Undergraduate Fields of Specialization: Europe, Britain, and Russia

Europe was the cradle of Western Civilization, which produced ideas about and institutions of liberal democracy, the rule of law, individual and human rights, social and economic equality, a system of independent states, modern diplomacy and international organizations, the market economy and the welfare state, and modern science and technology. These ideas and institutions transformed the entire world. Europe was also an area in which ideas and institutions based on racial, sexual, and economic hierarchies evolved.  Justification for and support for social inequality, racism, antisemitism, colonialism and imperialism, monarchy and modern dictatorship, religious wars, and genocides were also driving forces in European history. Historians of Europe, Britain, and Russia analyze these multiple continuities and plural traditions.

Work on the history of Britain, the countries of the European continent, and Russia fosters simultaneous examination of particularities of language, culture, and politics; national trajectories; and comparative and transnational history of the very many societies and nations in this area. Students can investigate Medieval and Early Modern Europe, Modern Europe, Russia and the Soviet Union, Britain and the British Empire, and Jewish history. They can draw on a rich menu of courses to explore the history of nations, states, and empires; the intersection of ideas and politics; the history of war and peace; the evolution and confrontation of religious faiths; the acquisition and exercise of power by both elites and non-elites; the roles of women and gender in the European world; the impact of science, technology, and the environment; and Europe’s political, social, cultural, economic, and international  engagements with the wider world, among many other subjects.