This course is a broad study of human history. It will touch on the major developments of human civilization across the globe. Roughly equal attention will be paid to each region and period covered, giving students a wider perspective of the events and people that shaped our world. Particular focus will be on the development of historical thinking and writing skills, which will prepare students for future history courses at University High School and beyond.

The AP World History: Modern course is a global study of human history, concentrating on the period between 1200 C.E. and the present. Given such a breadth of time and geography, the course is organized to focus on developing students’ skills of historical analysis using a thematic approach. It is taught at the level of a college survey course, and it follows the guidelines provided by College Board’s Advanced Placement program. As such, the academic expectations, amount of reading and writing, and testing are significantly greater than in the regular World History course.

If we want to understand our country and ourselves, we need to know the character of the land and why people in this country act as they do. Therefore, this course covers the major political, social, economic, diplomatic, and military events that shaped life in the United States. The course will focus on more modern topics. The first semester will begin with an investigation of some of the foundational ideas of the country (by looking at the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Reconstruction Amendments), then move to the “Gilded Age” following the Civil War, and end with the Second World War. The second semester will begin with the changes in American life in the 1950s and will end with an overview of the US in the early 21st century.

The focus on more modern topics will allow for two primary goals to be met. First, we’ll see more clearly where the factors directly affecting our lives today came from. Second, there will be room for small group or individual investigation of topics of special interest. The course requires students to learn specific factual material, using primary and secondary sources, then analyze and synthesize that information through taking tests, writing essays, writing papers, and completing projects.

This course has the same fundamental rationale as the regular US History course, namely that if we want to understand our country and ourselves, we need to know the character of the land and why people in this country act as they do. This course, however, is more demanding than regular US History and is taught with the academic expectations and rigor of a first-year college course. Consequently, the amount of reading, testing, and writing is significantly more than the regular US History course. The AP US History course covers the historical development of the US from colonial times to the 21st century. Students must study and comprehend many specific historical events from this time span, as well as understand and connect them through the eight themes of US history called out by the College Board: American and national identity, work, exchange, and technology, geography and the environment, migration and settlement, politics and power, America in the world, American and regional culture, and social structures.

The Cold War ranged from 1945 to 1991, involving a great deal of the world. The threat of nuclear war, the orientation of society, entertainment, and politics around ideology, the use of covert political operations, and the use of outright military force pervaded this age. While the conflict centered around the United States and the Soviet Union, the course will also look at how other countries both viewed the standoff and were affected by it. Topics for this course will include the “hot wars” (including Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan), decolonization and the effect of the Cold War on the “Third World,” the Red Scare and how the Cold War affected entertainment, and the effects the Cold War had on countries beyond the US and USSR, from Latin America, to Africa, to the Middle East, and to Asia. As sources, the course will use primary and secondary texts, as well as excerpts from appropriate literature, film, and television.

This course will provide an introduction to both microeconomics and macroeconomics. Students will learn how individuals and businesses make economic decisions as well as how entire countries respond to economic dilemmas. In the process, students will study fundamental topics such as opportunity cost, supply and demand, trade, monopolies, poverty, unemployment, inflation, recessions, the banking system, investing, how government policies impact the economy, and many others.