How could the Americans ever hope defeat the mighty British Empire in a military conflict? Americans faced seemingly impossible obstacles. When the guns fired at Lexington and Concord in 1775, there was not yet even a Continental Army. Those battles were fought by local militias. Few Americans had any military experience, and there was no method of training, supplying, or paying an army.

The British seemed unbeatable. During the previous 100 years, the British had enjoyed triumph after triumph over nations as powerful as France and Spain. At first glance, the odds were clearly against the Americans. A closer look provides insight into how the underdogs emerged victorious.

During the war years, those Americans not involved in warfare were doing their best just trying to survive. Farmers continued to grow food, artisans continued to practice their trades, and merchants attempted to maintain their businesses. Despite efforts to maintain business as usual, the entire social landscape was changed.

The Battle of Saratoga was the turning point of the Revolutionary War. The scope of the victory is made clear by a few key facts: On October 17, 1777, 5,895 British and Hessian troops surrendered their arms. General John Burgoyne had lost 86 percent of his expeditionary force that had triumphantly marched into New York from Canada in the early summer of 1777.

The war for American independence began with military conflict in 1775 and lasted at least until 1783 when the peace treaty with the British was signed. In fact, Native Americans in the west (who were allied with the British, but not included in the 1783 negotiations) continued to fight and didn't sign a treaty with the United States until 1795. The Revolution was a long, hard, and difficult struggle.

In the early days of 1776, most Americans were naďve when assessing just how difficult the war would be. Great initial enthusiasm led many men to join local militias where they often served under officers of their own choosing. Yet, these volunteer forces were not strong enough to defeat the British Army, which was the most highly trained and best equipped in the world. Furthermore, because most men preferred serving in the militia, the Continental Congress had trouble getting volunteers for General George Washington's Continental Army. This was in part because, the Continental Army demanded longer terms and harsher discipline.

New taxes placed on whiskey to increase federal revenue cut deeply into ordinary people's livelihood. In the newly settled backcountry, poverty was widespread. For farmers to survive economically, they needed to convert bulky corn and grain into more easily transported whiskey. The new taxes debilitated this crucial economic resource for many frontier settlers from New York to Georgia.

Rather than continue to use the exigencies of war to build his own popularity and to justify the need for strong federal authority, Adams opened negotiations with France when the opportunity arose to work toward peace. Reconciling with France during the critical campaign of 1800 enraged many Federalists, including Adams' own secretary of state who repeatedly refused to send peace commissioners to France.

Technically speaking, "Iroquois" refers to a language rather than a particular tribe. In fact, the Iroquois consisted of five tribes prior to European colonization. Their society serves as an outstanding example of political and military organization, complex lifestyle, and an elevated role of women.

While western movement and policies were reshaping the republic, European wars also presented a major challenge to the new country. The Napoleonic Wars (1802-1815) were a continuation of the conflict begun in the 1790s when Great Britain lead a coalition of European powers against Revolutionary France, though France was now led by the brilliant military strategist Napoleon Bonaparte. As had also been true in the 1790s, neither European superpower respected the neutrality of the United States. Instead, both tried to prevent U.S. ships from carrying goods to their enemy. Both Britain and France imposed blockades to limit American merchants, though the dominant British navy was clearly more successful.

In the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, the first white settlers in America inhabited the eastern seaboard. There the whites either made treaties with the Native American groups to buy land or they forcibly took Indian land. By the Revolution's end and on into the early 19th century, Native Americans were being displaced across the Appalachians and toward what is today the Midwest. For these exiled groups, there were few places left to go.

This course explores the reasons for America's past wars and interventions. It covers the consequences of American policies, and evaluates these consequences for the U.S. and the world. History covered includes World Wars I and II, the Korean and Indochina wars, the Cuban Missile Crisis and current conflicts, including those in in Iraq and Afghanistan, and against Al Qaeda.

Issues of war and peace from an anthropological perspective. Topics include: the warlike nature of humans, if humans are by nature warlike, the evolution of war in cross-cultural perspective, the socialization of warriors and the construction of enemies, and the recent emergence of anti-war movements. Readings focus on sociobiological and other theories of war; anthropologists' claims to have studied societies that do not have war; ethnic hatred and civil war in Rwanda, Bosnia, and Northern Ireland; military culture in the U.S. and elsewhere; peace movements; and studies of military conversion.

This course examines the causes of war, with a focus on practical measures to prevent and control war. Topics include causes and consequences of misperception by nations; military strategy and policy as cause of war; religion and war; U.S. foreign policy as a cause of war and peace; and the likelihood and possible nature of great wars in the future.

The historical cases covered include World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Seven Years' War, the Arab-Israel conflict, other recent Mideast wars, and the Peloponnesian War.

The goal of this seminar is to have open discussions of controversial political and social issues and raise awareness of current world events in an informal setting. Discussions for the first part of each class will focus on current events from that week, while in the second part of class students will discuss a scheduled issue in greater detail. Scheduled issues include the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the regulation of marijuana, how our society should punish criminals, genocide in Rwanda and Sudan, discrimination in our society today, the future of social security, whether pornography is sexist, and where we can go from here in the Arab/Israeli Conflict. Discussions will be supplemented by readings, films, and public speakers. Students will also be encouraged to read news media from around the world.

Complementary to 21L.001. A broad survey of texts; literary, philosophical, sociological; studied to trace the growth of secular humanism, the loss of a supernatural perspective upon human events, and changing conceptions of individual, social, and communal purpose. Stresses appreciation and analysis of texts that came to represent the common cultural possession of our time.

Examines interactions across the Eurasian continent between Russians, Chinese, Mongolian nomads, and Turkic oasis dwellers during the last millennium and a half. As empires rose and fell, religions, trade, and war flowed back and forth continuously across this vast space. Britain and Russia competed for power over Eurasia in the "Great Game" of geopolitics in the nineteenth century, just as China, Russia, and others did in the twentieth century. Today, the fall of the Soviet Union and China's reforms have opened new opportunities for cultural interaction. Topics include: the religious traditions of Central Asian Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, and Confucianism; caravans and travelers like Marco Polo and Rabban Sauma, the first Chinese to travel to the West; and nomadic conquest and imperialist competition, past and present. Source materials include primary documents, travelogues, films, music, and museum visits.

This course examines systematically, and comparatively, great and middle power military interventions, and candidate military interventions, into civil wars from the 1990s to the present. These civil wars did not easily fit into the traditional category of vital interest. These interventions may therefore tell us something about broad trends in international politics including the nature of unipolarity, the erosion of sovereignty, the security implications of globalization, and the nature of modern western military power.