Revolution, Industry & Empire - UCSD

Last October, I wrote a post about the modern history courses that are available from Berkeley, Yale, UCLA and UCSD. To sum them up quickly History 5 at Berkeley, European Civilization at Yale, History 1c at UCLA and then there was MMW 4 at UCSD, with the proviso that this course started earlier and went on to the beginning of modern history.

To complete the picture from UCSD, one needs to follow this semester MMW 5 (feed), which incidentally goes on until 1914, so eventually it takes MMW 6 to top it off. As usual with UCSD, one must take heed and download the course this semester as it will be taken off line immediately afterward.

The title MMW 5 got is Revolution, Industry & Empire and the time frame is 1750-1914. Obviously this means French Revolution, Industrial Revolution and Imperialism. The lecturer Professor Heidi Keller-Lapp makes sure you get a good handle on the 18th century landscape of political philosophy, especially on the three thinkers about Social Contract: Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau. Consequently, the first lectures (I have made it through to lecture 7 of the current 16 available), are exclusively about these three thinkers and there is hardly any historical narrative delivered. I have been told though that this is certain to come and in addition to the French Revolution, there will also be talk of the American Revolution and a lecture about the Haitian Revolution (which was delivered around the time the earthquake nearly wiped out this country). In short this is one lecture series to have.