Expanded Course Descriptions

The Department of History scheduled these undergraduate courses for FALL QUARTER 2025. This list and descriptions are subject to change, so please check back often.

Registration appointment times available on Schedule Builder and myucdavis.

 

 
  • Lower Division

  • HIS 2Y: Introduction to the History of Science & Technology (World) - Professor Stolzenberg (cross-listed with STS 2Y)
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Discussion—1 hour(s). Introduction to topics and methods of the history of science and technology. Emphasis on understanding the role of science and technology in the modern world through a long-term historical perspective. (Same course as STS 002.) GE credit: AH, SL, SS, WC, WE. Effective: 2017 Fall Quarter.
    Description: This class explores the history of the investigation of nature and its technological manipulation, focusing on three case studies: (1) Alchemy and Chemistry from Antiquity to the Enlightenment (2) Evolution and Energy in the Age of Empire (3) Science, Technology, and the Cold War. Course material is non-technical and accessible to students from all majors. Required text: Course Reader. This course fulfills the GE for Scientific Literacy (SL) as well as AH, SS, WC, and WE.

    HIS 7A: History of Latin America to 1700 (Latin America) - Professor Reséndez
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Discussion—1 hour(s). Introduction to the history of Spanish and Portuguese America from the late pre-Columbian period through the initial phase and consolidation of a colonial regime (circa 1700). Topics include conquest, colonialism, racial mixture, gender, and labor systems. GE credit: AH, SS, WC, WE. Effective: 2004 Fall Quarter.
    Description: This is an introduction to the history of Spanish and Portuguese America from the late pre-Columbian period through the initial phase and consolidation of a colonial regime (circa 1700). The lectures, readings, and discussion sections offer a broad overview of the indigenous roots and realities of the hemisphere, the Spanish and Portuguese conquests of this region, and the emergence of colonial regimes in the 16th and 17th centuries. It will explore the contrasting experiences of Native Americans, Africans, and Europeans and their mixed descendants in an evolving colonial world. Key topics will include the disruptions and continuities of the major indigenous civilizations of the continent, colonialism, racial mixture and race relations, gender, labor systems, identity, religion, and environmental transformation. This is the beginning of a three-course sequence devoted to the history of Latin America. Each course can be taken independently. Grading:
    1) Midterm Exam (20%)
    2) Final Exam (20%)
    3) Participation (class and section) (20%)
    4) Two In-class essays (40%)

    HIS 9C: Korean Culture & Society: From Ancient Three Kingdoms to the Global K-Pop (Asia) - Professor Kim
    Lecture/Discussion—4 hour(s). Evolution of Korean society from Three Kingdoms period (B.C.E 57 to C.E. 676) to the contemporary era emphasizing the perseverance and transformations of traditional social and cultural patterns. (Same course as EAS 88.) 
    Description: History 9C is an introduction to Korean culture and history from the era marked by the first signs of human habitation in the Korean peninsula to the early decades of 21st century. Following the conclusion of the Second World War/Pacific War, South Korea has risen up from the devastations wreaked by that war as well as the extremely destructive and divisive Korean War to become not only an economic powerhouse but also a global exporter of influential popular culture. Meanwhile, North Korea has retained its notoriety as a “rogue state,” virtually the only nation still operating under the Cold War mindset in the world today. Given the critical importance of both Koreas to the security, welfare and progress of the world as we know today, it is important more than ever for an American (or any other country’s) citizen to understand basics of the culture and history of Korea.  

    The topics covered in this course include, among others, formation and development of the distinctive Korean identity in the context of the peninsula’s interactions with other nations and civilizations (including China, Japan and the US), evolution of political systems and worldviews (including but not limited to adaptations and transformations of Buddhism, Confucianism, Christianity, Communism and democracy), encounters with imperialism, compressed modernization and Cold War dynamics, and global success of the South Korean popular culture once derided and denigrated by the elite classes (cinema, K-pop and so on). Hopefully, the participants will be stimulated to learn about both Koreas reaching beyond the shallow caricatures often thrown about in the internet or even mainstream news media. All readings are in English language, and so are class discussions.   This course meets GE & Foreign Culture requirements.

    HIS 10B: World History, 1350-1850 (World)
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Discussion—1 hour(s). Major topics in world history from the 14th century to the beginning of the 19th century. Topics will vary but may include: oceans as systems of human communication and conflict; the global consequences of "industrious revolutions" in Europe and Asia, etc.

    HIS 17A: History of the United States 
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Discussion—1 hour(s). The experience of the American people from the Colonial Era to the Civil War.

    HIS 17B: History of the United States 
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Discussion—1 hour(s). The experience of the American people from the Civil War to the end of the Cold War.

    HIS 18B: Race in the United States Since 1865 (US) - Professor Parker
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Discussion—1 hour(s). Introduction to the history of race and racial formation in America since 1865 through a comparative approach that examines the experiences of African Americans, Asian Americans, Native American and Mexican Americans and other Latino/a groups.
    Description: This course explores the history of race, racial formation, and race relations in the United States from the end of the Civil War to the present. Employing a mix of lectures, primary and secondary source readings, and class discussions, we will examine the experiences of African Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, Mexican Americans, and other Latino/a groups. The course will consider the social, economic, political, and cultural dimensions of race and racism and cover key historical events, legislative milestones, and social movements that have shaped racial experiences in America. Key topics include Reconstruction and Jim Crow, the Civil Rights Movement, race in modern America (such as mass incarceration, immigration, and the Black Lives Matter movement), the influence of race on American culture, and significant legal cases and policies affecting racial equality, such as affirmative action, voting rights, education, and housing discrimination.

    HIS 072A: Women & Gender in America, to 1865 (US) - Professor Hartigan-O'Connor
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Discussion—1 hour(s). History of women and gender in America through 1865, emphasizing intersections of gender, race, class, and sexuality. Topics include interracial marriage, slavery, witchcraft, meanings of motherhood, war, domestic labor, moral reform, women’s rights, migrations, the effects of commercialization and industrialization.
    Description: This course is an introduction to the history of early American women—as a group, as individuals, and as members of different classes, races, and ethnic communities. Using the themes of production and reproduction (work and sex), we will explore both the daily lives of women and the changing concepts of “woman” and “womanhood” over time and region. Through primary sources, films, and scholarly literature, we will meet Indigenous traders, accused witches, “true women,” enslaved mothers, and western missionaries. The course will pay particular attention to the interactions between groups of women and the significance of gender in determining the experiences of people across North America, using comparisons among groups, individuals, regions, and across time wherever possible.

    HIS 80: History of the United States in the Middle East (US) - Professor Tezcan
    Lecture—2 hour(s). History of the United States in the Middle East from 1900 to the present. Examination of U.S. foreign relations toward the Middle East, their regional ramifications and domestic repercussions. GE credit: ACGH, AH, SS, WC. Effective: 2018 Spring Quarter.
    Description: After September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush delivered an address to the American people asking, “Why do they hate us?” The question – and his answer – resonated with a popular “Clash of Civilizations” thesis which argues that conflict between Islam and the West is inevitable for the long-term.

    Aiming for a deeper understanding of the stories that fill the headlines, this course interrogates that proposition by looking at the long history of United States involvement in the Middle East, from the Barbary pirates to recent beheadings, from missionaries to missiles, from Cold War concerns to Gaza.
    Grading: Quizzes: 20%; mid-term: 40%; final: 40%; Quizzes will be online during class time, based on the lecture on the day of the quiz.
    Textbook:
    - Rashid Khalidi, Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America's Perilous Path in the Middle East (Boston: Beacon Press, 2005). 
    - Digital copies of additional reading assignments will be available on Canvas.
     

  • Undergraduate Seminars
  • HIS 102L: United States, 1787-1896
    Seminar 3 hour(s), Term Paper. Designed primarily for history majors. Intensive reading, discussion, research, and writing in selected topics in the various fields of history.
  • Upper Division

  • HIS 109: Environmental Change, Disease & Public Health (World) - Professor Davis
    Lecture/Discussion—3 hour(s); Project (Term Project). Analysis of environmental changes from pre-history to the present and their influence on disease distribution, virulence and public health. Focus on critical study of many human-driven environmental changes and the accelerated transformation/spread of pathogens under globalization. Not open for credit to students who have taken HIS 109B. (Same course as SAS 109.) GE credit: SE, SL, SS, WC. Effective: 2016 Fall Quarter. Fulfills the GE Science & Engineering; Social Science; & Scientific Literacy requirement.
    Description: This course analyzes environmental change at multiple scales and how these changes have influenced public health over time. It takes as a starting point that the “environment” includes not only deserts, mountains, plains and rivers, but also slaughter houses, hospitals and our own and other animal bodies. The changes that have taken places in these varied environments have included the obvious like deforestation and the damming of rivers and the not so obvious like creating antibiotic resistance, and creating the conditions for super contamination of large quantities of food with pathogenic organisms such as E.coli 0157:H7, Listeria, and salmonella. Furthermore, these transformations may be changing our epigenomes with what we eat, drink and breathe in ways that induce illness. All of these changes have had impacts on human health. Many of these environmental changes have been driven by human action over the last several millennia. The pace and scope of such changes have become quicker and more pervasive during our era of “globalization.” It is critical to understand these changes in order to build a more sustainable future for people and the planet.

    HIS 113: History of Modern Palestine/Israel (World) - Professor Tezcan
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Term Paper. Cultural, social, and political histories of Palestine and Israel from the Ottoman Empire to the present. Topics include Zionist and Palestinian national movements; colonialism and the British Mandate; immigration, settlement, and refugees; the development of modern Israeli cultures; questions of statehood and multiculturalism; conflict and regional minority populations.
    Readings:
    Gudrun Krämer, A History of Ottoman Palestine: From the Ottoman Conquest to the Founding of the State of Israel, trans. Graham Harman and Gudrun Krämer (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008 [orig. in German, 2002]). 
    While the textbook will be available on the “Reading List” of Canvas, there will be additional readings digital copies of which will be uploaded to the "Files" on Canvas.

    HIS 146A: Europe in the 20th Century (Europe) - Professor Dickinson
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Term Paper. Survey of the history of Europe from 1919 to 1939.
    Description: This course will cover the history of Europe in the first part of the twentieth century, from the 1890s through to the outbreak of World War II.  Lectures and the course textbook will examine the broad pattern of the evolution of European societies and the European states in these decades, focusing on political, social, and cultural change.  The first few weeks of the course will focus on long-term trends and changes in the decades around 1900.  Our understanding of the problems and potentials of European civilization in this period will then serve as a basis for understanding the violent upheavals of the first decades of the twentieth century, from 1914 to 1939.   Our readings--in addition to the textbook--will be drawn from primary documents written during the period, and from scholarly articles examining particular aspects of European social and cultural history.  The documents will focus on the daily lives of particular Europeans, on key moments of political conflict, and on key ideas that shaped the thinking and expectations of Europeans in this period.  These readings will focus on the ways that individual Europeans' lives "fit into" the broader sweep of history and social development, and on ways in which they experienced and thought about moments of crisis in the development of their societies.  The articles we will read will present close analysis of particular aspects of the broader trends and grander events discussed in lectures and in the textbook. Readings from the course will include a textbook, some scholarly articles by historians, and selections from several autobiographies, from several novels and short stories, from a number of scholarly monographs, and from a number of works of political and social philosophy.

    HIS 157: Latin American Environmental History (Latin America) - Professor Perez Melendez
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Project. Introduction to the geography, political ecology, environmental movements of Latin America and the Caribbean, regional biomes, commodity markets, and the relationships between non-human ecosystems and Latin American societies. Development of extractive processes, land law, agricultural practices, scientific knowledge, and environmental conservation in neotropical forests, Sonoran Desert, the Amazon, Andes and Pampas, among other ecologies.
    Description: This course centers environmental questions, forces, and actors to historicize ideas about harnessing, exploiting, claiming, and preserving different ecologies in Latin America from colonial times to the present. Lectures and discussions survey key questions in environmental history in order to redefine categories of analysis. We will examine animals, plants, and the manufactures they gave rise to as much as business cultures and systems of knowledge that developed around mining, cattle ranching and other forms extractive industries. The course will introduce students to a wide variety of environments in Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, Brazil, Argentina, and the Andes while asking how ideas about “nature,” “property,” “development” and science shaped the relationship between different societies and non-human ecologies. Paying special attention to companies as increasingly problematic but central players in conflicts over the environment, this course will also rely on numerous sources to explore questions of responsibility, solidarity, and justice in environmental debates.

    HIS 166B: History of Mexico since 1849 (Latin America) - Professor Reséndez
    Lecture—3 hour(s). History of Mexico from 1848 to the present.
    Description: This course will be devoted to the political, social, and cultural history of Mexico from independence to the present. Using journalistic accounts, videos, and scholarly works we will probe into the lives of Mexico’s diverse population and show that the country’s seemingly contemporary challenges involving migration, drug wars, insurgency, corruption, political gridlock, and others are in fact deeply rooted in the past.

    HIS 172: American Environmental History (US) - Professor Warren
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Term Paper. American history through connections between people and nature, pre-Columbus to climate change. Native America; conquest; epidemics; extinctions; industrialization; pollution; environmentalism; climate change and global warming; ideas of nature.
    Description: From Native American domestication of corn to colonial epidemics, from the making of the atomic bomb to global climate change, this course reveals a new way of understanding the American past by asking big questions about humans, nature, and the shifting bonds between them. How does American history look different when we consider germs, mosquitoes, pigs, plants, and coal as key actors in stories about people? How did Americans go from fearing wilderness to loving it? How did the pursuit of leisure change the landscapes they appreciated, and with what consequences? (When did hiking become "fun"? And were all those national parks actually unoccupied when they were created?) What are the roots of our current industrial food crisis, and how is it connected to the invention of the refrigerator and the automobile, and hamburgers and fish sticks? When did the environmental justice movement begin? How is environmental justice connected to the environmental movement? How did fears of overpopulation contribute to the development of the birth control pill -- and with what consequences for ideas of sex, gender, and nature? Who invented Earth Day and the EPA? How did decisions about agriculture and urban growth contribute to the frequent droughts we are experiencing today? Who discovered global warming, and what does it have to do with the inundation of New Orleans and parts of New York during recent hurricanes? Why and how have climate change deniers seized the upper hand in public debate—or have they? Join us to learn the answers to these and similar questions as we see American history in a new light. Lectures, discussion, readings, film.

    HIS 174D: Selected Themes in 20th-Century American History (US) - Professor Parker
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Term Paper. Interpretive overview of a single topic in the history of the United States in the 20th century with attention to the phases and processes of historical change.
    Theme:  Modern Love: A History of Marriage in 20th-Century America
    Description: This course explores the evolving institution of marriage in the United States throughout the twentieth century, examining how it has reflected and shaped broader social, political, and cultural transformations. We will analyze marriage as a site of state regulation, social expectation, personal identity, and political struggle. Topics include companionate marriage and domestic ideals, interracial and interfaith unions, same-sex marriage, divorce reform, labor and gender roles within marriage, and the impact of war, migration, and civil rights movements on intimate relationships. Special attention will be given to how race, class, gender, and sexuality have shaped access to marriage and definitions of marital legitimacy. Students will engage with primary sources, legal cases, film, and historical scholarship to understand how Americans have made, remade, and resisted the meanings of marriage.

    HIS 178: Water in the West: Environment & Politics in America's Arid Lands (United States) - Professor Warren
    Lecture 3 hour(s), Extensive Writing. Politics and environmental consequences of water development in the arid western United States since 1848, with emphasis on California and western rivers, including the Colorado, Columbia, Missouri, and Mississippi. Irrigated settlement, the making of state and federal water law and bureaucracy, urban vs. rural competition, Native water rights, growth of irrigation technologies, groundwater overdraft, wildlife impacts.

    HIS 188: America in the 1960s (US) - Professor Olmsted and Professor Rauchway 
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Extensive Writing/Discussion—1 hour(s). Tumult and upheaval in American politics, culture, and society 1961-1969. Civil rights; Vietnam, the draft and the anti-war movement; rock and roll and the counterculture; modern feminism; modern conservatism; student movements; urban unrest and insurrection. GE credit: ACGH, DD, SS, WE. Effective: 2011 Fall Quarter. 
    Description: The 1960s saw the end of postwar liberalism and the beginnings of our own time, with the success of the movement for civil rights and the emergence of modern conservatism. At the start of the decade, the prosperous country's leaders told their citizens there was no limit to American ambition except Americans' own imagination and willpower. To a greater extent than ever before or since, the country focused on the well-being and concerns of young people, urging them to spread American ideals and values around the world and even beyond, into space. But the global appeal of America's culture and unprecedented power of its technology and industry could not stop the nation from getting mired in the Vietnam War. By the end of the decade, Americans increasingly questioned the legitimacy and purpose of their national ideals, facing an uncertain future of environmental degradation and racial conflict.  

    HIS 189: California History (United States) - Professor Tsu
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Term Paper. California history from the pre-colonial period to the present including dispossession of California's Indians, political economy of the Spanish and Mexican periods, Gold Rush effects, industrialization, Hollywood, water politics, World War II, Proposition 13, and the emergence of Silicon Valley. Not open for credit to students who have completed two of HIS 189A, HIS 189B, HIS 189C. GE credit: ACGH, AH, DD, SS, WE. Effective: 2016 Fall Quarter.
    Description: This course provides a comprehensive overview of California history from pre-European contact to the present, structured around the themes of how diverse individuals, groups, empires, and nations have struggled to control and define the geographic space called California, and the myths and realities that have shaped the lives of Californians. Topics include: experiences of California Indians, the political economy of the Spanish and Mexican period, effects of the Gold Rush, industrialization, race relations, immigration, agricultural development, Progressive-era politics and reform, environmental battles, urbanization and suburban sprawl, and the creation of a distinctive regional culture in the country’s most diverse and populous state today.

    HIS 194C: Modern Japan (Asia) - Professor Kim
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Term Paper/Discussion. Survey of the cultural, social, economic, and political aspects of Japanese history in the 20th century emphasizing labor and social movements, militarism and the Pacific war, and the emergence of Japan as a major economic power.
    Description: This course examines history of Japan from the collapse of the early modern Tokugawa order in mid-19th century to the first decades of the twenty-first century. It will encompass deadly political upheavals, revolutionary social changes, magnificent cultural and intellectual achievements, terrible wars ripe with atrocities and sufferings of unimaginable kinds, Japan’s post-war rise as an economic powerhouse and one of the major centers of global popular culture, culminating in the nation’s uncertain future in the new century.  Japan will still remain a significant global player in the foreseeable future, economically, culturally and technologically, and as Professor Carol Gluck has put it, "Not knowing about Japan is not an option."    

    Even though no previous exposure to Japanese history or culture is required to take this course, those who are looking for an introductory level course regarding Japan are recommended to take History 9B instead of this course. This course rigorously focuses on modern history and there will be little room to discuss certain subjects, such as “samurai,” for instance. This course meets GE, Writing and Foreign Culture requirements.

    HIS 196B: Modern India (Asia) - Professor Sen
    Lecture—3 hour(s); Discussion—1 hour(s). Survey of cultural, social, economic, and political aspects of South Asian history from arrival of the British in the 18th century to formation of new independent states-India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan in the 20th century.
    Description: What was the state of the Indian subcontinent during the decline of the Mughal Empire? How did the East India Company, through trade and military conquest, succeed in expanding the frontiers of the British Empire in India? How did the British Raj emerge after the great uprisings of 1857, and how did it create the conditions for the rise of the Indian National Congress? What were the consequences of the non-violent movement led by Mahatma Gandhi? What were the circumstances of the Partition of 1947, and the creation of the modern nation-states of India and Pakistan? This survey of the cultural, social, economic, and political history of South Asian history charts the history of the region from the early 18th to the mid-20th century.

  • Graduate Seminars

  • HIS 202H: Major Issues in Historical Interpretation: United States – Professor Perez Melendez
    Seminar 3 hour(s), Term Paper. Fundamental issues and debates in the study of history. United States. Readings, papers, and class reports.

    HIS 202I: Major Issues in Historical Interpretation: Latin America - Professor Tsu
    Seminar 3 hour(s), Term Paper. Fundamental issues and debates in the study of history. United States. Readings, papers, and class reports.

    HIS 203A: Research Seminar - Professor Campbell
    Seminar 3 hour(s), Tutorial 1 hour(s). Designed for students preparing for higher degrees in history. Individual research and analysis resulting in substantial research paper of publishable quality. Completion required of all Ph.D. candidates. The three courses must be taken in continuous sequence, ordinarily during second year.

    HIS 204: Historiography - Professor Dickinson
    Seminar 3 hour(s), Term Paper. Major issues in the philosophy and methodology of history.