The Middle Ages were actually a beginning, the birth and early growth of Europe's influential civilisation, shaping social relations and institutions in ways that still resonate today. From key moments in the lives of medieval men and women, we explore the Christianisation of England; rise of Islam and its impact on the Mediterranean; Vikings, Normans and Crusade; evolution of feudal relations; growth of towns and universities; creation of epic, romance and chivalry; and the deadly threat of inquisition and plague.

Starting with the brilliant culture of Renaissance Italy, with its courts, despots, republics, courtiers, diplomats, with its humanists, artists and their patrons, the unit of study will then move to the religious, political, social and cultural revolution known as the Reformation, with its great theologians, preachers and writers like Luther, Calvin, More and Montaigne. Throughout the semester, attention will be paid to both 'high' and popular culture. The unit of study will conclude with an examination of how these forces were played out in the English Revolution. Attention will also be given to Europe's 'discovery' and conquest of the New World.

This unit surveys Europe's twentieth century, examining the First World War, the Russian Revolution, fascism, the cultural ferment of the interwar years, the Second World War and the Holocaust, European empires and decolonization, Cold War culture and politics, and European unification. The transformations of the twentieth century took place in many different spheres of human existence, and this unit introduces students to some of the varieties of history and the diverse ways historians approach the past.

This unit covers the dramatic changes in European life that marked the transition from pre-modern to modern societies. We will see that these changes emancipated many Europeans from legal and physical burdens while creating many new ones of their own. The catastrophes of the twentieth century have their roots in the period we examine, a period that culminated in the First World War and the spectacular explosion of the ideals of material and moral progress that had animated bourgeois elites. In particular, we discuss the transformations that took place in the key areas of human activity: politics and ideology; family life; work and technology; religious belief; colonialism; social class.

This unit examines the United States in the years in which Americans felt their society, culture, politics, and individual and national identities, were taking new, 'modern' forms. It offers insights into a nation that is one of the principal forces shaping the world in which we live. We will explore topics such as the rise and fall of racial segregation, immigration, social reform movements, mass consumer culture, sexual revolution, and the changing stance of the United States in the world.

Australia has been called the 'quiet continent', but conflict has been part of its history since 1788. This unit examines the violence of convict society, frontier conflict and early battles for self-government. It maps the political struggles, contested stories and shifts in Indigenous-settler relations that accompanied the creation of a nation state after 1880, and explores the effects of war on different social groups. Finally, it charts Australia's cultural and political transformation after 1945 into the postindustrial postcolonial society of today.

Images of China abound, from tiny female foot to endless Wall. But what of the historical realities that shaped today's emerging superpower? What links bronze monsters, clay warriors, little red books and Shanghai skyscrapers? This unit of study introduces the 4,000-year story, both looking at big issues and making time for ordinary people's lives. Through sampling the evidence historians use to understand the Chinese past, we establish a well-grounded sense of China's political, cultural, social and intellectual history.

Empire is one of the key topics in human history, and we continue to live with the consequences of Europe's imperial age. This unit will examine imperialism, resistance to foreign rule, and decolonisation from 1815 to the present. It will look at particular cases of expansion (especially the French and British examples), and examine the theories used to understand imperialism. Among specific themes that will be covered are the ideologies of empire and culture, gender, race, the environment, and imperialism and nationalism.

How has information technology shaped our past? This unit investigates the history of the Western world's technologies of literacy and organisation of knowledge. We start with ancient materials - clay, wax, skin, paper - and the organisation and circulation of information from antiquity to the Renaissance. How did pre-modern networks function? Who was the public? The author? We compare Western systems with those of China, the Islamic World, and the Americas, and conclude with the new challenges of the digital age.

The nineteenth century was a time of critical transition in China's history. The Qing dynasty was declining, like every dynasty before it, but this decline was different. The most famous rebel claimed to be Christ's younger brother; the most successful article of foreign trade was opium (imported); China's most dangerous foreign foes were island nations - first Britain, later Japan. We explore how the dynasty responded to the crises and how foreign intrusions affected China's cities, intellectual life and ordinary people.

Using a number of significant films from across the continent of Europe, the unit examines the way in which films can both create the past and transform existing ideas about the past. The unit examines a range of different kinds of films: "historical" films which set out self-consciously to construct a version of the past as well as those in which film-makers have confronted the contemporary problems of their own society.

This unit examines the lives of ordinary Australians from the temperate south to the tropical north as they came to terms with the social transformations of the twentieth century. Social and geographic position, age, gender, sexuality and ethnicity shaped their experience of the traumatic disturbances of the Great War, the Depression and World War II, and their response to profound changes to Australian society wrought by mass immigration, the post-war economic boom, the Cold War and the demise of White Australia.

This unit examines aspects of the history of the Mediterranean world from the eleventh through the fourteenth century. Topics may include 'culture clashes' between Christianity and Islam, the Crusades and European expansion, the decline of Byzantium and the rise of the Latin West, and selected other cultural, social and political developments in Europe and neighbouring regions.

We tend to think of rights as things that all people have held at all times, but they are not. Rights have a history. The idea of individual rights did not exist prior to medieval times and it has been understood in many different ways since. This unit traces the creation and development of the idea of rights, and its historical uses, from medieval times through to the rise of the modern state and into the Enlightenment.

The Enlightenment promised to make war a thing of the past, replacing brute force with diplomacy and law. So why has the resort to arms been so depressingly persistent? How have societies rationalised war over time and how have ways of making or experiencing war changed? And to what extent has war been a driving force in history, propelling technological, medical, or social transformations? Examining one of humankind's most intractable problems, this unit presents war's surprising, troubling, and complicated history.

What makes a scandal? This unit examines a number of sensational case studies from England, America and Australia, beginning with the outrage surrounding Marie-Antoinette and then weaving through the increasingly strait-laced nineteenth century, in which scandals abounded, destroying reputations, rulers and families. It was not behaviour itself, but the ever-changing interpretations of behaviour that gave rise to condemnation and scandalised indignation. Examining occasions when social rules have been flouted allows us to consider the ways in which such rules are themselves constituted, maintained and challenged.

From its beginnings as a convict colony, Sydney had to deal with an unsavoury reputation. This course explores the history of the city we live in, its people and its places. Distinct communities and neighbourhoods emerged as battles were fought over who belonged in Sydney, and how they should behave. Topics include Aboriginal resistance, convict scandals, poverty and plague, the 'Razor Gang Wars', Mardi Gras protests, the 'Emerald City' excesses of the 1980s, and the Cronulla riots.

In the Middle Ages, love and death were constants in life. Medieval people loved as we do now. Married love, sensual love, spiritual love all co-existed in a world where death was likewise ever-present. Medieval people prepared for death, and they longed to make a good death. Dying was understood both spiritually and socially, as reward or punishment. The unit covers such cultural practices as courtly love, spiritual charity, familial love, rituals of love and death, death as spectacle.

In the 1920s, China was likened to a sleeping lion - one whose roar would shake the world when it awoke. This prediction has already proved true more than once. Why was China ever said to be "asleep"? How did a whole nation awaken, to what, and with what results? This unit of study traces the forces of nationalism and revolution through China's tumultuous twentieth century. We focus upon making sense, in Chinese terms, of events that outsiders have found baffling.

The relationship between China and neighbouring peoples such as the Mongols and Tibetans is one of the great themes in Chinese history. This unit explores Chinese ideas about the "barbarian", the relationship between nomadic and sedentary societies, and the influence of trade and migration on culture and religion in China. The unit will look at non-Chinese dynasties such as the Mongol Yuan and the Manchu Qing, and examine the place of the "ethnic minorities" in China's modern transformations.

This unit uses a special study of Florence to investigate the extraordinary cultural flowering that occurred in Italy between the 14th and 16th centuries. Major themes embrace parallel developments in Venice, Rome, Siena and other city-states; the social context of art; neighbourhood; community; gender; sexuality; the family; poverty; rebellion; religion; and intellectual life. Students use a wide variety of textual and visual sources to critique the concept of the Renaissance, its modern image and its impact on our own age.

Between 1450 and 1825, the nations of Europe began building a series of overseas colonies and empires that fundamentally shaped the world in which we now live. This unit will survey the creation and development of the new Atlantic World that resulted. Starting with the voyages of Columbus, and focusing on the experiences of natives, settlers and slaves, we'll explore early encounters, immigration, the slave trade and finally independence movements and revolutions that created the new nations of the Americas.

Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, public debate about American power has been dominated by the question: is the United States an empire? Taking this debate as a starting point, students examine: the expansion of American power across the continent and then overseas; political, economic and cultural forms of domination and the subsequent transformation of societies overseas and the US itself; and the value and limits of applying the concept of imperialism to US power.

This unit explores crime in the United States from Civil War to the present. It begins by examining historical approaches to crime, using murder as a case study. We look at the development of the criminal justice system, focusing on the police, the FBI, and extra-legal justice and lynching, and explore specific crimes: morals offenses; sex crimes; white-collar crime; and organized crime. Our focus is on the changing incidence, definitions and representation of crime in modern American culture and society.

This unit examines Australia's relations with the world in the post-war era. It explores the historical themes which shaped Australia's response to the world: loyalties to race and empire; communities of interest and culture; the 'Free' versus the 'Communist' worlds; the rise of Asian nationalism, ANZUS and Australian military engagements from Korea to Vietnam. It also investigates the making of Australia's foreign and defence policy from the 1980s to the present, including debates over engagement with Asia and the American alliance.

This unit introduces students to the practices and problems of historical inquiry. It surveys the most recent historiographical debates, and the social (and historical) contexts shaping contemporary discussions, and arguments, about history. Students will learn about the history of History, the place of theory in the discipline, and the practical aspects of writing history. Students also become familiar with the research and writing of members of the Department. This unit is recommended for students who are majoring in History, and is a requirement for entry into Honours in History.

The new history is investigated on a global scale, but international history has been around for more than a century. This unit explores the international and global dimensions of the past. It focuses on the history of internationalist thinking since the seventeenth century, varieties of internationalism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the intersecting modern histories of internationalism and nationalism, and the historical development of international institutions. It also offers students an understanding of the latest scholarship on international and global history, and the chance to investigate the international past for themselves through the use of primary sources.

The Honours program in History consists of:
1. a thesis under the supervision of one or more members of academic staff
2. two seminars that meet weekly for two hours for one semester (students must complete one 'Approach' seminar and one 'Field' seminar).
The thesis should be of 15,000-20,000 words in length. Each seminar requires 6,000-8,000 words of written work or its equivalent.
The thesis is worth 60% of the final Honours mark and each of the seminars is worth 20%.
Honours seminars are only offered in Semester 1. Students must begin their program in the March semester and mid-year entry to History Honours is not permitted.
The following seminars are on offer in 2014:
To be announced.

Refer to HSTY4011

Refer to HSTY4011

Refer to HSTY4011