You may return to the course syllabus.

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GOALS and STUDENT OUTCOMES

1. At the end of the semester, students should understand:
   
   • The development of a major civilization from its beginnings in the 8th century of the Christian Era to about A.D. 1700.
   • The use by this civilization's leaders of the surviving works of ancient Greeks, Romans, and Christians in formulating responses to their own problems.
   • The impact of interactions with other regions of the world.
   
   
2. Students should not think of this course as a task to be checked off on their way toward graduation. The course is part of a process which, upon graduation, should leave students in confident possession of skills of thought and expression that can be utilized in achieving professional and personal goals. For example, the culmination of the programs for HISTORY MAJORS is History 491, "Seminar," in which each student must undertake a creative, original research project and present the results. To get to the point where they can do such work, students must learn to pose important historical questions, to discover in primary and secondary sources the information necessary to answer these questions, to formulate hypotheses based on this information and defend them, and to present coherently in writing the final thesis and its defense.

   This course is designed as a beginning of this process of cognitive and expressive development. You will have an opportunity to learn how to discover information from primary and secondary sources. PRIMARY SOURCES are those that were produced in the historical period being studied, such as the documents in the Hexter book and in the course Workbook. SECONDARY SOURCES are those more recent works written to explain to you earlier periods, such as the book by Chambers et al you have purchased for this course.

   For each course topic, you will find an assignment page like this one. Treat the questions as DISCOVERY QUESTIONS to focus your quest for information in the primary and secondary sources you are assigned to read. As you acquire information to answer a question, try to formulate hypotheses you think you could defend on the basis of what you have learned about the subject. If you engage in this process on a regular basis, keeping to the course's schedule, you will do beautifully.

Civilization and Superiority

ID: Herodotus of Halicarnassus (ca. 480?-ca. 420 B.C.E.); Persian Wars (499-479 B.C.E.); Darius (r. 521-486 B.C.E.), Xerxes (r. 486-465 B.C.E.), democracy-oligarchy-monarchy, reductionist stereotypes, paradigm-model-discourse, Classical culture, Christian culture, Germanic culture

1. Why did Herodotus include in his History anecdotes such as that about Xerxes's meeting with Pythius the Lydian?
2. Why did Herodotus attribute to Persian rebel leaders like Otanes, Megabyzus and Darius such an obviously Greek political debate?
3. For Greek democracy to work in the 5th century B.C.E., citizens had to be willing to dedicate a high percentage of their time to political affairs. Why were they willing to do so?
4. Why were common citizens able to gain so much influence over the government of 5th century B.C.E. Athens?
5. Why did chattel slavery and high levels of individual freedom coexist in the ancient Greek democracies?
6. Why was the role of women so restricted in the typical Greek polis?

READING

Send any questions or comments to (owenjack@isu.edu), or you may send me a message now. Please include your name and e-mail address in the body of your message.

All contents copyright © 1995-2000.
J. B. Owens
All rights reserved.

Revised:  15 August 2000

URL:  http://www.isu.edu/~owenjack/westciv/wcsyl.01.html