HIST316

041368

From the time of our stone-age ancestors violence has been an integral feature of human societies. Variously expressed as the organized violence of state-directed warfare, the smaller-scale conflicts of tribes and clans, or the actions of lone individuals, violence is a depressingly-common feature of the human experience. This course analyzes the impact and function of violence from the late-Neolithic onwards, culminating with the more-complex state structures, legal systems, and military bureaucracies that have emerged in the modern age. Topics of particular focus will include how technology relates to and facilitates violence; the impact of warfare on civilian populations; the effect of violence on individuals; legal efforts to frame and define \"legitimate\" violence; and the mythologizing of violent acts (and actors) in historical memory. Students will gai a broad understanding of warfare and violence as expressed in a variety of Western and non-Western contexts including Europe, Africa, the Near East and the Americas. By taking this course students will develop a greater understanding of the concept of violence as a historical phenomenon, and be better prepared to analyze the place and function of modern/contemporary expressions of violence, both between and within human societies.

GRD - Regular Grades A, B, C, D, E

Undergraduate

GE - T2-HUM (Tier 2 Humanities), GEED - EPHUM (Gen Ed: EP Humanist), WE - WEC (Writing Emphasis Course)