HIST 316: Warfare and Violence in History

From the time of our stone-age ancestors, violence has been a common feature of human societies. Variously expressed as the organized violence of warfare, the smaller-scale conflict of tribes or clans, or the actions of lone individuals, violence is a depressingly-common feature of the human experience. This course analyzes the impact and function of violence from the late-Neolithic onwards, culminating with the more-complex state structures, legal systems, and military bureaucracies that have emerged in the modern age. Topics of particular focus will include the role and function of technology; the impact of warfare on civilian populations; the effect of violence on individuals; legal efforts to frame and define "legitimate" violence; and the mythologizing of violence in historical memory. Students will gain a broad understanding of warfare and violence as expressed in a variety of Western and non-Western contexts including Europe, Africa, the Near East and the Americas. By taking this course, students will develop a greater understanding of the concept of violence as a historical phenomenon, and be better prepared to analyze the place and function of modern/contemporary expressions of violence, both between and within human societies.