How do you make sure that your nation is capable of defending its liberty in a way that allows the inhabitants of that nation to enjoy the fruits of that liberty? For many people in the early modern Atlantic world, the answer to that question was the militia, a military unit composed of full-time citizens who were also part-time soldiers. The citizen-soldier was considered an answer to many of the problems facing early modern society, and as a result the laws of that era guaranteed the ability of citizens’ access to weapons while limiting the ability of individual rulers to control armies. Nations that wrote many of their laws during the early modern era continue to live under many of those laws despite the intervening changes in both living conditions and weapons technology – a situation true for many nations but most noticeably for the United States.

This course will seek to understand the development of the ideas and ideals of the militia and the citizen-soldier in the early modern world, starting with the myths of the ancient world that became prevalent during the Renaissance, and then follow their adventures in the United States during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, before ending with a look at the politics of weapons access in today’s America. Along the way, the course will look at many related topics, including the way that ancient and medieval societies served as a model for the early modern world; the rise of the republican tradition in Renaissance Italy and in seventeenth-century England; the impact of the English, American and French Revolutions; the impact of the American Civil War of the 1860s and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s; and developments in the contemporary United States. Thematically, it will look at the question of citizenship and its limitations; the relationship between weapons access and status, particularly as regards to social class, religious affiliation, and race; and the relationship between militias and codes of masculinity.

The majority of readings will be selections from primary texts. Students are encouraged, but not required, to read the secondary texts listed as “supplemental readings.” All readings will be available on-line, either as links to external content or as .pdf files on the course site. Although the primary goal of the course is to understand the history of militias and citizens’ access to weapons, a parallel goal will be to work on how to interpret primary texts as an historian would, by putting them into their historical context.

SCHEDULE AND READING ASSIGNMENTS

Week 1: Rulers, Subjects, and Soldiers – or Citizen-Soldiers?

Week 2: The Ancient Legacies: Sparta and the Roman Republic.

        Readings: Plutarch, “Lycurgus” and “Julius Caesar,” selections; Pericles’ Funeral Oration, from Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War; Livy, The History of Rome, selections from book 22 (The Second Punic War)

Week 3: Medieval Europe: Legends and Legacies

        Readings: Tacitus, Germania, selections; The Assize of Arms

Week 4: The Military Revolution and the Renaissance Rediscovery of the Ancient World

        Readings: Machiavelli, selections from The Prince, The Discourses on Livy, and The Art of War

        Supplemental Readings: Roberts, “The Military Revolution”

Week 5: Divergent Trajectories: England and France in the Seventeenth Century

        Readings: Vindiciae contra tyrannos, selections; The Political Testament of Cardinal Richelieu, selections; Fletcher of Saltoun, “A Discourse of Government with Relation to Militias”; The English Bill of Rights of 1689

Week 6: The Colonization of North America and the Rise of the American Militia

        Readings: Selections form early colonials laws and regulations; Benjamin Franklin, “The Plain Truth.”       

        Supplemental Readings: Shy, “A New Look at the Colonial Militia”

Week 7: The American Revolution and the Road to the Second Amendment

        Readings: The Quartering Acts; Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, selections; George Washington, Collected Works, selections; Selected texts on Shay’s Rebellion and on the Whisky Rebellion.

Week 8: The Aftermath of the American Revolution and the Ratification of the Bill of Rights

        Readings: The Federalist Papers, selections; The Anti-Federalist Papers, selections; The United States Constitution: Article I Section 8; Amendments 2,3.

        Supplemental Readings: The Amicus briefs to D.C. vs. Heller by Racove et. al (“Historians”)., Chemerinsky and Winkler, and Hard and Olson (“Academics for the Second Amendment”), and Virginia 1774

Week 9: The French Revolution and the Levée en masse (universal male conscription): Different Answers to the Same Questions I

        Readings: Rousseau, Considerations on the Constitution of Poland; descriptions of the Great Fear; “The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen”; “An Answer to the Impertinent Question: What is a Sans-Culotte?”; “Decree Establishing the Levée en masse“

Week 10: The French Revolution and the Levée en masse (universal male conscription): Different Answers to the Same Questions II

        The Readings for this week are the same as the readings for Week 9

Week 11: Race and Guns in America: From Slavery to Civil War to Civil Rights

        Readings: Selected texts on Slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction; Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail”; Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Ice, selections; Mulford Act

        Supplemental Reading: Winkler, Gun Fight, chapters 5, 8; Amicus brief to D.C. vs.Heller by the Congress of Racial Equality; Waldstreicher, Slavery’s Constitution

Week 12: Waco, Oklahoma City, and the Rise of the self-declared militias in 1990s America

Readings: Selected Readings on Waco and the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City;

        Supplemental Readings: Stock, Rural Radicals, chapter 3

Week 13: Fear of a Black President: Sandy Hook, Stand Your Ground, and the Politics of the Second Amendment in Contemporary USA

        Readings: Scalia, Majority Opinion, DC vs. Heller; Stand Your Ground laws, selections. 

The course assessment scheme will be as follows:

30% Tests

There will be three brief tests/quizzes during the semester. None of these will take a full class period, each will be worth 10% of the final grade.

20% Questions

Each student is required to present five sets of questions over the course of the semester. Each set must include at least three questions, though the questions may overlap. Questions are due 1 hour before the start of class and must address that week’s readings. For students to receive credit for the questions, they must attend that week’s lecture as well. Students may choose which weeks they turn in the questions, although they may not turn them in for the weeks when there is an in-class test.

30% Final Paper

There will be a final paper for the course, the topic of which students must determine through conversations with the professor or the T.A.

20% Tutorial Participation

Each student is required to attend and participate in the tutorial sessions.

Date:
7/10, 21/10, 11/11, 25/11

Time and Venue:
Tutorial 1: 12:30-14:15 (Basic Medical Sciences Building, BMS_2)
Tutorial 2: 16:30-18:15 (Basic Medical Sciences Building, BMS_1)

Tutorials (20%)

It consists of two parts:

A.) Individual Oral Presentation (10%)
B.) Discussion (10%)

A.)   Individual Oral Presentation (10%)

Instructions:
1.) Students should work individually.
2.) Students should set a specific topic by themselves under the general theme of each tutorial class (See Part C).
3.) The themes would be randomly assigned to each student.
4.) Written report is not a must but students should at least make an outline for the audience’s reference during their presentation.
5.) Students should introduce and analyze the corresponding issue and conclude what they have discovered.
6.) Students should present for at most 10 minutes each, with or without any visual assisting tools such as PowerPoint.
7.) Students should respond to the questions, critiques or any other feedback raised by the audience.

Deadline:
1.) The outline of presentation or any other written materials should be uploaded to Blackboard 3 days before the date of presentation (excluding non-working days).

B.)   Discussion (10%)
Instructions:
1.) Students should raise questions, critiques or any other feedback to the presenters concerning their researches.
2.) In case of no heated discussion, a certain number of students will be randomly selected in each tutorial class to ask questions.

C.)   Theme of each tutorial

Tutorial 1 (7/10) – In response to the lecture of Week 4 

Theme: The Military Revolution and the Renaissance Rediscovery of the Ancient World

Readings:

1.)    Machiavelli, selections from The Prince, The Discourses on Livy, and The Art of War

2.)    Roberts, “The Military Revolution”

Tutorial 2 (21/10) – In response to the lecture of Week 7

Theme: The American Revolution and the Road to the Second Amendment

Readings:

1.)    The Quartering Acts

2.)    Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, selections

3.)    George Washington, Collected Works, selections

4.)    Selected texts on Shay’s Rebellion and on the Whisky Rebellion

Tutorial 3 (11/11) – In response to the lectures of Week 9 and 10

Theme: The French Revolution and the Levée en masse (universal male conscription): Different Answers to the Same Questions I and II

Readings:

1.)    Rousseau, Considerations on the Constitution of Poland

2.)    Descriptions of the Great Fear

3.)    “The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen”

4.)    “An Answer to the Impertinent Question: What is a Sans-Culotte?”

5.)    “Decree Establishing the Levée en masse“

Tutorial 4 (25/11) – In response to the lecture of Week 12

Theme: Waco, Oklahoma City, and the Rise of the self-declared militias in 1990s America

Readings:

1.)    Selected Readings on Waco and the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City

2.)    Stock, Rural Radicals, chapter 3

See Syllabus.

请注意大学有关学术著作诚信的政策和规则，及适用于犯规事例的纪律指引和程序。详情可浏览此处。

学生递交作业时，必须连同已签署的声明一并提交，表示他们知道有关政策、规则、指引及程序。

• 如属小组习作，则所有组员均须签署声明；所有组员 (不论有否签署声明及不论有否直接或间接撰写有问题的内容) 均须负上集体责任及受到惩处。
• 如作业以电脑制作、内容以文字为主，并经由大学「维诚」系统 (VeriGuide) 提交者，学生将作业的电子档案上载到系统后，便会获得收据，收据上已列明有关声明。
• 学生充分知悉到他们的作业可能会被人工智能内容检测软件审查，以确定其原创性。
• 学生充分知悉科目中采用人工智能工具的做法。在经允许下使用某些人工智能工具的情况下，学生已按照科目老师的指示明确注明出处和引文。

未有夹附签署妥当的声明的作业，老师将不予批阅。

学生只须提交作业的最终版本。

学生将作业或作业的一部份用于超过一个用途 (例如：同时符合两科的要求) 而没有作出声明会被视为未有声明重复使用作业。 学生重复使用其著作的措辞或某一、二句句子很常见，并可以接受，惟重复使用全部内容则构成问题。在任何情况下，须先获得相关老师同意方可提交作业。

由大学职员/老师制作的教学材料，包括课堂笔记、作业及考试题目等，其版权属香港中文大学拥有；学生可从大学采用的网上教学系统 (例如Blackboard) 下载由大学职员/老师制作的教学材料供其学习使用；惟未经相关职员/老师事先同意下，不得分发/分享/复制这些材料予第三者。