1:00-2:15P     TR     BH005

A portion of the above section reserved for majors
Above section carries culture studies credit

This course investigates the way people lived, worked, and thought in
Europe in the century and a half before the French and industrial
revolutions.  That was an era of stark contrasts:  the opulence of
princes and some nobles and the poverty of the many; sophistication
yet naiveté, skepticism yet also credulity in thought and beliefs;
princes who professed to be absolute in the powers they exercised yet
who had less authority than present-day states that profess to be
democratic.  We will investigate these contrasts, concentrating on
absolutism, reason (the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment),
society, and culture.  Lectures, readings, and a term paper.  Open to
non-majors.