History
FORM III THE WEST AND THE WORLD: WORLD HISTORY II
The Form III curriculum starts with a review of the Middle Ages in Western Europe. Students study the history of Western Europe from the Renaissance to the mid twentieth century. Contacts and relations between east and west are explored. Students focus on themes of cultural development, economic change, and political, religious, and social revolution. The course uses many primary sources and audio-visual aids for enrichment.
FORMS IV OR V SURVEY OF UNITED STATES HISTORY
This course introduces the major themes, movements, ideas, personalities, and events that make up the history of this diverse nation from the colonial period to the New Deal. The course coordinates its curriculum with the Form IV American literature course at appropriate junctures. Course materials include fiction, poetry, and essays by American writers as well as primary and secondary sources, monographs, maps and audio-visual aids.
THE ELECTIVE PROGRAM FOR FORMS V AND VI
AFRICAN-AMERICAN HISTORY FROM THE COLONIAL PERIOD TO THE PRESENT
This course will begin by exploring the early experiences of African-Americans in both enslaved and free black communities. We will also take a close look at the post-Emancipation period, while centering much of our study around the ways in which many African-Americans have wrestled with what W.E.B. Dubois called, “double-consciousness,” or the internal (and external) conflicts that many blacks have experienced while seeking an American identity. With an emphasis on primary source analysis, we will also consider the following topics: the rise of Jim Crow, the Harlem Renaissance, the Civil Rights movement, as well as how race, sex, and class have intersected to shape African-American identities.
INVENTING GOTHAM: NEW YORK CITY AND THE AMERICAN DREAM
This course explores New York City’s cultural history, grounded in an understanding of New York’s architecture, literature and politics. Stretching from the arrival of Dutch settlers to the present, the course focuses on how New York City grew out of political and social conflict and how New Yorkers pursued and defined the American Dream. Topics include: immigration and the tenement, bohemianism and modern art, consumerism and the department store, ethnicity and the segregated city, corporate capital and the skyscraper. The course concludes with an examination of the contemporary city, exploring urban poverty, race, de-industrialization and the rise of gentrification. The course work centers on six walking tours created and led by the students. Skills work also includes Internet research and using archives.
HISTORY 155 AMERICAN WOMEN’S HISTORY FROM COLONIAL TIMES TO THE PRESENT
This course will explore women’s roles in the colonial period, and discuss how important events such as the American Revolution may have impacted women socially, politically, and economically. We will discuss the ways in which women from competing socio-economic classes differed during the Victorian era, while as well focusing on the objectives and achievements of reformers concerned with ending slavery, obtaining women’s rights, and promoting temperance. Similarly, we will talk about their contributions during the great World Wars, the Civil Rights Movement, and in the current age of globalization. We will consider the important leadership roles of vanguards such as Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Sojourner Truth, while surveying the experiences of the oftentimes lesser-knowns.
THE UNITED STATES SINCE 1940
This course builds upon the foundations of the United States Survey. Students analyze the development of both domestic and foreign policy from Roosevelt through the Reagan Administration. Topics include an introduction to the atomic era; new global perspectives in U.S. foreign policy; origins and development of the Cold War and U.S. emergence as a superpower; McCarthyism; the Civil Rights Movement; the changing role of women; popular culture; the impact of the Vietnam War; Watergate; the conservative shift in politics; and the Reagan Revolution.
THE CIVIL WAR: STUDY IN CONFLICT
The Civil War has been called "the crossroads of our being" by historian and novelist Shelby Foote. This course will focus on that crossroads, exploring its approach, the conflict itself, and its legacy. Military history and the biographies of people like Abraham Lincoln will be part of it, but sources for the course will be highly interdisciplinary.
THE US ECONOMIC SYSTEM AND THE GLOBAL ECONOMY
This is a comprehensive introductory course to the American and global economic systems. Students explore how the American economy works and the central role the American economy plays in the emerging global economy. Some of the major topics covered will be: the structure of the American economy; government involvement in the American and global economies; world markets for goods, services and labor; how the American and international monetary systems work; capital movements and the global banking system. Possible field trips include visits to the NY Stock Exchange, the Federal Reserve Building and the trading rooms of major financial institutions.
AFRICAN STUDIES
Beginning with Chinua Achebe's novel, Things Fall Apart, the course examines Africa's geography, human origins, demographic expansion and migrations, and cultural developments. Next the course analyzes the historical influences of Islam, European imperialism and colonialism, and the African movements for independence. The final segment of the course focuses on the interrelated issues of ethnic conflict, economic development, political instability, and attempts to establish democracy, equality and human rights in the 1990's.
ART HISTORY THROUGH THE RENAISSANCE
During the first semester, students explore the sculpture, painting, architecture and decorative arts of many of the world's cultures through the sixteenth century. Emphasis is, however, placed on the art of western civilizations. Students take trips to museums in the New York area and may enroll in either or both semesters of this course.
ART HISTORY SINCE THE RENAISSANCE
The second semester course explores the sculpture, painting, architecture, and decorative arts of these civilizations from the sixteenth century to the present. The connections between art and society are stressed in an effort to understand the relationship of art to its times and to various social values.
HISTORY OF CHINA, 1800 TO THE PRESENT: THE SEARCH FOR MODERNIZATION
The background, from the late 18th century to the Revolution of 1911, includes the growing crisis of the last dynasty manifested in the Opium War, the Taiping Rebellion, and the Boxer Rebellion. Students analyze the failure of democracy, the emerging and increasingly violent rivalry of the Nationalists and the Communists, and the triumph of the latter in 1949. The course treats the years of Communist power by focusing on the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, the "Market Leninism" of Deng Xiao Ping, and ends with the present day crises in Tibet and Mongolia.
COMPARATIVE GOVERNMENT
This course focuses on four countries as a means to compare and contrast different political and economic regimes, and to analyze the range of challenges posed to specific countries: Germany, China, Asrgentina, and Israel.
HISTORY OF JAPAN, 1800 TO THE PRESENT
This course begins with Japan's belief system of Shinto, Buddhism, Confuciusism, then goes on to examine the formation of a central state (influenced by the Chinese model), the gradual breakdown of central power and growth of feudalism, and then the return to a more unified state with the Tokugawa. The second half of the course explores the Meiji 19th-century fusion of Japanese and Western values and institutions, and then analyzes the tensions of Taisho democracy and the explosive ultra-nationalism of the 1930s. The final segment focuses on the dramatic trends in post-war Japan.
THE MIDDLE EAST
This course gives students a familiarity with the geography and political relationships of the contemporary Middle East. Beginning with a brief exploration of the moment's most pressing conflict, the course includes a short survey of both the rise of Islam and Western Imperialism. Twentieth century issues begin with the politics of oil, the Arab Revolt, the Mandate System, and the establishment of the State of Israel.
MODERN LATIN AMERICA
This course examines the major trends in Latin America since 1945. After a brief overview of the colonial period and nineteenth century in Latin America, the course takes up the twentieth century issues of economic development, nationalism, the search for political stability, the role of the military in politics, and the revolutionary response to social and economic injustice. The course also focuses on the social dynamics of indigenous communities, peasants, workers and elite sectors. Contemporary topics include the status and contributions of women, the environmental debate, the conflict over cocaine and narcotics trafficking, Cuban communism, neoliberal economic solutions, and current U.S. Latin American relations.
NATIVE AMERICAN STUDIES
This interdisciplinary course explores major issues in the history and culture of the indigenous people who live within the geographical boundaries of what is now the United States. The emphasis is on learning the story of the first people of this land from their own words. Although students will be introduced to the culture of many Indian nations, the center of the course is an examination of the history and ceremonies of the Lakota nation and of what its people call “woucanage” - “our way of being.”
RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION
The history of Russia from the time of Peter the Great to the present is studied through Russian geography, politics, economics, and culture. Students research the westernization of Russia, the emancipation of the serfs, periods of transition, reaction and reform, and the Russian revolutions of 1825, 1917, 1989, and 1991.
EUROPEAN INTELLECTUAL HISTORY: THE IDEA OF REFORM, 1500 – 1930
In this course we will examine European history in the writings of some of its most influential figures. Figures, whose ideas and thinking we will explore include, but are not limited to: Renaissance and Reformation leaders Machiavelli, More and Luther; enlightenment thinkers Montesquieu and Voltaire; nineteenth and twentieth century ideologues from Marx to Stalin and Hitler.
ADVANCED TOPICS IN CURRENT EVENTS
The Berlin Wall fell one short year after the intifadeh in the Middle East began. Gorbachev’s image on television and the promise that glasnost offered was mirrored five years later by the masked subcommandate Marcos of the Zapatista movement in Chiapas, Mexico. As the bipolar world of the Cold War fell so, too, did the international policy paradigm that the world followed for nearly 50 years. Advanced Topics in Current Events will examine a series of issues in a comparative context in order to shed light on the current state of international relations.
GLOBAL CITIES
Why do people congregate in cities, which can be crowded, dirty, and dangerous? A medieval German proverb suggests an answer: city air makes men free. Three-dimensional artifacts, cities are formed by geography, politics, economic structures, demographics, religion, and (sometimes) aesthetics and planning. Focusing on cities outside of North America, this interdisciplinary course will help students to understand the relationship of urban spatial organization and the built environment to the cultures and time periods that have created them. At the beginning of the semester, students will be organized into teams for intensive research on a contemporary “global city.”
VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE IN AMERICAN HISTORY
This course will look at the intersection of sacred and secular cultures in the United States through a series of religious lenses. Our focus will be four case studies: the Puritans in early New England; Judaism and the literature of immigration; Catholicism and popular culture; and the Civil Rights movement as a spiritual encounter.
HISTORY OF THE WORKING CLASS
The English Chartists, the Spanish Anarcho-syndicalists, and the American Wobblies were movements that battled material impoverishment as well as the “poverty of the soul.” Whatever happened to these radical voices of labor? This course will explore the place and the meaning of work and class in world history and will explore some basic questions: What place does work hold in society? What does the nature of work reveal about the structure and values of a society? How has the condition of labor changed over the centuries? How has labor and the working class been represented in literature, music and the visual arts? What role did the working class play in the shaping of Fieldston?
HISTORY OF INDIA
Through the aid of art history and literature, the opening unit will survey India’s rich religious legacy, especially the dynamic interplay between Hinduism and Buddhism. It will also examine the emergence of the caste system. The second unit will spotlight the impact of Islam on India, whose Moslem population today is the second largest in the world. Thirdly, the course will turn to the British Raj during which time India became the jewel in the British imperial crown. The final focus, including special attention on Gandhi and Nehru, will be on India’s dramatic emergence as an independent and democratic nation.
NAZI GERMANY AND THE HOLOCAUST
“How could the Holocaust have happened?” Historians have debated this question since the end of World War II. This course will offer both a broad overview and a detailed examination of the political, economic, and social forces at work behind one of largest acts of genocide in world history. The course will be
divided into two main parts: (1) the historical background of the Holocaust, including an examination of Nazi policy toward the Jews until 1939; and (2) the destruction of European Jewry between 1939 and 1945.
THE RISE OF THE RIGHT IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN POLITICS
This course examines the expansion and reshaping of the broad American right since the 1960s. The aim of this course is to evaluate and explain the national political success of the right, measured by both Republican victories in presidential elections after 1964 and more recent shifts rightward in Congress. The course will use a wide range of materials to address three major questions. Has the growth of the right resulted in a durable national political realignment, or has it been more limited? How is the contemporary American right organized? How are Republican political successes linked to the political themes of the right? As we explore the answers to these questions, we will examine topics that include the decline of racial liberalism, the tax revolt of the 1970s, the rise of Christian fundamentalism, the Reagan Revolution, and the “culture wars” that have dominated American political discourse since the 1960s.
EAST MEETS WEST:VIEWING THE OTHER IN ART, HISTORY AND LITERATURE
Is there a “clash of civilizations?” What is the legacy of 19th century colonization and 20th century globalization? Can we bridge the political and cultural distance between West and East? This team-taught interdisciplinary course will engage students in a study of how the West has perceived the East and the East has perceived the West, encouraging a deeper understanding of politics, religion and culture, in the hopes of shedding light on current conflicts. We will examine images from Western, Middle Eastern, Asian and North African cultures of “the other” in art, news media, film and literature and trace their historical origins. Among the central themes are: the role of women in the two cultures; representations of American culture; and how perceptions of “the other” have influenced politics and religious conflict, specifically how imperial designs have shaped European and American attitudes toward the East.
EUROPE SINCE 1945
Devasted by World War II, Europe has now regained its former pre-eminence in world affairs and culture. Or has it? This course will first explore the legacy of World War II as reflected in the Nuremberg Trials, the efforts to learn from the errors of post World War I to renew the pursuit of collective security and balance of power politics, and to rehabilitate the vanquished rather than seek economic vengeance. Next we will look at the continued political and economic revival and evolution in the context of the Cold War. Specifically we will look at the economic “miracles” of Italy and Germany, the welfare experiments of England and Sweden, and the de-colonization measures resisted and/or taken in India, Ghana and Vietnam. We will examine Europe’s efforts to form a common market, a common currency, and a common constitution. The end of the Cold War and the emerging independent states from that end will be studied. The failure of Europe to take quick action or any action will be looked at in the cases of Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur. The life of Europe’s immigrants will also be looked at in England, France and Germany.
THE BIRTH OF MODERN EUROPE: FROM THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA (1815) TO THE TREATY OF VERSAILLE (1919)
Having defeated Napoleon, the old order of European states was unable to restrain the other forces of the age unleashed by German philosophy, English poetry, the French Revolution and industrial capital. “It was the best of times” in that democratic reforms and revolutions ushered in constitutional governments, slavery was abolished, serfs were emancipated, and workers became citizens. It was an age of liberalism, modernity, and progress. “It was the worst of times” where individuals felt disoriented, demoralized and alienated, ethnic nationalism became chauvinism, the laboring classes often toiled in unrelieved squalor, and market forces drove imperial ambitions, which destabilized traditional cultures. We will try to understand how an age fueled by ideas of freedom, toleration and individual rights sometimes gave way to extremes, paving the way for the centralized states and totalitarian regimes of the early 20th century.
IMAGES OF WAR: FROM THE HOMERIC AGE TO THE AGE OF TERROISM
Crossing disciplines and traveling from the ancient world to the current era, this course will focus on the place of war in human societies by focusing on statecraft, the military, the experience of combat, and the impact on civilians. The origins of war, the conduct of war, and ways of preventing war will be explored through classic and current works of history, sociology, literature and the visual and performing arts.
A LIFE IN TIME: BIOGRAPHY AS HISTORY
People or process: It’s one of the great debates among historians. Some claim that heroic individuals change the course of history; others assert that the times make the man (and woman). In this course we will explore the interplay of personality and events by examining the life and times of a handful of historical figures from the ancient world to today. We will study an array of sources about each of these subjects, including biography, autobiography, and contextual documents (among them music, movies, and painting) in the hope of gaining better understanding of continuity and change in the human experience.
BANKING ON POVERTY: THE ECONOMICS OF THE DEVELOPING WORLD
Adam Smith maintained that the capitalist system brings prosperity to all. He was right: in an ideal world it certainly can. Investing in developing economies can be profitable for all concerned. However, do developing economies always benefit from such investment? This course presents an overview of development economics from the perspectives of both the developing and developed world. The course looks at trade liberalization, globalization and investment in the context of developing economies and the economic issues thrown up by them. The course will explore the resulting interrelationship between developing and the developed economies. We will look at the history of development economics, beginning with the establishment of the World bank and International Monetary Fund, and address issues such as the role of the state and the free market, globalization and regional trading blocks, foreign direct investment and the problems of multinationals, growth, poverty and sustainable development.
HYBRID CIVICS: THE STORY OF AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP
E pluribus unum: Out of many, one. That's what it says on our currency -- the coin of our realm. Here at Fieldston, we hear a lot about the many: Diversity is one of our most cherished values. But what is it that holds us together? What do we share? What stake do we the people have in the framework of our founders? This course will explore the dimensions of American citizenship: what it means, what it doesn't, and how the concept has changed over time. Topics to be studied will include the Constitution, classic works of political theory like Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, and the lives and works of figures ranging from Phyllis Wheatley to Barack Obama. We will also compare U.S. government and society to that of other cultures that range from Ancient Rome to contemporary China, as well as engage in participatory democracy beyond the confines of Fieldston through activism and advocacy.
SEEKING THE HIGHEST: THE HISTORY OF FIELDSTON
We all hear a good deal about Fieldston’s mission, about Ethical Culture and progressive education; but what exactly is Fieldston’s mission? Where did it come from and where is it going? Did it always connote what we think it does today? And do we really walk the walk? This course would comprise an in-depth examination of the history of the Ethical Culture Fieldston School, from its founding as the Workingman's School in 1878 to the present day. We will explore topics such as: the roots of Felix Adler's philosophy and his role as one the leading social reformers in New York; the 1928 “Fieldston Plan,” combining architecture and nature in Fieldston’s design; Fieldston's place as one of the pioneer progressive schools in the city and as a participant in the legendary Eight-Year Study in the 1930's; the student take-over of 1970 within the context of broader social movements; and the current establishment of a free standing middle school.
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