Political History: Revolutions and Founding Ideas

About this course

This course tells the story of the big ideas behind modern government. You will start in the ancient world with Athens, Rome, and the Magna Carta, then meet the Enlightenment thinkers who designed democratic government, and then watch their ideas explode into the American and French Revolutions. In the second half you will study the modern movements that widened democracy, from the civil rights movement to womens suffrage, and you will see how democracy expanded, collapsed, and recovered across the twentieth century.

Course outline