The "age of faith and superstition"
  100.         i. The medieval frame of mind
  101.         ii. The "Great Chain of Being" and the feudal caste system
  102.         iii. Divine right, absolutism, and hereditary monarchy
  103.         iv. Catholicism and the papacy at their apogee
  104.         v. Monasticism, the Inquisition, and antisemitism
  105.         vi. Medieval thought: Aquinas and scholasticism
  106.         vii. Crime and punishment in the High Middle Ages
  107.         viii. Christendom and Islam: cultural exchanges and the Crusades
  108.         ix. Urbanization and its problems
  109.     c. The "calamitous fourteenth century"
  110.         i. Hundred Years' War (1337–1453)
  111.         ii. Environmental change: the "Little Ice Age"
  112.         iii. Medieval Armageddon: the Black Death pandemic
  113. 9. Italian Renaissance and Northern Renaissance, 15th–16th centuries
  114.     a. Alberti, Pico della Mirandola, and the humanist and secular revolution
  115.     b. The decline of feudalism and the rise of individualism and capitalism
  116.     c. Classicism and the Greco-Roman revival
  117.     d. Ad fontes: Neoplatonism, humanitas, and Renaissance scholarship
  118.     e. Castiglione and the "Renaissance man"
  119.     f. Women and Renaissance society
  120.     g. Civic humanism and the invention of history
  121.     h. Why Italy?
  122.     i. Machiavelli and the birth of modern politics
  123.     j. Revolution in art: from Giotto to Michelangelo
  124.     k. Northern Renaissance: from Christian humanism to Van Eyck
  125.     l. Revolution of the mind: Descartes, More, and Bacon
  126.     m. Renaissance literature: from Petrarch to Shakespeare
  127.     n. The 16th-century "Scientific Revolution"
  128. 10. Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation, 1517–1648
  129.     a. Origins: the medieval Catholic Church in crisis and the Renaissance papacy
  130.     b. The challenge within: Wyclif, Erasmus, and Valla
  131.     c. Luther's "priesthood of all believers" and the rise of Protestantism
  132.     d. The English Reformation, Anglicanism, and Puritanism
  133.     e. The print revolution and the rise of literacy
  134.     f. Gender and class in Reformation society
  135.     g. The Catholic Counter-Reformation
  136.     h. Church and state in the Age of Reformation
  137.     i. Age of religious war, 1517–1648
  138.     j. Baroque art and culture
  139.     k. Legacy of the Reformation era
  140. 11. Age of global exploration, 15th–17th centuries
  141.     a. Motivations: intellectual, religious, economic, and political
  142.     b. The psychology of imperialism and colonialism
  143.     c. Means: cartographic, nautical, and navigational breakthroughs and the
  144.        gunpowder revolution
  145.     d. Impact: discovery and exploitation
  146.         i. Portuguese empire in Africa and India
  147.         ii. Search for a "westward passage": voyages of Christopher Columbus
  148.         iii. "New Spain": Cortés and the Aztecs, Pizarro and the Inca
  149.         iv. The Dutch and French in the "New World"
  150.         v. Britannia rules the waves: British global empire
  151.         vi. Mercantilism, repression, and the trans-Atlantic slave trade
  152.         vii. The "Columbian Exchange"
  153.         viii. Smallpox: global scourge
  154.     e. Globalization and the legacy of imperialism
  155. 12. Foundations of the modern state, 17th century
  156.     a. Absolutism and state-building in Bourbon France, Habsburg Austria,
  157.        Hohenzollern Prussia, and Romanov Russia
  158.     b. Constitutionalism and representative government: the English Revolution
  159.        and Civil War and the Dutch Republic