Ezra Cornell statue on the quad

HIST 4345 Ancient Empires: From Persia to Rome, 550 BCE to 14 CE

HIST 4345 Ancient Empires: From Persia to Rome, 550 BCE to 14 CE (also CLASS 4645, NES 4345) (HST-AS, SCD-AS) (HPE, HEU) Thursday: 2:00-4:30 plus Independent Research Professor Talia Prussin This seminar explores how ancient empires developed and were administered as well as how the experience of empire in the modern world and the writing of its history in the ancient world are intertwined. Which ancient empires receive scholarly attention? How are those empires’ histories told—and do those histories change when we reflect on lessons from modern colonialism? In this course, we look at the Achaemenids and the Seleucids in Western and Central Asia as well as Carthage in Northern Africa and Western Europe to situate Classical Athens and the Roman empire within the history of ancient empires in the latter half of the first millennium BCE. Major themes will include ethnicity and identity among imperial elites, citizenship as power, and economic institutions as means of territorial control.

Waterfall
Image by PDPhotos from Pixabay

HIST 4243 Public History in Place: Interpreting the Environment

HIST 4243 Public History in Place: Interpreting the Environment (also SHUM 4243) (ALC-AS, HST-AS)  (HNA) Tuesday: 2:00-4:30 plus Independent Research Dr. Amanda Martin This class moves beyond the traditional disciplinary confines of academic history to examine museums, archival collections, parks, monuments, podcasts, op-eds, maps, and more as sites of historical inquiry, memory, and knowledge production. We will think critically about what it means to craft place-based and environmental history narratives for a “public” audience. Throughout the semester, we will also consider the following questions: Who counts as a historian? To whom are historians responsible when they conduct archival research and craft narratives? What makes history in/accessible? Who are the actors in environmental history (humans, or also non-human animals and plants)? This course will also reconsider what it means to write place-based histories by incorporating site visits (including a park, an archive, and a museum) into our coursework.

USA & China flags
Tanya Rozhnovskaya, Getty Images

HIST 4076 History of US-China Relations, 1949-2025

HIST 4076 History of US-China Relations, 1949-2025 (also ASIAN 4076, CAPS 4076) (HST-AS, SSC-AS) (HAN) Tuesday: 2:00-4:30 plus Independent Research Professor Peidong Sun How did the U.S. and China reach this precarious moment? Are they on the brink of a hot war, or can diplomacy still prevent the worst? Is a cold peace even possible? This course critically examines the history of U.S.-China relations from 1949 to 2025, exploring the key diplomatic, economic, military, social, and ideological developments that have shaped bilateral ties. Beginning with early Cold War hostility (1949–1972), the Korean War (1950–1953), and the prolonged diplomatic estrangement (1953–1972), the course traces pivotal moments such as Nixon’s historic rapprochement (1972-1979), the cautious engagement of normalization (1979–1989), China’s economic rise and global integration (1990s–2008), and the evolving tensions of interdependence often described as ‘One Bed, Two Dreams’ (2008–present), shifting security dilemmas, and ongoing trade and technological competition. Special attention will be given to the contemporary landscape of strategic containment, rivalry, and the price of competition and cooperation. Through a multidisciplinary approach, students will analyze primary sources, academic literature, government reports, and firsthand accounts to assess how U.S.-China relations have evolved within a broader global context. Discussions will engage with pressing issues, including military tensions in the Indo-Pacific, economic decoupling, and the future trajectory of the bilateral relationship in an era of geopolitical uncertainty.

Toy solders on a map of Europe
Image by Joachim Schnürle from Pixabay

HIST 3953 Cold War Europe

HIST 3953 Cold War Europe (GLC-AS, HST-AS) (HEU) Tuesday and Thursday: 2:55-4:10 plus Independent Research Professor Cristina Florea This course explores the Cold War as a global conflict that reshaped the twentieth century and is many ways shaped the world we live in today. Beginning with its origins in the aftermath of World War II, we examine competing ideologies, economic systems, and visions of world order. Topics include the division of Europe, decolonization, proxy wars in Asia and Latin America, the nuclear arms race, surveillance cultures, and human rights activism. Through a mix of primary sources, scholarship, and film, we will analyze the Cold War not just as a superpower standoff but as a truly international phenomenon that affected people, politics, and societies worldwide. The course concludes by assessing the Cold War’s end and its enduring global legacies—from 1989 to contemporary geopolitical crises.

Old Books
Image by Michal Jarmoluk from Pixabay

HIST 2812 History of Scientific Images

HIST 2812 History of Scientific Images (also STS 2812) (HST-AS) (HEU) Tuesday and Thursday: 10:10-11:25 Professor Jeremy Schneider Science needs images. Natural history books contain drawings of plants and animals, physics books diagrams of atoms, and medical books depictions of the human body. But what makes these images “scientific”? Why aren’t they just a work of art? In this course students will examine the history of scientific images from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. We will investigate: When did science begin to value the use of images? What purpose were scientific images meant to serve? How have technologies of production changed over time? Students will uncover who the creators of scientific images are and examine how image-making has redirected the course of knowledge. The class is addressed to anyone interested in history, art, culture, and the sciences.

Terrorism, truck on fire
Image by kalhh from Pixabay

HIST 2690 History of Terrorism

HIST 2690 History of Terrorism (ALC-AS, HST-AS) (HEU) Tuesday and Thursday: 11:40-12:55 plus discussion Professor Claudia Verhoeven This lecture course examines approaches to the study of terrorism, especially in the global north. It will cover 1) the history of terrorism as it developed over the course of the modern era (in the process distinguishing terrorism from other forms of modern political violence, e.g. partisan warfare, state terror, etc.) and 2) the ways terrorism has been perceived, presented, and remembered by contemporaries and subsequent generations. Questions, therefore, will include the following: How has terrorism been approached by political theory, history, literature, etc.? How have these approaches constructed terrorism as an object of scientific investigation? How were terrorists perceived and represented by their contemporaries (in the press, literature, the arts)? How did terrorists represent themselves (in political pamphlets, autobiographies, fiction)? Readings will include archival materials, manifestos, memoirs, and novels, as well as classic pieces of political writing (e.g. Lenin, Schmitt, Arendt).

Angela Davis

HIST 2353 Civil Rights vs. Human Rights in the Black Freedom Struggle

HIST 2353 Civil Rights vs. Human Rights in the Black Freedom Struggle (also AMST 2353, ASRC 2353) (HST-AS) (HNA) Monday and Wednesday: 2:55-4:10 plus Independent Research Professor Russell Rickford This course explores the changing meaning of American freedom and citizenship in the context of the long struggle for black liberation. Relying on social and political history, it confronts the promise, possibilities, and limitations of civil rights and human rights in the twentieth century. We examine various “rights” discourses and their role in reconfiguring our legal landscape and cultural mores, molding national and group identity, bestowing social and moral legitimacy, shaping and containing political dissent, reinvigorating and redefining the egalitarian creed, and challenging as well as justifying the distribution of wealth and power in the U.S. We examine the attempts of subjugated groups to transcend narrow social definitions of freedom, and we confront the question of formal political rights versus broader notions of economic justice in a national and international context.

Autumn orange tree with a person lying under it, reading

Your September 2025 reads

This month’s featured titles include the latest by a National Book Award winner and a classical history of Jewish resistance to Rome.

Book cover: Unfiltered Regard for China

Politics gets personal for China scholar

Historian Peidong Sun began her new book “Unfiltered Regard for China: French Perspectives from Mao to Xi” amid profound personal upheaval: An exit ban from China and a move to France.

Ken Dryden, in hockey uniform.

Hockey legend Ken Dryden ’69 dies at 78

Ken Dryden ’69, the legendary Cornell men’s hockey goaltender who still holds the program record for career wins (76) and backstopped the Big Red to its first national championship in 1967, died of cancer Sept. 5.

Person reading a book in grass at the top of a hill

Your July 2025 reads

This month’s featured titles include a look at the world’s first advice column, self-help for parents, and a scholarly book on Venezuela.

Book cover: The Greater Second World War

Global perspectives reframe timeline and scope of WWII

This summer marks the 80th anniversary of the “official” end of World War II, but a new book co-edited by Ruth Lawlor, assistant professor of history, extends the war’s timeline back to 1931 and into the mid-1950s.

Temple Olympian Zeus
https://brewminate.com/the-rise-of-the-athenian-empire-and-democracy-in-athens/

HIST 2325 The Athenian Empire: Athenian History, 600 to 300 BCE

HIST 2325 The Athenian Empire: Athenian History, 600 to 300 BCE (HST-AS) Monday and Wednesday: 8:40-9:55 Professor Talia Prussin This course focuses on the rise and fall of the Athenian empire, beginning with its roots in the late Archaic period, continuing through its height in the mid-fifth century BCE, and ending with the city’s transformation into an oligarchy under Alexander the Great’s Successors. Topics include the development of Athenian democracy, the institutions of the Athenian empire, and the experience of non-Athenians under Athenian rule. Attention will be paid to the particular strengths and weaknesses of the ancient evidence for Athenian history, introducing students to the use of Greek inscriptions, coins, and material culture in the writing of ancient history.

Mount Rushmore
https://home.nps.gov/moru/learn/photosmultimedia/index.htm

HIST 2369 Race, The Nation, & American Outdoor Recreation

HIST 2369 Race, the Nation, & American Outdoor Recreation (also SHUM 2369) (HST-A., SCD-AS) (HNA) Tuesday and Thursday: 1:25-2:40 Dr. Amanda Martin This class will explore how access to the outdoors has been impacted by social inequalities related to race, class, and gender throughout U.S. history. The idea of “the outdoors” and its synonyms (whether “wilderness” or “nature”) has sustained lasting cultural resonance in the United States. Since the nineteenth century’s development of American Romanticism, “nature”—or the idea of a landscape not manipulated by humans—has become a powerful cultural symbol and one of the nation’s most cherished attributes. However, this course will examine how this strong reverence for natural places in the United States has been overlaid by racist ideologies.

Ezra Cornell statue on the quad

Requirements Worksheet

THE HISTORY MAJOR REQUIREMENTS SHEET STUDENT’S NAME: ___________________________________________________ Student’s CUID: ____________________________________________________ 1) Students must complete (or be taking) two History courses before being admitted to the major. 2) Students must choose a History Advisor, meet and discuss a plan for successful completion of the major (fill out the chart below), and gain that advisor’s signature on both the Requirements Sheet and Application before submitting these to the main office. 3) 9* History Department courses must be completed with a C or better. Courses taken for entry can be counted towards the nine required. *Many history courses will fulfill more than one of the following requirements. However, you must still take a total of NINE COURSES to complete the history major. FWS do not count towards major requirements. 4 courses from 5 world areas (HAN, HNA, HEU, HGS, HTR) Course # _____ Title:_______________________________ Area:______ _____ Title:_______________________________ Area:______ _____ Title:_______________________________ Area:______ _____ Title:_______________________________ Area:______ 3 courses in history before 1800 Course # _____ Title:_____________________________________ _____ Title:_____________________________________ _____ Title:_____________________________________ At least 2 seminars, one of which MUST BE a 4000-level (taken on Cornell Campus) Course # _____ Title:______________________________________ _____ Title_______________________________________ Other history courses Course # _____ Title:______________________________________ _____ Title:______________________________________ _____ Title:______________________________________ _____ Title:______________________________________ _____ Title:______________________________________ _____ Title:______________________________________ ADVISOR’S SIGNATURE: ________________________________________________________________ Date of Student and Advisor Meeting: __________________________________________________________

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