Instructor: John Eglin; CRN 73408; 4 Credits; MWF 9-9:50 am + Discussion Section

Fulfills GenEd groups H and Y

This course will take you across five millennia in one semester, so hold on tight! It will give you a basic understanding of the history of influential cultures in what is called Western Civilization, along with the controversies that surround both of those concepts.

Leif Fredrickson | Lily Scott; CRN: 73828 | 71270; 1 Credit; T 1-1:50 pm | W 2pm-2:50 pm

Learn the practice of history and prepare for upper-division courses in the field. Students will learn to critically read secondary sources, research primary sources, analyze documents, and write clear and convincing historical essays. This course is required for recently declared history majors and minors. Students should take it before taking upper-division history courses.  Offered autumn and spring. Enrollment is limited to history majors or by the consent of the instructor.

Nathaniel Levtow; CRN 75661; 3 credits; T/Th 11-12:20 pm

Fulfills GenEd groups E and L

Explore the history of the peoples, places, ideas, and texts that combined over hundreds of years to produce the Bible as a single book, and examine the influence of this book on the development of Western thought and culture. The course offers an introduction to the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament and the ancient world of its authors from literary, historical, social, anthropological, theological, and archaeological perspectives.

John Eglin; CRN 74182; 3 credits; MWF 1-1:50 pm

With the overthrow of France’s old regime and the remodeling of its government as its centerpiece, this course will explore the revolutions that reshaped the modern world in Europe’s “long eighteenth century.”

Lily Scott; CRN 74369, 3 credits; TR 11-12:20 pm

Examine modern Russian history from the fall of the Romanov dynasty, through the revolutions of 1917 and the 74-year experiment with Soviet socialism, to the breakup of the Soviet Union and its aftermath. Alongside weekly historical readings, we will immerse ourselves in Russian and Soviet culture by studying official documents, literary texts, art, film, jokes, and visual culture. We will explore the possibilities, limitations, successes and failures of the Soviet experiment and assess the enduring influence of its legacy today.

Mehrdad Kia; 72810, 3 Credits; TR 2-3:20 pm

Explore modern political and ideological movements, which used nationalism, socialism and Islamic fundamentalism in Central Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa beginning in the nineteenth century to organize mass movements, which ultimately aimed at overthrowing existing governments and political institutions in the Arab world, Turkey, and the countries of Central Asia and the southern Caucasus. 

Mehrdad Kia; CRN 74183, 3 Credits; W 6-8:50 pm

View the origins and the impact of the Christian Crusades on the Islamic world, and study how various ethnic and religious groups in the region, including the Arabs, the Turks, the Iranians, the Kurds, the Jews, and the Armenians responded to the arrival of European Christians. By retelling their stories and accounts, the course hopes to offer insights into the historical forces that shaped not only the response of the Islamic world to Europe in later centuries but also the emergence of an anti-western political consciousness, especially in the Arab world. 

Dexter Tiff Roberts; CRN 74288, 3 credits; MWF 10-10:50 am 

Leif Fredrickson; CRN 72837, 3 credits; T 2-4:00 pm

Writing Course – Advanced

Learn how to research and write an original research paper based on primary sources. The theme of this seminar is the history of cities, which could include such topics as racially discriminatory housing, urban pollution, suburbanization, urban riots, and the politics of local government. In addition to developing your research skills, we will focus on how to frame historical arguments in clear, compelling, and well-documented ways. The class will include extensive writing feedback: you will plan, write, revise and present your research paper before submitting a final version.

Scott Arcenas; CRN 74184, 3 credits; M 2-4:50 pm

In 1776, the English historian Edward Gibbon published his monumental History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which famously attributed the fall of Rome to the combined forces of “barbarism and religion.” In so doing, he sparked three of the longest-running and most important historiographical debates of the modern period: Did the Roman Empire “decline and fall”? If so, why? And how did the fall of Rome affect the later course of world history? In this graduate readings course, we will survey both ancient and modern attempts to answer these questions, starting with Cato the Elder (who was already lamenting the decline and fall of Rome, long before it became an empire) and ending with Walter Scheidel, whose 2019 Escape from Rome argues the fall of the Roman Empire was the best thing that ever happened to the world, as it was a necessary condition for modernity.

Kyle Volk; CRN 71619 & 72964, 4 credits; MWF 10-10:50 am + Discussion Section

Fulfills Gen Ed Attributes: Historical Studies (H), Democracy and Citizenship (Y)

What’s the story with America? This course offers answers through a survey of early American history from the time of Columbus through the Civil War era. Topics include contact and colonization; slavery and empire in the Atlantic World; the Enlightenment and the American Revolution; the origins of the U.S. Constitution and the birth of American empire; socio-economic change and the roots of modern capitalism; the rise of democracy; sectional politics, Civil War, and emancipation. Introducing students to what it means to “think historically” and fostering the development of critical thinking skills through engagement with big questions and primary sources are key course goals. This is not your high school history class.

Can be taken online.

Kyle Volk; CRN 70253, 4 credits; MWF 10-10:50 am + Discussion Section

Fulfills Gen Ed Attributes: Historical Studies (H), Democracy and Citizenship (Y)

What’s the story with America? This course offers answers through a survey of early American history from the time of Columbus through the Civil War era. Topics include contact and colonization; slavery and empire in the Atlantic World; the Enlightenment and the American Revolution; the origins of the U.S. Constitution and the birth of the American empire; socio-economic change and the roots of modern capitalism; the rise of democracy; sectional politics, Civil War, and emancipation. Introducing students to what it means to “think historically” and fostering the development of critical thinking skills through engagement with big questions and primary sources are key course goals. This is not your high school history class.

Jeff Wiltse; CRN 72099, 3 credits; MWF 12-12:50 pm

This course surveys Montana's history from the time of its first inhabitants (13,500 years ago) to the present. Lectures provide an outline of Montana history, focusing on major social, political, and economic developments. Course readings provide interesting and revealing accounts of several significant topics in Montana history, including Native American cultures and contacts between Montana Indians and non-Indians, mining and industrial development, homesteading and rural life, and the state’s environment and landscape.

Jonathan Hall; CRN 74307, 3 credits; Online

Fulfills Intermediate Writing requirement

Explore questions and themes related to democracy, nationalism and sectionalism, the War of 1812, the second party system, social order and disorder, the capitalist revolution.

Jeff Wiltse; CRN 74171, 3 credits; MW, 2-3:20 pm

Fulfills Gen Ed Attributes: Ethics (E)

This course examines United States military history from the War of 1898 to the present, focusing in particular on the nation’s involvement in World War I, World War II, the Vietnam War, and the Middle East. It takes a broad view of military history, studying battles, tactics, and diplomacy and the influence that wars and warfare have had on American society and the nation’s role in the world.

Alhaji Conteh; CRN 74306, 3 Credits; Online

Survey of the African American experience from the African background to the end of the Civil War. Focus on Black American quest for the American Dream, and how Blacks attempted to deal with the challenges of enslavement and racism.

Eric Zimmer, CRN 74172, 3 Credits; MWF 11-11:50 am

Class counts toward Public History Certificate

This course surveys the history of Indigenous North America from the deep past to the early 21^st century. It incorporates archaeology, oral traditions, and history to examine rich and complex Indigenous experiences. Students will explore ancient Indigenous cities like Cahokia and Tenochtitlan and understand how European contact and colonization upended the Indigenous world. The class will also engage with major trends in Native American (US) and First Nations (Canada) history, examining how Indigenous peoples have responded to deep challenges created by policies of dispossession and assimilation over the last 250 years. This class may include field visits to reservation communities in Montana.

Leif Fredrickson; CRN 74174, 3 credits; TR 9:30-10:50 am

Class counts toward Public History Certificate

The automobile was the most transformative technology in modern history. In this class, we will trace how technological innovations created and shaped the automobile over time, and how the automobile has shaped human settlement, public space, the environment, war, energy use and transportation systems. We will also explore how the automobile has intersected with many key aspects of social life, including the law, gender, race, industry, and labor, often provoking questions about fundamental concepts like risk and freedom. The class will include lectures, discussion, and a public history project about the history of speed limits (or lack thereof!) in Montana.

Dr. Garceau; CRN 74318, 3 credits; T 2-4:50 pm

Immersion in research, writing, and production of a documentary film on the 1918-19 influenza in Montana. Explore newspapers, oral histories, memoirs, and census manuscripts within the context of scholarship on WW I and the pandemic. Map the film on storyboards, write voiceover scripts based on firsthand narratives, interview oral history informants and expert witnesses, coach voice actors in the recording studio, direct landscape shots, and create action shots. This film will emphasize the untold stories of women, Indigenous people, Black Americans, immigrants, and youth. Ability to engage in fieldwork and teamwork is required. Film production includes experiential learning and hands-on work.

Tobin Miller Shearer; CRN 74175, 3 credits; TR 12:30-1:50 pm

Advanced Writing

Explore the history of the civil rights movement, the role of religion in social change movements, and the craft of writing. The class has produced multiple published works, award-winning papers, and grad school-worthy writing samples. Fulfills the Advanced Writing requirement. Open to all.

Eric Zimmer; CRN 74176, 3 Credits; T 2-4:50 pm

Graduate Readings Seminar

Look around. You’re in The American West! This Graduate Readings Seminar explores classic titles and cutting-edge scholarship in the history of the US West. From the Turner Thesis to the New Western History and beyond, students will examine major trends and emerging debates in the field. Readings will examine the enduring cultural mystique of the West alongside the challenging realities of Western development. The course will consider the emergence of Borderlands and Midwestern history alongside histories of communities of color, gender, the environment, politics, and other topics in the American West.

Kyle Volk; CRN 74177, 3 Credits; F 2-4:50 pm

This graduate colloquium introduces students to the scholarly literature of three broad and overlapping fields: U.S. legal history and the history of the American state; the history of American capitalism; and the history of American democracy. Students will interrogate classic scholarship and gain a strong understanding of the current state of scholarly conversations in these fields.

For students enrolled in History MA or PhD program; or consent of instructor.

Tobin Miller Shearer; CRN 72015, 3 credits; TR 9:30-10:50 am

Fulfills both H and X Gen Ed designations

Learn about Africa’s Gold Coast, Slavery, Reconstruction, the Harlem Renaissance, and the Civil Rights era. The class covers Hip-Hop, black film, African-American religion, and contemporary politics. Fulfills both H and X Gen Ed credit.

Open to all.