"Many courses on comparative government look at differences between governing institutions in the present. Historians look at the changes in governance across certain periods. Both prevailing methods of teaching the subject of governance have had limitations for people that want a broader view of how governance has unfolded across the entirety of human history. Few courses and analyses take the broadest possible view. But I was always inspired by such a view. I have always wanted to see the outline of the entire forest, while the things I read wanted to look at only parts of the forest or compare specific tress. This course takes the most historically complete view of the evolution of governance, from the very earliest forms of governance among humans in hunter-gatherer societies up to the most recent forms of governance in the present. Our study of the evolution of governance focuses on patterns in the transition from one form of governance to the next. Among the most important questions that emerge from our study of this grand history are: How did new kinds of government come into being, and why did the governments they replaced wither away? Are there certain key factors that can account for all these changes? Which governments performed best and which performed worst? All in all, I have always been interested in big questions about big subjects. This course will appeal to those students who also like to look at wide panoramas in history."

- Giulio Gallarotti

• Faculty Bio
  Giulio M. Gallarotti is Professor of Government and Tutor in the College of Social Studies at Wesleyan University. He has also been a Visiting Professor in the Department of Economic Theory at the University of Rome. He is the author of The Anatomy of an International Monetary Regime: The Classical Gold Standard 1880-1914 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), The Power Curse: Influence and Illusion in World Politics (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2010), and Cosmopolitan Power in International Relations: A Synthesis of Realism, Neoliberalism, and Constructivism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010). In addition, he has published numerous articles in leading journals across five disciplines: economics, politics, law, history, and business. His biography has been published in Marquis Who’s Who in America 2010-2015.