HIS 121 - Course Description
History imposes order on mostly random events, but the effort to make historical connections can be entertaining and, at times, instructive. It may seem trite to assert that America is the sum of its people and their experiences, but it is true; this society and its citizens should engage the future with one eye fixed firmly on the past.
This course will be divided into two parts. The first half will examine the process by which Old World colonists became different - though not all alike - from those left behind, then suddenly discovered their differences in the American Revolution. The Revolution itself will be examined both as a movement for independence from England and as a struggle among Americans to determine their political and economic priorities.
The second half of the course will culminate with American history's central event, the Civil War. Students will be challenged to consider the war not as the noble and heroic crusade that proved American greatness, but as the tragedy that nearly proved this society fatally flawed. Did the war give freedom a new birth in America, or did it merely demonstrate mid-19th century Americans’ unwillingness and/or inability to honor the revolutionary generation's commitments to political democracy and equal economic opportunity?