HIS · Columbia University
Heavy readings, usually between 80-120 pages, required discussion section, a midterm and a final (take-home, 2 essays).
Overview of different regions and periods in history, and lots of different ways of writing history.
This class is amazing, if you approach it in the right way. Tooze lectures for the entirety of class but the key is not to get bogged down in the details of his lectures. The midterm and final are two essays for each, and are both take-home, which means that there is no need to take notes on everything during class. You can always return to the slides later if you need a specific detail. Instead, you should try and grasp the overarching argument that he's making in each lecture, and do most of the readings, so that when you have to write your own essay, you can make an argument. Despite the density of his lectures, Tooze provides enlightening insights into Germany's history of militarism, specifically in his lectures on Nazism, where he argues that the Nazi's alleged military invention, the Blitzkreig, is nothing more than a propaganda myth. I would recommend taking this class if you really like history and are fine listening to lengthy lectures.
I think, between the two offerings for Approaches this year, Tooze is less work, but Chamberlain is more educational. Tooze's course requires no weekly contribution outside of seminar participation. In comparison, Chamberlain's section seemed much more structured. If you preferred the hands-off approach of a celebrity professor, take Tooze. lf you want someone who will guide you to think about the themes of the course and teach you to structure an argument about international history, take Chamberlain.
The readings are a lot I think one time he just assigned us to read the entirety of Mein Kampf in like a week. We had a midterm and final paper all based off of the readings so no outside research.
I acquired an important mass of historical knowledge in a lot of different fields: history of ideas, history of science and technology, political history, etc. I also learned more on historiography and how history is written and how to write history.
Never went to office hours so can't judge his personality but he was pretty friendly and always made time at the end of class for questions. He is super knowledgable and has a lot of interesting stories about the figures we talk about in class. The only difficulty was that he talks kind of fast and goes through the material quickly which can be hard if you are totally unfamiliar with european history. But it's definitely doable if you're willing to put in the work.
We gained a variety of perspectives about Approaches to International History. The book selection made by Professor Tooze was very interesing and covered an array of topics and approaches.
Heavy lectures and readings. Midterm and final.
This class was one of the highlights of my semester and I can only recommend it if you want to acquire in a short amount of time a lot of knowledge on history and historiography. While the workload is certainly a lot (one book to read each semester and a small discussion post on it), it is gratifying. 1 Columbia University: Arts & Sciences Fall 2023 Course: HISTGR8930_002_2023_3-APPROACHESTOINTL/GLOBALHIST : HISTGR8930_002_2023_3 - APPROACHES TO INTL/GLOBAL HIST Instructor: Adam Tooze