Online Graduate Certificate in Ancient and Classical History

This course is a comprehensive seminar in world history designed to provide a foundation in historical theory, trends, and concepts for further study of topical history at the graduate level. Students examine the broad sweep of world history, major interpretive questions in world historiography, and major periods of interaction between civilizations. This course is not designed as a refresher of undergraduate history survey courses; rather, it is a concentrated study of world history for serious history students and professionals.

This course is a study of Greek civilization from its beginnings to the collapse of the independent city-states in the 4th century BC. Emphasis is on ancient Greece’s constitutional, political, economic, social, diplomatic, military, artistic, philosophical and intellectual dynamics. Key topics include the Greek way of land and naval warfare, maritime trade and the economy, Peloponnesian and Persian Wars, the "Age of Pericles" and the Classical Age of Athens, the rise and fall of Spartan power, the rise of Athenian democracy, and the impact of Ancient Greece on the evolving Western Civilization.

This course is a study of Roman civilization from its beginnings to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. The course emphasizes ancient Rome's constitutional, political, economic, social, diplomatic, military, naval, maritime, artistic, architectural, engineering, legal, philosophical and intellectual dynamics. Key topics include the Roman way of land and naval warfare, maritime trade and the economy, Punic and Gallic Wars, imperial expansion, transition from Republic to Empire, the Imperial system, Republic and Imperial constitutions, and the impact of Ancient Rome on the evolving Western Civilization.

This course covers the period from the eighth century B.C. colonization of the Mediterranean and the founding of the Byzantium seaport in 667 B.C. through the First and Second Golden Ages, to the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the Ottoman Turks. The roles of great Byzantium leaders such as Constantine the Great, the spread of Christianity throughout the Roman Empire, the recapture of Constantinople from the crusaders, and the impact of Byzantium culture on Western intellect are studied.

This course is a study of European social, political, economic and religious institutions and cultural and intellectual phenomena in the light of the changing historical environment from the end of the Ancient World to the Renaissance. Students examine major milestones from roughly 300 to 1500 AD. Special emphasis includes the importance of the Crusades, development of the Mediterranean as an important venue for the exchange of goods and ideas, and changes in medieval military organization, strategy and technology.

This course examines the history of the Renaissance as a European wide movement emanating from the Italian peninsula; the crisis of the church medieval and the rise of the Renaissance papacy; Humanism, with special emphasis on the great painters, architects, and sculptors; the Renaissance city-states, Machiavelli, and the Renaissance monarchies of France, England, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire; the continuing crisis of the church medieval and the religious upheavals of Protestantism; the work of Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and the Anabaptists; the Catholic Reformation; the age of civil and religious wars.