History is the study of how societies and cultures across the world change over time. History concentrators learn to write and think critically, and to understand issues from a variety of perspectives. The department offers a wide variety of courses concerned with changes in human experience through time, ranging from classical Greek and Roman civilizations to the histories of Africa, the Middle East, the Americas, and Asia. While some courses explore special topics, others concentrate on the history of a particular country (e.g. China or Brazil) or period of time (e.g. Antiquity or the 20th century). By taking advantage of our diverse course offerings, students can engage in and develop broad perspectives on the past and the present.

Prospective concentrators should visit the History site and visit the office hours of their prospective concentrator advisor (assigned according to student surname).

Concentration Requirements

Basic requirement: A minimum of 10 courses, at least 8 of which must be courses taught by a Brown University History Department faculty member (including their cross-listed courses) and/or courses offered by the Brown History Department (such as those taught by Visiting or Adjunct Professors). Transfer students or study-abroad students who have spent a year or more at another institution must have at least 7 of 10 history courses taught by Brown History faculty or otherwise offered through the Brown History Department.

Note: Courses can fulfill more than one of these requirements at a time. For instance, HIST1963Q “Sex, Power, God: A Medieval Perspective” would count as “Premodern,” a "Europe" class, and a capstone seminar. It could also count towards a field of focus in premodern Europe or the history of sexuality or the history of religion, etc.

Courses below 1000: Students may count no more than four courses numbered below 1000 toward the concentration requirements.  Students considering a concentration in History are encouraged to take First Year and Sophomore seminars, as well as courses in the HIST 0150 and 0200 series, for an introduction to historical reasoning, discussion, and writing.

Field of focus: In History, concentrators choose or create their own “track,” rather than having to select an existing track. The field of focus must include a minimum of four courses, and it may be: geographical (such as Latin America); geographical and chronological (such as Modern North America); or transnational (such as ancient world); or thematic (such as urban history).  All students should consult a concentration advisor early in the process about their potential field of focus.  All fields are subject to approval by the concentration advisor.

Examples of thematic fields of focus are:

• Comparative Colonialism
• Gender and Sexuality
• Law and Society
• Race and Ethnicity
• Science, Technology, Environment and Medicine (STEAM)
• Urban History

Examples of transnational foci include:

• The Ancient World
• The Early Modern Atlantic World
• Africa and the Diaspora
• The Mediterranean World from Antiquity to the Middle Ages
• The Pacific World

Geographic Distribution: Concentrators must take a at least four courses defined by geography as follows:

• One course in Africa OR Middle East OR South Asia OR Southeast Asia
• One course in East Asia OR Latin America
• One course in Europe OR North America
• One course in Global

Maximum of five courses in a single geography

 “Global” courses are defined as those that deal with at least three different regions of the world.

For details on which courses count toward which geographical distribution requirement click here.

Chronological Distribution: All concentrators must complete at least two courses designated as “P” (for pre-modern).

For a listing of which courses count as "P" courses click here

Capstone Seminar: All concentrators must complete at least one capstone seminar (HIST 1960s and HIST 1970s series and select HIST 1980s courses).  They provide students with an opportunity to delve deeply into a historical problem and to write a major research and/or analytical paper which serves as a capstone experience.  Students considering writing a senior honors thesis are advised to take an advanced seminar in their junior year. First-Year students are not advised to take these courses. 

Transferring Courses: The History Department encourages students to take history courses at other institutions, either in the United States or abroad, as well as history-oriented courses in other departments and programs at Brown. Students may apply two courses taken in other departments/programs at Brown to the ten-course minimum for the History concentration. Students who spend one semester at another institution may apply to their concentration a maximum of two courses from other departments or institutions, and those who spend more than one semester at another institution may apply to their concentration a third course transferred from another institution.

Students wishing to apply such courses must present to their concentration advisor justification that those courses complement some aspect of their concentration. Courses from other Brown departments may not be applied toward the chronological distribution requirement. History courses taught by trained historians from other institutions (e.g., from study abroad or a previous institution) may be applied toward the chronological distribution requirement so long as at least 2/3 of the course content examine the "premodern" or "early modern" periods.

It is normally expected that students will have declared their intention to concentrate in History and have their concentration programs approved before undertaking study elsewhere. Students taking courses in Brown-run programs abroad automatically receive University transfer credit, but concentration credit is granted only with the approval of a concentration advisor. Students taking courses in other foreign-study programs or at other universities in the United States must apply to the Transfer Credit Advisor and then get approval from a concentration advisor.

Regular Consultation: Students are strongly urged to consult regularly with their concentration advisor or a department advisor about their program. During the seventh semester, all students must meet with their concentration advisor for review and approval of their program.

COURSES BELOW 1000
LECTURE COURSES
150's: Thematic Courses that Cut Across Time and Place
HIST 0150A	History of Capitalism
HIST 0150B	The Philosophers' Stone: Alchemy From Antiquity to Harry Potter
HIST 0150C	Locked Up: A Global History of Prison and Captivity
HIST 0150D	Refugees: A Twentieth-Century History
HIST 0150G	History of Law: Great Trials
HIST 0150H	Foods and Drugs in History
HIST 0150I	The Making of the Modern World
HIST 0150J	The Ocean in Global History
HIST 0150K	Curators, Hoarders, and Looters: The Long and Curious History of Collecting
Gateway Lecture Courses
HIST 0202	African Experiences of Empire
HIST 0203	Modern Africa: From Empire to Nation-State
HIST 0212	Histories of East Asia: China
HIST 0214	Histories of East Asia: Japan
HIST 0218	The Making of Modern East Asia
HIST 0233	Colonial Latin America
HIST 0234	Modern Latin America
HIST 0243	Modern Middle East Roots: 1492 to the Present
HIST 0244	Understanding the Middle East: A Modern History
HIST 0246	The Ottoman Empire and Modern Middle East
HIST 0247	Civilization, Empire, Nation: Competing Histories of the Middle East
HIST 0250	American Exceptionalism: The History of an Idea
HIST 0252	The American Civil War
HIST 0253	Religion, Politics, and Culture in America, 1865 - Present
HIST 0253A	Colonial America: A Global History
HIST 0254	Reconstruction and the Politics of Violence
HIST 0255A	Mexican American History
HIST 0256	Introduction to Latinx History
HIST 0260	Early Modern India, 1500-1800
HIST 0270A	From Fire Wielders to Empire Builders: Human Impact on the Global Environment before 1492
HIST 0270B	From the Columbian Exchange to Climate Change: Modern Global Environmental History
HIST 0276	A Global History of the Atomic Age
HIST 0276B	Science and Capitalism
HIST 0285A	Modern Genocide and Other Crimes against Humanity
HIST 0286A	History of Medicine I: Medical Traditions in the Old World Before 1700
HIST 0286B	History of Medicine II: The Development of Scientific Medicine in Europe and the World
SEMINAR COURSES
First-Year Seminars
HIST 0510A	Shanghai in Myth and History
HIST 0510B	History of Tokyo
HIST 0520A	Athens, Jerusalem, and Baghdad: Three Civilizations, One Tradition
HIST 0521A	Christianity in Conflict in the Medieval Mediterranean
HIST 0521M	The Holy Grail and the Historian's Quest for the Truth
HIST 0522G	An Empire and Republic: The Dutch Golden Age
HIST 0522O	What is Enlightenment?
HIST 0523A	The Holocaust in Historical Perspective
HIST 0523B	State Surveillance in History
HIST 0523P	The First World War
HIST 0537A	Popular Culture in Latin America and the Caribbean
HIST 0550A	Object Histories: The Material Culture of Early America
HIST 0551A	Abraham Lincoln: Historical and Cultural Perspectives
HIST 0552A	A Textile History of Atlantic Slavery
HIST 0555B	Robber Barons
HIST 0557C	Narratives of Slavery
HIST 0557D	World of Walden Pond: Transcendentalism in the Age of Reform
HIST 0558B	History of American Feminism
HIST 0558C	Latinx Social Movement History
HIST 0559A	Culture and U.S. Empire
HIST 0559B	Asian Americans and Third World Solidarity
HIST 0559C	Archives and Activism
HIST 0574A	The Silk Road, Past and Present
HIST 0576A	The Arctic: Global History from the Dog Sled to the Oil Rig
HIST 0577A	The Chinese Diaspora: A History of Globalization
HIST 0577B	The US-Mexico Border and Borderlands: A Bilingual English-Spanish Seminar
HIST 0580M	The Age of Revolutions, 1760-1824
HIST 0580O	Making Change: Nonviolence in Action
HIST 0582A	Animal Histories
Sophomore Seminars
HIST 0621A	Surviving Medieval Paris
HIST 0621B	The Search for King Arthur
HIST 0623B	The Russian Revolution
HIST 0623C	Americans in the USSR
HIST 0654A	Welfare States and a History of Modern Life
HIST 0654B	American Patriotism in Black and White
HIST 0655A	Culture Wars in American Schools
HIST 0657A	Early American Lives
HIST 0658D	Walden + Woodstock: The American Lives of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Bob Dylan
HIST 0673A	Colonial Encounters in the Early Atlantic
HIST 0675A	The Chinese Diaspora: A History of Globalization
HIST 0685A	The Social Lives of Dead Bodies in China and Beyond
COURSES WITH NUMBERS 1000-1999
LECTURE COURSES
HIST 1030	Entangled South Africa
HIST 1060	Colonial Africa
HIST 1070	Postcolonial Africa
HIST 1080	Humanitarianism and Conflict in Africa
HIST 1081	The Environmental History of Subsistence and Extraction in Africa before 1900
HIST 1101	Chinese Political Thought from Confucius to Xi Jinping
HIST 1110	Imperial China/China: Culture and Legacy
HIST 1111	Women and Gender Relations in China
HIST 1112	China's Early Modern Empires
HIST 1118	China's Late Empires
HIST 1120	At China's Edges
HIST 1121	The Modern Chinese Nation: An Idea and Its Limits
HIST 1122	China Pop: The Social History of Chinese Popular Culture
HIST 1123	China's Socialist Dreams
HIST 1141	Japan in the Age of the Samurai
HIST 1149	Imperial Japan
HIST 1150	Modern Japan
HIST 1155	Japan's Pacific War: 1937-1945
HIST 1156	Postwar Japan
HIST 1200A	Mediterranean Culture Wars: Archaic Greek History, c 1200 to 479 BC
HIST 1200B	The Fall of Empires and Rise of Kings: Greek History to 478 to 323 BCE
HIST 1200C	History of Greece: From Alexander the Great to the Roman Conquest
HIST 1201A	Roman History I
HIST 1201B	Roman History II: The Empire
HIST 1202	Formation of the Classical Heritage: Greeks, Romans, Jews, Christians, and Muslims
HIST 1205	The Long Fall of the Roman Empire
HIST 1210A	The Viking Age
HIST 1211	Becoming Medieval: Self, Other, and the World
HIST 1216	The Paradox of Early Modern Europe
HIST 1240A	Politics of Violence in 20C Europe
HIST 1241A	Migration in European History
HIST 1260D	Living Together: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Medieval Iberia
HIST 1262F	Women, Gender, and Feminism in Early Modern Italy
HIST 1262M	Truth on Trial: Justice in Italy, 1400-1800
HIST 1264M	Cultural History of the Netherlands in a Golden Age and a Global Age
HIST 1266C	English History, 1529-1660
HIST 1266D	British History, 1660-1800
HIST 1267	The Global British Empire, 1600-The Present
HIST 1268A	The Rise of the Russian Empire
HIST 1268B	Russia in the Era of Reforms, Revolutions, and World Wars
HIST 1268C	The Collapse of Socialism and the Rise of New Russia
HIST 1270C	German History, 1806-1945
HIST 1272D	The French Revolution
HIST 1272E	Paris: Sacred and Profane, Imagined and Real
HIST 1320	Rebel Island: Cuba, 1492-Present
HIST 1333	The Mexican Revolution
HIST 1340	History of the Andes
HIST 1360	Amazonia from the Prehuman to the Present
HIST 1381	Latin American History and Film: Memory, Narrative and Nation
HIST 1382	The Environmental History of Latin America
HIST 1440	The Ottomans: Faith, Law, Empire
HIST 1455	The Making of the Modern Middle East
HIST 1457	Understanding the Palestinians
HIST 1470	Legal History in the Middle East
HIST 1502	The Early Republic United States
HIST 1503	Antebellum America and the Road to Civil War
HIST 1505	Making America Modern
HIST 1507	American Babylon: Crisis and Reckoning in the Postwar United States, 1945-1980
HIST 1511	Sinners, Saints, and Heretics: Religion in Early America
HIST 1512	First Nations: The People and Cultures of Native North America to 1800
HIST 1513	U.S. Cultural History from Revolution to Reconstruction
HIST 1514	Capitalism, Slavery and the Economy of Early America
HIST 1515	American Slavery
HIST 1530	The Intimate State: The Politics of Gender, Sex, and Family in the U.S., 1873-Present
HIST 1531	Mass Movements, Modern Politics: From Labor to the New Right in America
HIST 1532	Black Freedom Struggle Since 1945
HIST 1533	Cities and Inequality Since 1920: The United States
HIST 1553	Empires in America to 1890
HIST 1554	American Empire Since 1890
HIST 1570	American Legal and Constitutional History
HIST 1571	The Intellectual History of Black Women
HIST 1574	US Liberal Imperialism and Its Discontents
HIST 1620	Resisting Empire: Gandhi and the Making of Modern South Asia
HIST 1640	Inequality + Change: South Asia after 1947
HIST 1735	Slavery in the Early Modern World
HIST 1800	Religion and Power in North America to 1865
HIST 1820A	Environmental History
HIST 1820B	China's Environmental History
HIST 1820G	Nature on Display
HIST 1825F	Nature, Knowledge, Power in Early Modern Europe
HIST 1825H	Science, Medicine and Technology in the 17th Century
HIST 1825J	History of Artificial Intelligence
HIST 1825S	Science and Capitalism
HIST 1830B	Politics and the Psyche from Sigmund Freud to Donald Trump
HIST 1830M	From Medieval Bedlam to Prozac Nation: Intimate Histories of Psychiatry and Self
HIST 1835A	Unearthing the Body: History, Archaeology, and Biology at the End of Antiquity
SEMINAR COURSES
Non-Capstone Seminars
HIST 1942A	Taiwan's Geographies
HIST 1952A	World of Walden Pond: Transcendentalism as a Social and Intellectual Movement
HIST 1956A	Thinking Historically: A History of History Writing
HIST 1956B	Rites of Power in Modern China
HIST 1956S	History of Artificial Intelligence
SEMINAR COURSES
Capstone Seminars
HIST 1960G	Southern African Frontiers, c. 1400-1860
HIST 1960H	Indigeneity and Assimilation in Southern Africa: The Khoe-San
HIST 1960J	More-Than-Human Histories of Africa
HIST 1960Q	Medicine and Public Health in Africa
HIST 1960R	South Africa Since 1990
HIST 1960S	North African History: 1800 to Present
HIST 1961B	Cities and Urban Culture in China
HIST 1961C	Knowledge and Power: China's Examination Hell
HIST 1961D	Heaven Above, Suzhou and Hangzhou Below: Urban Culture in Early Modern China
HIST 1961N	Colonization and Ethnicity in East Asian History
HIST 1962B	Life During Wartime: Theory and Sources from the Twentieth Century
HIST 1962C	State, Religion and the Public Good in Modern China
HIST 1962D	Japan in the World, from the Age of Empires to 3.11
HIST 1962F	Assembling Chinese History
HIST 1962G	Southeast Asian Food History
HIST 1963L	Barbarians, Byzantines, and Berbers: Early Medieval North Africa, AD 300-1050
HIST 1963M	Charlemagne: Conquest, Empire, and the Making of the Middle Ages
HIST 1963Q	Sex, Power, and God: A Medieval Perspective
HIST 1964A	Age of Impostors: Fraud, Identification, and the Self in Early Modern Europe
HIST 1964B	The Enchanted World: Magic, Angels, and Demons in Early Modern Europe
HIST 1964D	Women in Early Modern England
HIST 1964E	The English Revolution
HIST 1964F	Early Modern Ireland
HIST 1964G	Spin, Terror and Revolution: England, Scotland and Ireland, 1660-1720
HIST 1964H	Race and Empire in 18th Century France
HIST 1964I	England Without a Monarchy: Regicide and Republic, 1649-1660
HIST 1964K	Descartes' World
HIST 1964L	Slavery in the Early Modern World
HIST 1964S	Islands of the Mind
HIST 1965C	Stalinism
HIST 1965D	The USSR and the Cold War
HIST 1965E	Politics of the Intellectual in 20C Europe
HIST 1965G	Hannah Arendt and Her World
HIST 1965H	Europe and the Invention of Race
HIST 1965I	Industrial Revolution in Europe
HIST 1965R	The Crisis of Liberalism in Modern History
HIST 1967C	Making Revolutionary Cuba, 1959-Present
HIST 1967Q	Gender and Sexuality in the Modern History of Latin America
HIST 1967T	History of the Andes from the Incas to Evo Morales
HIST 1968A	Approaches to the Middle East
HIST 1968V	America and the Middle East: Histories of Connection and Exchange
HIST 1969A	Israel-Palestine: Lands and Peoples I
HIST 1969B	Israel-Palestine: Lands and Peoples II
HIST 1969D	Palestine versus the Palestinians
HIST 1970A	Colonial Encounters: Indians, Europeans, and the Making of Early America
HIST 1970B	Enslaved! Indians and Africans in an Unfree Atlantic World
HIST 1970D	Problem of Class in Early America
HIST 1970F	Early American and Atlantic Money
HIST 1970G	Captive Voices: Atlantic Slavery in the Digital Age
HIST 1971D	From Emancipation to Obama
HIST 1972A	American Legal History, 1760-1920
HIST 1972F	Consent: Race, Sex, and the Law
HIST 1972G	Lesbian Memoir
HIST 1972H	U.S. Human Rights in a Global Age
HIST 1972I	Loss, Political Activism and Public Feelings: Between Fact and Affect
HIST 1972J	Racial Capitalism and U.S. Liberal Empire
HIST 1973Q	Environmental Pressures of South Asia
HIST 1974A	The Silk Roads, Past and Present
HIST 1974B	War and Peace: A Global History
HIST 1974G	Nonviolence in History and Practice
HIST 1974J	Decolonizing Minds: A People's History of the World
HIST 1974K	Maps and Empires
HIST 1974M	Early Modern Globalization
HIST 1974P	Modernity's Crisis: Jewish History from the French Revolution to the Election of Donald Trump
HIST 1974S	The Nuclear Age
HIST 1974Y	Moral Panic and Politics of Fear
HIST 1975J	Portuguese Discoveries and Early Modern Global History
HIST 1976A	Native Histories in Latin America and North America
HIST 1976B	The History of Extinction
HIST 1976C	Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: Environmental Histories of Non-Human Actors
HIST 1976D	Powering the Past: The History of Energy
HIST 1976E	The Anthropocene: Climate Change as Social History
HIST 1976G	Animal Histories
HIST 1976H	Environmental History of Latin America 1492-Present
HIST 1976I	Imperialism and Environmental Change
HIST 1976J	Earth Histories: From Creation to Countdown
HIST 1976N	Topics in the History of Economic Thought
HIST 1976R	Histories of the Future
HIST 1977B	Feathery Things: An Avian Introduction to Animal Studies
HIST 1977I	Gender, Race, and Medicine in the Americas
HIST 1977J	War and Medicine since the Renaissance
HIST 1990	Undergraduate Reading Courses
HIST 1992	History Honors Workshop for Prospective Thesis Writers
HIST 1993	History Honors Workshop for Thesis Writers, Part I
HIST 1994	History Honors Workshop for Thesis Writers, Part II

Honors (OPTIONAL):

History concentrators in the 5th or 6th semester may apply for honors. To be admitted, students must have achieved two-thirds “quality grades” in History department courses.  A “quality grade” is defined as a grade of “A” or a grade of “S” accompanied by a course performance report indicating a performance at the “A” standard.

Students who wish to enroll in honors are recommended to takeHIST 1992, “History Honors Workshop for Prospective Students.”  HIST 1992 can count as one of the 10 courses required for graduation in history.  HIST 1992 students who prepare a prospectus that receives a grade of A- or above will be admitted to the honors program.  Students in their 7^th semester who have not taken HIST 1992 (including but not limited to those who are away from Brown during that semester) may apply to the program by submitting a prospectus no later than the first day of that semester.  All honors students must complete one semester of HIST 1993 “History Honors Workshop for Thesis Writers, Part I” and one semester of HIST 1994 “History Workshop for Thesis Writers, Part II.”  HIST 1993 and HIST 1994 do not count towards the 10 courses required for graduation in history; they are an additional two courses to the minimum of 10 required history courses. Students who contemplate enrolling in the honors program in History should consult the honors section of the department website. They are also encouraged to meet with the Director of the Honors Program (DHP), who serves as the honors advisor.