HIST 383 History of the American West

3 Credit(s)

With a long and diverse story, the American West has a narrative people by many distinc indigenous peoples, Mexicans and Mexican Americans, Asians and Asian Americans, African Americans, and immigrants form Europeans countries. In this course, we will begin with indigenous peoples before the arrival of Europeans, and then examine their early contacts with the newcomers. The course will then explore an array of topics, including the Spanish in the southwest, the fur and hide trades, the westward expansion of the United States, gold rushes and the arrival of industrialization, farming and the Dust Bowl, the West as myth and commodity, and issues that remain central to the region today, such as American Indian sovereignty, urban growth, conservation, and immigration.