HST 121

Western Civilization to 1500

Instructor: George S. Vascik


The objectives of this class are three-fold: to encourage historical thinking and awareness; to help the student think critically about the past and its impact upon our present lives and institutions; and to stimulate the student to view the study of history as fertile ground for life-long learning and personal enrichment. Making sense of over 5000 years of recorded history is a daunting task - some important people, trends, societies and events can be discussed, others will remain unmentioned. Every instructor must pick and choose among unlimited possibilities in such a way that he or she can present human history as a coherent whole. To accomplish that task, I have decided that this course will concentrate upon three interwoven threads of human development: 1) how people lived their lives in the past; 2) what sort of structures of governance various societies have developed and how the individual related to those structures; and 3) humanity's confrontation with the infinite - how men and women understood the universe, their place within it, and the religious institutions they created.

click here if you would like to retrieve a course syllabus for Monday-Wednesday and Tuesday-Thursday sections.
click here if you would like to retrieve study guides for the midterm, final or primary texts.
click here to view internet resources that I have posted for the class such as films, historical novels, other web sites.
 


If you have comments or suggestions, email me at vascikgs@muohio.edu