HIST 2A
UCSB—Department of History
Fall 2015
TR 9:30-10:45
Campbell Hall
Prof. Elizabeth DePalma Digeser edepalma@history.ucsb.edu office: HSSB 4226
Office hours: R 11-1
(or make an appointment for another time)
World History to 1000 CE
Welcome! In this course we'll be traveling around the world and through time, exploring ancient cities and other complex societies from Mesopotamian Uruk to Chinese Chang’an, not just to see how they came to be, but especially to learn how people understood who they were and interacted with others:
 How should we define “civilizations” or complex societies?
 How do civilizations form in response to different environments?
 Who sets the rules for who belongs to the society? Why? Who enforces the rules? How?
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Why? How and why do these rules distinguish between different kinds of people (e.g., by gender or by political/legal status)?
To what extent do people in a society think anything transcends human existence on earth from birth to death? If so, how do these beliefs shape the society’s practices? Their ideas about what is “natural”?
 To what extent do people in the society agree, not only about how things do happen, but also about how human beings should live? Organize themselves? Relate to one another—especially those unlike them?
 Why do people from one community move into places that are home to other communities?
What are the consequences? Why?
 What types of sources are useful for understanding who people think they are and how they view their society? What are the strengths and limitations of these sources?
Although we’ll be studying people who lived several millennia ago, people worldwide continue to construct, defend and extend their communities. Understanding the issues that faced people in antiquity and the early Middle Ages can help us see more clearly the problems, tensions and potential solutions in our own world. Along the way, we’ll learn the advantages—and limitations— that the discipline of History can bring to these topics.
Required reading:
 Hansen, Valerie and Kenneth Curtis. Voyages in World History, Vol. 1. Cengage Learning,
2016 (on sale at the UCen and on reserve at Davidson Library).
 Everything posted at the course GauchoSpace (gauchospace.ucsb.edu) website (readings and syllabus)
Course Requirements:
 Quizzes in lecture: 5%
 Paper (due 19 November; 1800 words, not counting footnotes, endnotes or parenthetical
 citations): 25% total
Midterm Exam (29 October): 20%
 Discussion Sections: 20%
 Final Exam: 30%:
 All the assigned reading is required, and you should read it before coming to class.
Required reading may include materials not listed on the syllabus.
 See GauchoSpace for information on the essay exams.
 You will receive the paper topics in section. Because this class fulfills the general education writing requirement, you cannot pass it unless you submit a paper of at least 1800 words
and it receives a passing grade (despite how well you may do on the other assignments).
Policies and Guidelines for Success:
1.
Lectures. Lectures present material that we require you to know, but isn’t’ in your textbook. Thus, it’s in your best interest to attend daily and to take notes.

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Textbook. The textbook provides a context for the lectures. We base the exams on the ancient sources and class lectures.
Etiquette. Although it has great acoustics, Campbell Hall is not a good classroom. Please help yourself and your fellow students concentrate by arriving on time, turning off your phone, not using your laptop and not talking or whispering in class. You’d be surprised how those sounds carry and how much they can distract us all. Even I can hear you.
Office hours. You don’t need an appointment to come to office hours. You can come with questions; but you can also drop by to talk about the course or any concerns or interests you might have. If office hours aren’t convenient, we can arrange to meet at another time.
Questions during lecture. Please raise your hand if you have a question, if you feel that
I’m speaking too fast, or if something is unclear. Don’t be shy!
Seating. Since there will be random quizzes in lecture, please sit in the seats reserved for your TA.
Section. Because there is always a high demand for this class, we will drop you from
section (and from the class) if you do not attend the first and second discussion sections.
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The exams must be taken at the scheduled times. If you have an emergency, however, you must let us know as soon as possible so that we can make other arrangements.
Late papers will be penalized a full letter grade per calendar day late. If you have an emergency, however, please let us know as soon as possible.
10.
I am always willing to re-evaluate your work, if you think that a grade was
assigned in error (although you must first ask this of your TA). If you would like your work reread, please resubmit it to your TA with a letter explaining why you think that you deserve a different grade, based on the criteria outlined in the sections on the exam or the
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paper. This should be a detailed analysis. If you are not able to reach resolution with your
TA on this issue, you may submit the material to me. When you ask for re-evaluation your mark could also be lowered.
Plagiarism (using the ideas of another as your own) is literary theft and will be dealt with according to university policy. It includes: using information off the internet without credit, using information from encyclopaedias without credit, using another person’s paper, using your own work submitted for another class,
paraphrasing or quoting information from any source without giving credit. If you have any questions about this matter, please see your TA or me. Plagiarism and cheating can lead to suspension or expulsion from the university.
12.
This course uses BCE/CE dating. Since the Middle Ages, the convention in the West has been to use the birth of Jesus as the point of departure for reckoning time. Consequently, events occurring before the year of Jesus’ birth were dated by counting backwards from this point and were designated B.C. (for “before Christ”). In this system, Julius Caesar was born in the year 100 B.C. and died in the year 44 B.C. Events after Jesus’ birth were dated by counting forward from this point and were designated A.D. (for “anno domini,” Latin for “in the year of our Lord”). In this system, Jesus was thought to have been born in the year 1
A.D. (there is no 0 B.C. or 0 A.D.). More recently, however, some historians have become uncomfortable with the Christian character of this system and have substituted CE (for
“common era”) for AD and BCE (for “before the common era”) for BC. Although the new system represents an effort to avoid a Christian-centered point of view, it is not perfect since, as you will have noticed, it continues to reckon time around the year in which medieval scholars thought Jesus was born. Nevertheless, I use this more recent system in class, despite its flaws, to acquaint you with the new convention.
Just so that you know what you’re getting into:
Don’t assume that an introductory course is easy. Introductory history classes are usually
quite difficult because the material is new and it covers a long period (4000 years, in our case).
History courses are also challenging because the reading is heavy (see below) and you have to have to know a fair amount of factual information for the exams. If you don’t think that you can devote enough time to reading the material and attending classes or if you have missed the
first two lectures, you will be better off in another course. Remember that the university
expects students to spend 3 hours working per week for every credit hour earned. Thus a
4-credit class such as this one will demand 12 hours of work per week, 4 for lecture and discussion, and 8 hours of outside preparation.

Note that the course schedule and procedures may change if circumstances require.
Calendar and Assignments
24 September (R): First day of class: What are we doing here?
Hansen & Curtis, chapter 1
GauchoSpace: “How to Read a Document,” “What is a Complex Society?” The Code of Ur-
Nammu
The Near East
29 September (T): Uruk and other Mesopotamian communities
Hansen & Curtis, chapter 2
GauchoSpace: The Epic of Gilgamesh, Inana’s Descent to the Netherworld , A Babylonian version of a Sumerian creation story, The Inscription of Entemena
1 October (R): Egypt: communities of the living; communities of the dead
GauchoSpace: The Hymn to the Nile, The Book of the Dead
6 October (T): Interactions and Comparisons: Hebrews and Egyptians
GauchoSpace: Genesis, Exodus, Psalm 104, The Great Hymn to the Aten, Tut-ankh-Amon’s
Restoration
8 October (R): Interactions and Comparisons: Hebrews, Mesopotamians and Egyptians
GauchoSpace: Hammurabi’s Code of Laws, The Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel, The Story of
China
Sinuhe
13 October (T): The character of ancient Chinese communities
Hansen & Curtis, chapter 4
GauchoSpace: Oracle Bone questions & answers, Pan Gu & Nu Wa, The Analects of Kong
Fuzi (Confucius), Dao-dejing, Sun Tzu, Art of War, Meng Tzu’s Sayings, Han Fei Zu’s writings
14 October (W): Last day to add
15 October (R): The character of early imperial China
GauchoSpace: Sima Qian’s letter to Ren An, Pan Chao’s Lessons for Women
The Greeks
20 October (T): The communities of Athens and Sparta
Hansen & Curtis, chapter 6
GauchoSpace: Hesiod’s Theogony, Homer’s Iliad
21 October (W): Last day to drop
22 October (R): Persian and Athenian interactions and the consequences
GauchoSpace: decree enforcing use of Athenian coins, Thucydides’ History of the
Peloponnesian War, excerpts from Plato’s Republic
The Americas and the Midterm
27 October (T): Midterm
29 October (R): Early communities in the Americas
Hansen & Curtis, chapter 5
GauchoSpace: Popol Vuh excerpt, Stele 31 (Tikal; analysis & image), The Dresden Codex

India
3 November (T): The character of early Indian communities
Hansen & Curtis, chapters 3, 8
GauchoSpace: Rig Veda 10:90, 129, To Indra; Chandogya Upanishad, The Mahabharata
(excerpt), Excerpts from the Ramayana, Laws of Manu
5 November (R): Interactions and Comparisons: Indians, Greeks and Chinese
GauchoSpace: Buddha’s Benares Sermon, Ashoka’s Fourteen Rock Edicts, Excerpts from
Megasthenes’ Indika
Rome
10 November (T): Rome as a multicultural community
Hansen & Curtis, chapter 7
GauchoSpace: The 12 Tables, Cicero’s Against Verres, Vergil’s Aeneid, Aelius Aristides’ To
Rome, Juvenal’s Third Satire
12 November (R): Interactions and Comparisons: Romans and Christians
GauchoSpace: The Gospel of Mark, Apuleius’ Golden Ass, Eusebius’ Church History,
Augustine’s City of God
Last day to change grading option
17 November (T): Interactions and Comparisons: Romans and Germans
GauchoSpace: Tacitus’ Germania; Ammianus Marcellinus, Roman History; Sidonius
Apollinaris, Letters; Huneric’s Edict
Late Ancient Multiculturalism
19 November (R): The communities of Arabia in the seventh century
Hansen & Curtis, chapter 9
GauchoSpace: The Qur’an, The Hadith
Papers due.
24 November (T): Interactions and comparisons: Muslims, Persians and Romans
GauchoSpace: al Tabari’s History, Justinian’s Digest
26 November (R): Thanksgiving holiday
1 December (T): Tang China
Hansen & Curtis, chapter 8 (re-read)
GauchoSpace: Prince Shotoku’s Constitution
New Patterns
3 December (R): The Franks and the interruption of urban life in the west
Hansen & Curtis, chapter 10
GauchoSpace: Benedict’s Rule, Einhard’s Life of Charlemagne, Suetonius’ Life of Augustus
8 December (T): Final Exam, 8-11 am