History

The Great Conversation I: Ancient History and the History of Western Thought (9th grade)

The overriding objective of this course is to provide students with a vocabulary for understanding the classics and classical education and explore timeless ideas like equality before the law and the nature of human freedom. Students will be taught the Socratic Method and be exposed to the writings of Plato, Aristotle and Cicero. These include Platoʹs The Apology, the Allegory of the Cave and Aristotleʹs The Politics. The course will focus on the development of the Judaic Christian tradition and the ancient Greek and Roman experience. Students will be become familiar with the Peloponnesian War, the importance of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero and Julius Caesar in history. The decline and fall of the Roman Empire will be highlighted. By the end of the course students will come to know and understand the values and ideals traditionally associated with Western Civilization as well as be able to present and analyze them in both writing and orally. They will understand, perhaps most importantly, the contemporary relevance of the classics of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome to the founding of the American Republic and the American democracy.

The Great Conversation II: European History (10th grade)

The course is designed to help students better understand the values and ideals traditionally associated with Western Civilization as those values and ideals developed through European history. The course will focus on the development of the Judaic Christian tradition and the ancient Greek and Roman experience. Students will be become familiar with the Peloponnesian War, the importance of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero and Julius Caesar in history. The decline and fall of the Roman Empire will be highlighted. The development of representative government as a product of feudalism will be highlighted as will the importance of the Italian City‐States in the development of republicanism. Careful attention will be given to the struggle with Islam, the Crusades, 14th century plague, the Investiture Crisis and the Albigensian Crusade the development of the Italian Renaissance, the Reformation, the Thirty Year War and the Peace of Westphalia and the Westphalian State system it produced. Also highlighted will be the Copernican and Scientific Revolutions, the Puritan and Glorious Revolutions, the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, the Reign of Terror, the rise of Napoleon, the development of Nationalism, Capitalism, Liberalism, Conservatism, Romanticism, Socialism, Communism and Fascism. The conditions that gave rise to World War I, the Russian Revolution, World War II and the Holocaust will be carefully reviewed. Special attention will be given to the creation of post‐war European institutions like NATO and the European Union. Special attention will also be given to the fall of the Soviet Union, “ethnic cleansing” in the former Yugoslavian nationstate, the Syrian refugee crisis, ISIS and the War on Terror, Brexit and European nativism and populism. The aim of the course is demonstrate the contemporary relevance of history and the importance of the Western intellectual tradition in today’s world.

The Great Conversation III: American History and AP US History (11th grade)

The course is a survey course of American History from the Age of Exploration to the Present Day. The goal of the first half of the year is to cover major topics up to the turn of the 20th century, starting with Englandʹs rise to power and the establishment of her colonies in North America until the rise of big corporations and trusts after the industrial revolution in the late 19th century. There will be a focus on the founding of our nation through an examination of our two founding documents and consideration that went into the Constitutionʹs ratification as outlined in selected essays taken from the Federalist Collection. Careful reflection on the their history studies of the 9th and 10th grades will link the content of this portion of the Great Conversation with what they have already studied. Attention will also be paid to the causes leading up to the Civil War and Reconstruction Amendments that followed it. The second half of the course will begin with events leading up to and causing the two world wars and our involvement in them as well as a look at the Great Depression and FDRʹs New Deal policies that were meant to address it. It will end after considering the policies of the Cold War, including the Containment and Rollback of Communism, the collapse of Communism and the end of the Cold War, and finish with major events and players instrumental in ushering in the current ʺwar on terrorʺ in the post‐9/11 world and issues such as immigration and border security.

The Great Conversation IV: American Government & Economics (12th grade)

This Senior class will study American history from 1890s until the 1990s. The goal of the course will be to focus attention on the political philosophies and economic policies prevalent during the past 100 years which have led recent administration to the policies they have pursued. Major topics will include the rise of industrialization and the formation of trusts and corporations that encouraged significant immigration from overseas and inspired reform movements including but not limited to Progressivism, Socialism, and Organized Labor. The causes of and our participation in the two World Wars of the 20th century will be covered as well as the Great Depression and New Deal programs of FDRʹs unique tenure as president between the wars. The Cold War and our involvement in the hot wars of Korea and Vietnam, along with the policies of Containment and Rollback of Communism will dominate discussion of the 1950s thru the 1980s. Influential Supreme Court cases will be discussed and used as a framework around which Americaʹs political evolution can be examined. The course can prepare students for the AP in American Government.

American Foreign Policy (12th Grade)

The objective of this course is to help students understand the complexities involved in the practice of American Foreign Policy. The course will look at the practice of foreign policy from the standpoint of some of its leading practitioners. These include, but are not limited to Brent Scowcroft, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Richard Haas, John Quincy Adams, Gen. George Marshall, Samantha Power, Henry Kissinger, and George Kennan. The course will also examine the interrelation between foreign policy and democratic civics, history, science, economics, cultural anthropology, and political philosophy.