history
The College Prep history program engages students through an integrated approach that emphasizes interconnections between different regions of the world. A three-year required sequence of courses—Asian Worlds, The Atlantic World, and The U.S. and the World—is designed to deepen students’ understanding of history, strengthen their sophistication of thinking, and build the skills of writing, group work, public speaking, and independent research.
By developing an understanding of systems of power and oppression that shape our society, students are empowered to have agency in their own lives and affect positive change in their communities.
The department also offers a variety of optional electives for juniors and seniors. Through these courses, students learn how historians and social scientists use evidence, construct arguments, relate their findings to the work of other scholars, and examine differing historical and theoretical viewpoints. Students have opportunities to become scholars, reconstruct events, and build their own historical arguments.
required history courses
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Asian Worlds (9th grade)
Nearly half of the human population lives in the rapidly growing nations of Asia, shifting the world’s economic and political center of gravity eastward. Asian Worlds provides a thorough understanding of the historical forces that have shaped, and continue to shape, the major powers of Asia. This course explores the philosophical, religious, and political movements that have profoundly influenced the evolution of cultural identity in China and South Asia. Students learn how trade, diplomacy, and war facilitated the rapid spread of ideas from the Steppes of Central Asia to the shores of Japan. The course follows the arc of Asian history from the emergence of the first great empires up to the twenty-first century, culminating in the exploration of important contemporary topics like globalization, environmental degradation, women’s rights, economic development, and political protest. Students read primary sources, monographs, and scholarly articles while honing their analytical skills and growing as writers, thinkers, and collaborators. Throughout the course students are asked to reflect on how history intersects with their own lived identities and are challenged with the intellectual responsibility of using the past to understand the present. -
The Atlantic World (10th grade)
This course focuses on the traditions, ideas, and interactions among the peoples of Africa, Europe, and the Americas from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries, a period of history that has fundamentally shaped our modern world. This broad geographic scope across a relatively restricted time period encourages students to make connections among histories that at first may seem isolated from one another. This transnational approach deepens students’ understanding of exploration and colonialism, the role of the environment in shaping history, the costs and the legacies of the transatlantic slave trade, the influences of religion and belief systems, and the interplay of Atlantic revolutions. Indigenous primary source materials are frequently used. Students practice group collaboration, independent research, persuasive writing, public speaking, and advanced reading comprehension across centuries of writing styles. -
The U.S. and the World (11th grade)
What is the United States of America? How do Americans define themselves, their nation, and its position on the global stage? How have those definitions changed over time? Continuing from the discussions of slavery and comparative revolutions in The Atlantic World, this final required course in the College Prep history sequence constructs a narrative of the American experiment with a focus on the twentieth century. The course explores core questions through historical and historiographical study. Students examine and analyze a wide range of primary sources, evaluate and challenge the arguments of historians, and explore and reinterpret pivotal events and issues. Term papers and assignments give students meaningful choice in the questions they pursue, the perspectives they examine, and the forms their work takes. In this course, students do not receive a narrative of U.S. history, they build one.
History Electives
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Applied Studies: Power, Policy, and Politics
While federal institutions frequently experience partisan gridlock, local municipal leaders utilize the power of democratic governance to benefit local communities. This applied learning course invites students to participate directly in that process by developing public policy that connects constituents to essential resources. The curriculum begins in the spring semester, focusing on political science theory, skill-building, and the history and structural framework of California’s state and municipal governments. During this period, students refine resumes and interview strategies to secure summer internship opportunities within various Bay Area jurisdictions. The cohort reconvenes in the fall to analyze the policy challenges facing the region, culminating in the creation of policy briefs and formal presentations designed to drive positive community change. Through this experiential track, students develop critical skills in professional collaboration while gaining a practical understanding of the complexities of modern policymaking. -
Applied Studies: Social Transformations—Oakland (STOak)
STOak is a community-based experiential learning course that features a unique summer internship that focuses on social or environmental justice. STOak is hands-on and project-based, with a mix of structured course work, field trips, group discussions, and independent research. Students engage with Oakland’s past and present through a lens of indigenous history, social justice movements, and community development. Students research the social, political, and economic landscape of their topic while learning the professional conduct they will practice in their summer internships at community-based organizations.
During the internship, students are paired with mentors to learn how their organization operates and to support its mission. The program concludes in the fall when students share their experiences with one another and prepare a formal presentation for the College Prep community. Students emerge from STOak well-versed in local history and current events, with concrete professional experience, increased leadership skills, and the confidence to positively impact their community. -
Ethics and Artificial Intelligence
With rapid advancements in technology transforming daily routines from scheduling to dating, artificial intelligence has rapidly moved firmly from science fiction into reality. While tech enthusiasts champion AI as a tool for optimization, critics warn of mass unemployment and the erosion of human individuality. This seminar applies introductory ethical frameworks to analyze public polarities and evaluate where society should integrate, restrict, or monitor AI technology. After establishing an ethical baseline, students examine the material consequences of automation across various industries. Texts include classical philosophical synopses by Aristotle, Kant, Bentham, and Sartre, alongside contemporary tech journalism and provocative science fiction. -
Asian American History
This seminar explores the history of Asian Americans from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, examining how diverse communities from East, South, and Southeast Asia have shaped—and been shaped by—the American experience. Centering on how immigrants and their descendants have challenged definitions of American citizenship and identity, the course introduces students to key historiographical debates. Major units track the context of Asian migration, early labor challenges, and community responses to systemic hostility. Core themes include empire, race, community formation, and the profound domestic impact of U.S. foreign policy. The semester concludes with a student-led inquiry project investigating local community oral histories and contemporary social issues. -
Economics
Economics is an inescapable part of daily life, influencing everything from summer travel plans during an oil price spike to post-graduation career opportunities during a recession. This course provides a comprehensive overview of both microeconomics and macroeconomics. The microeconomics unit examines how individuals and firms allocate time and capital, exploring price determination, taxation, and market structures. The macroeconomics unit shifts to large-scale global phenomena, including unemployment, inflation, and international trade. In addition to a collaborative stock market simulation project students learn the causes, lingering effects, and systemic risks of the financial crises era.
I’ve been interested in law, justice, and government for a long time, but ConLaw reaffirmed all of that passion for me. I suddenly saw social justice issues through a new lens: the law and the Constitution."
History Electives
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A Global History of Consumer Culture
Consumer culture pervades modern daily life, from the curated brands of water bottles students bring to school to the targeted social media algorithms and influencers shaping personal identities online. Although these commercial forces feel entirely natural today, they are the product of distinct historical developments. This course tracks the global evolution of mass consumption since the eighteenth century, comparing the production, marketing, and social meaning of consumer goods across different historical eras and demographic groups. By analyzing advertisements, material objects, and industrial fiction, students uncover the historical roots of modern consumerism and evaluate what makes contemporary commodity culture uniquely distinct from its past iterations. -
History of Capitalism
This seminar explores the historical emergence, ideological evolution, and systemic logic of capitalism as an economic and cultural structure. Students review how twentieth-century historians approached markets as objects of analysis. Key units cover the foundational relationship between capitalism and slavery, the mid-century global turn toward neoliberalism, and the analytical frameworks of “racial capitalism.” By investigating these systemic boundaries, students gain a critical understanding of global markets and are positioned to analyze how economic structures intersect with the modern climate crisis. -
Liberalism and Its Discontents
This course traces the historical emergence and evolution of liberalism as a dominant political philosophy, economic framework, and social structure. Students examine the historical conditions that birthed the liberal state, analyzing how it was continually contested by monarchist and fascist movements on its right, and socialist and communist movements on its left. Integrating political theory and intellectual history, students engage with Enlightenment thinkers, map the normalization of liberal hegemony, and use the United States as a primary case study for the ongoing contest between mainstream liberalism and its radical alternatives. -
Race in Latin American History
This course examines the evolution and significance of race in Latin America from the colonial era to the present. The curriculum begins with a theoretical exploration of race as a concept before analyzing the specific racial regimes established by the Spanish and Portuguese crowns, alongside the resistance strategies engineered by popular classes. Students track how key historical figures defined and redefined racial parameters in the post-independence era, paying close attention to the impact of anti-colonial wars, the formation of nationalist identities, and the frequent disjuncture between official state ideologies and material realities. The course culminates in an independent project exploring the contemporary political and social significance of race in the region. -
U.S. Constitutional Law
American constitutional law is explored through both historical and contemporary lenses, focusing primarily on the constitutional text and historic Supreme Court decisions. Students examine the legal guarantees of individual rights and civil liberties that underpin modern socio-political controversies, including free speech, abortion, and the rights of the criminally accused. The course also explores the institutional allocation of authority, analyzing the balance of power across federal branches and between state and federal governments. Rooted heavily in rigorous legal and historical analysis, the seminar culminates in a written and oral moot court simulation where students draft an appellate brief and argue their case before a judge.
the history program
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history department faculty
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