HST112            SECOND PAPER TOPICS            DUE DATE: Monday March 10   

The final readings for this course are Machiavelli’s Prince and More’s Utopia.  We are encouraging
students to write on these two texts because they will be a major focus of the last weeks of the course.
  Students who prefer to write on earlier assigned primary documents can choose from the additional
topics below.

FORMAT:   5-7 pages typed, double spaced, no plastic or cardboard covers, just a title page. 
TA will set his or her own schedule for reading rough drafts.

TOPICS BASED ON MACHIAVELLI'S PRINCE:

1.  Discuss the role of force and violence in the conduct of Machiavelli's Prince. 
Are these justified for their own sake or only as a means to an end?

2.  Discuss the concepts of virtú and fortuna in Machiavelli's thought. 

3.  Machiavelli has been described as the first political scientist.  Can you see the beginnings of a
"science of politics" in the Prince?  What kinds of general rules govern political actions, and what
kind of evidence does he use to demonstrate the workings of these rules?

TOPICS BASED ON THOMAS MORE'S UTOPIA:

4.  Discuss the interaction between human nature and society in More's Utopia.  What is man's
essential nature, and how does Utopian society help to form (or reform) basic human characteristics?

5.  How do the social arrangements described in Book II of the Utopia respond to the critique
of l6th century English society and politics presented by Hythloday in Book I?

TOPICS COMPARING MACHIAVELLI'S PRINCE AND THOMAS MORE'S UTOPIA:

6.  Compare attitudes towards violence and warfare in Machiavelli's Prince and More's Utopia. 
(Be sure to include the non-Utopians in discussion of Utopia.)

7. Book I of More's Utopia is often described as a "dialogue on counsel," that is as a treatise
on how a learned or wise man can give advice to princes.  Since Machiavelli's Prince was also
an attempt to advise a prince, compare the kinds of advice each writer offers his prince.

Additional paper topics drawing on Geary, Readings in Medieval History. 

l. Both Tacitus' Germania and Thomas More's Utopia can be seen as ethnographic accounts,
one of an actual tribal society and the other of an imaginary society.  Compare the topics and
issues raised by each of these "ethnographers," discussing how More and Tacitus' concerns
about their own societies influence their presentations the "other" society.

2.  Major historical events such as the Crusades are always viewed differently, from the various
perspectives of the multiple groups involved.  Compare two or more of the four accounts of the
First Crusade included in the Geary volume (pp. 386-420), indicating how the values, attitudes,
presuppositions and experience of each group are reflected in their accounts.

3. The Letters of Abelard and Heloise reflect two conflicting views of their relationship. How does
Heloise's view of their love affair differ from the clerical and religious view presented by Abelard? 

4. The conflict between Gregory VII and Henry IV of Germany involved different views of the
relationship of the church and the secular authorities.  Using the documents on the Investiture
Controversy (in Geary, pp. 580-606), compare the Papal and Imperial views on the correct
relationship of spiritual and temporal powers.