The West & the World to 1500

4.0 credits

While exploring the history of Europe and its neighbors from the ancient to the medieval period, this course focuses on how people borrowed from, adapted, and reconciled various ideas to suit their own needs to form, over time, a coherent set of cultural values. To this end, we will consider several themes throughout the semester, including changing models of political organization, ideas of individual rights and responsibilities, attitudes towards women and outsiders, and understandings of nature and of divine power.