FSEM 189   Global War and Society

Faculty Profile for Professor Hyslop

Focuses on the impact of the First and Second World Wars on societies across the world. These catastrophic events led to the rise of the US to world economic dominance, the challenge of Soviet Communism to the global order, and the collapse of the European colonial empires. Understanding this period is therefore essential to our understanding of our own world. Students consider how these wars led to unprecedentedly brutal and technologically advanced forms of mass killing. But also look at how, paradoxically, they accelerated innovation and weakened social inequality. In addition, students look back to the colonial wars that preceded these great conflicts, and forward to the start of the Cold War, which followed them. Students consider how war was represented in film, art and literature, and how culture has shaped our view of war. Students are introduced to some of the basic concepts of history and sociology and the fundamental debates about how social change occurs. Students who successfully complete this seminar will satisfy one half of their Social Relations, Institutions, and Agents area of inquiry requirement.

Professor Jonathan Hyslop is a historian and sociologist. He is a graduate of the Universities of Oxford, Birmingham, London and the Witwatersrand. Before coming to Colgate, he spent most of his academic career in South Africa. In 2015-6, he was a visiting fellow at Humboldt University in Berlin. He is the author of many articles and book chapters on the history of southern Africa, warfare, ships and the sea, and labor.