Early College at Guilford – HIST 104: Modern Times: The U.S. from 1877 to the Present

Apr 2026 · 2nd Semester

This course analyzes how the United States became a mature, industrialized consumer society, a haven for peoples from around the world, a welfare state and a global superpower. Studying both the benefits and costs of 20th century U.S. political and economic success enables students to understand some of the reasons why diverse social groups challenged the economic and political order. Fulfills humanities and social justice/environmental responsibility requirements; when HP precedes title, only fulfills historical perspectives and social justice/environmental responsibility requirements (1998). Fulfills arts/humanities and evaluating systems and environments requirements; when HP precedes title, only fulfills historical perspectives and evaluating systems and environments requirements (2019). **HIST 110. The Food and the West, c. 1000-Present. 4** “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are,” once quipped Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, an eighteenth-century Frenchman widely considered to be the father of modern food criticism. And with this, he said a mouthful. Indeed, an analysis of what a people eats reveals much, not only about who a people is today but also about who they were in the past. This course gets serious about food. Focusing on European and American foodways past and present (from c. 1000 to the present), it examines how trends and changes in trade, technology, culture, politics, and society transformed the food on European and American tables. Further, the course examines food as the maker of history, illuminating how food helped to reshape European and American economics, cultures, politics, and social relations. Through readings, analysis, and the preparation and eating of food itself, students in the course will explore why people of the past ate as they did and why Americans and Europeans eat as they do today. The course examines the outlines of food and culinary history and the central concepts used to analyze it through reading, analysis, and discussion of primary and secondary sources and through the preparation and eating of cuisine appropriate to particular time periods under study. Fulfills Embodied/Creative Engagement requirement.