HST 205 - Clash of Civilizations?

Course Units: 1.0

(TBD: Staff) Are we living through a clash of civilizations? East vs West? Christianity vs Islam? Or is this too simple-minded a way to think about human history? Indeed it is. Simple-minded ideas like the clash of civilizations are not only bad history they betray the need for human understanding in our complex world. This course explores something fundamental to the human experience: the encounters, interactions, and exchanges (for good or bad) of diverse peoples and societies across time and space. We will explore four historic meeting places: Marseille and the south of France in the Classical Greco-Roman Mediterranean; the crossroads of faiths and empires that was early-modern Jerusalem; the Native American and European middle ground of the Great Lakes and the world of the Voyageurs; the hip, historic, and dynamic scene that is modern multicultural Berlin. This is a thematic course in comparative global history; it also teaches research skills and includes the opportunity for you to develop your own guided research on modern Berlin. CC: LCC, SOCS