HIS - 245 Empire Matters: A Comparative History of Empire

3 Credit(s)
What comes to mind when you think of empire? Perhaps it conjures the treachery of the Galactic Empire in Star Wars? Maybe it evokes current critiques of the American Empire or the rise and reach of multinational corporate empires like Walmart, ExxonMobil, Apple, or Microsoft (to name a few)? Or possibly you think about the reach, wealth, and legacies of the Roman or British Empires?

Whatever the thought: empire and the history of empire matter. Though we live in the age of the nation-state, empire has been the standard under which most humans have lived, dreamed, organized, and, sometimes, rebelled. Further, the consequences of empire reverberate to this day in the nation-state (a reaction to empire), globalization (a re-imagining of empire), colonialism (a tool of empire), and anti-colonialism (a response to empire).

This course will broadly examine the history of the world’s “great” empires. In doing so, it will compare and contrast such empires to consider and define the idea and character of empire. It will explore notions of how empires came to be, justified their existence, succeeded, and (often) failed. It will also consider the role of the colonized within empire exploring how empires related to such peoples but also how the colonized themselves experienced, participated in, and resisted empire.

Prerequisite(s):

• C in English 12 or equivalent
    
• C in a first-year HIS, PHI, LIB course

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