The History of Now
About History 1: The History of 2025
How can we understand the events, ideas, and conflicts that have featured in the news cycle during the past year? "The History of 2025" offers historically informed reflections on this year's momentous events, providing an opportunity to understand our world in its historic context. Each week will feature a different History faculty member speaking on a major news topic of the year, showing what we can learn by approaching it from a historical perspective. The course is open to all students (newcomers and history veterans alike) who want to reflect on the challenges and opportunities of 2025, and who are curious to consider how studying history can offer a deeper and richer understanding of tumultuous times.
See HISTORY 1 on ExploreCourses
See HISTORY 1 on the Course Navigator
2025 Course Coordinator:
Professor Anne Twitty
Details:
- 1 unit, Credit/No Credit
- One lecture every week
- Attendance required
- Short readings may be posted in conjunction with lectures
- Tuesdays, 9:30-10:20 AM
- Lane History Corner (Building 200), Room 002
2025 Speakers and Topics:
September 23, 2025: Charles Petersen, What is an Elon Musk?
September 30, 2025: Jennifer Burns, How to Understand Trump's Tariffs
October 7, 2025: Steven Press, Trump and Greenland
October 14, 2025: Kathryn Olivarius, Anti-Vaxx America: MAHA and the Abuses of History
October 21, 2025: Partha Shil, Police Power in World History
October 28, 2025: Robert Crews, The Death of Humanitarianism?
November 11, 2025: Thomas S. Mullaney, AI Cold War? From ChatGPT to DeepSeek (and beyond)
November 18, 2025: Fiona Griffiths, How to Choose a Pope
December 2, 2025: Pedro A. Regalado, Migrants, Money, and Panic
The History of 2025
Anti-Vaxx America: MAHA and the Abuses of History
Kathryn Olivarius (October 14, 2025)
The History of 2024
9/24/24 | Professor Jonathan Gienapp, Why Does the US Have the Electoral College?
10/1/24 | Dr. Gili Kliger, The Past and Future of Reparations
10/8/24 | Professor Amir Weiner, Israel 2024: Domestic and External Challenges
10/15/24 | Professor James Campbell, The Struggle for Voting Rights
10/22/24 | Professor David Como, Electoral Politics: A Deep History - NO RECORDING
10/29/24 | Professor Mikael Wolfe, The Origins of the Climate Crisis and What's at Stake in the 2024 Presidential Election
11/12/24 | Professor Jennifer Burns, The Evolution of American Conservatism
11/19/24 | Professor Emeritus Joel Beinin, Understanding October 7, 2023 and Israel's War on the Gaza Strip
12/3/24 | Professor Ali Yaycıoğlu, A Global Election Year: The Dawn of a New Global Landscape - NO RECORDING
The History of 2023
9/26/23 | Professor Amir Weiner, Putin's War on Ukraine: Causes, Course, and Consequences
10/3/23 | Dr. Gil-li Vardi, War 2023: Is Conventional War Back?
10/10/23 | Professor Jennifer Burns, Money Matters: Milton Friedman and the Return of Inflation
10/17/23 | Professor Paula Findlen, Hot or Cold: Climate and Environment in the Early Modern World
10/24/23 | Professor Thomas Mullaney, The Taiwan Crisis: A Century in the Making
10/31/23 | Professor James Campbell, The Struggle Over Voting Rights - NO RECORDING
11/14/23 | Professor Robert Crews, The Global Drug Wars - NO RECORDING
11/28/23 | Professor Mikael Wolfe, Was the Global Climate Crisis Inevitable? What the Historical Record of Denial and Delay Can Tell Us
12/5/23 | Professor Emeritus Jack Rakove, A Scenario of Constitutional Failure: Gloomy Fears, Modest Hopes
The History of 2022
9/27/22 | Professor Amir Weiner, Putin's War: Causes, Course, and Consequences of the War in Ukraine
10/4/22 | Dr. Gil-li Vardi, War 2022: Is Conventional War Back?
11/11/22 | Professor Kathryn Olivarius, Fear and Abandonment: Remembering Yellow Fever, Syphilis, and HIV/AIDS in an Era of Long Covid and Monkeypox
11/18/22 | Professor Gabrielle Hecht, Trashed! A Waste History of our Planetary Predicament - NO RECORDING
10/25/22 | Professor Emeritus Estelle Freedman, The Unsettled History of Abortion in the U.S.
11/1/22 | Professor James Campbell, The Politics of White Supremacy: Historical Perspectives
11/15/22 | Professor Jonathan Gienapp, Constitutional Originalism and the U.S. Supreme Court: The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement
11/29/22 | Professor Jennifer Burns, American Conservatism in the Age of Trump
12/6/22 | Professor Thomas Mullaney, The Taiwan Crisis: a Century in the Making
The History of 2021
9/21/21 | Professor Kathryn Olivarius, Public Health as Public Wealth: Yellow Fever, Covid-19, and the Politics of Immunity
9/28/21 | Professor Thomas Mullaney, China’s Border Crises: Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the Legacies of Empire
10/5/21 | Professor Robert Crews, The Year the Afghan War Ended?
10/12/21 | Professor Jonathan Gienapp, Electing the U.S. President: The Electoral College
10/19/21 | Professors Amir Weiner & Nancy Kollmann, Russia’s Love Affair with Authoritarianism: From Ivan the Terrible to Putin
10/26/21 | Professor Parth Shil, Laboring Lives and the Pandemic in South Asia, c. 2020-21
11/9/21 | Professor Gordon Chang, Anti-Asian Violence in America
11/16/21 | Professor Paula Findlen, The Plague Generation: Love, Death, Healing and Friendship in a Time of Pandemic
11/30/21 | Professor James Campbell, Monumental Questions: Race, Memory and Monument in Modern America - NO RECORDING
