HHIS-291: Hist of Science & Technology

Everything, and everyone, has a history that informs our present and future. This history stretches back into the past, and every history has its own history. The influence of science has saturated social, cultural and political life around the world for centuries. This class is designed to introduce you to the history of science and technology, starting in the 16th century and going up through the twentieth century and into the 21st, and emphasizing the 19th and 20th centuries. The course topics will be global, although with an accent on Western science and technology. Rather than being comprehensive (an impossible task), we will work through six specific topics. Each of these topics has a long arc and covers a tremendous amount of useful breadth and depth, as follows: Biological evolution; the history of scientific illustration; the history of color and color theory; the history of models (the universe, evolution, revolutions in science, etc.); environmental history; and aerospace and the Cold War. We will also have several guest speakers, and visit several exhibits and libraries.