History
Narrative and analytical writing on the events and movements that shaped the world.
7 samples in this category
An expository essay on the unstable life of Mongol nomads in 1196 – extreme weather, livestock loss, reliance on trade with China, and military conflict. Brief overview of pre-unification conditions.
An analytical essay examining U.S. strategic alliances from post-WWII through the present, arguing that American unipolar power is transitioning to a bipolar world order as China's economic and military growth challenges U.S. dominance.
A narrative essay tracing the writer's dual ancestry – Irish immigrants to Appalachia and Indian laborers to the Pacific Northwest – showing how migration shaped a mixed-heritage American family.
An object biography examining Emperor Qianlong's 1739 golden wine cup – its design, materials, and function – as a lens into imperial power, cultural practices, and resource control in 18th-century China.
An expository essay examining the multiple factors–barbarian invasions, economic decline, political instability, military weakening, and religious transformation–that contributed to the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 4th and 5th centuries.
An analytical essay examining Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams, exploring how Paleolithic cave paintings reveal Stone Age beliefs about the permeability between human and spirit worlds.
An analytical essay examining how industrialization and the commodification of natural resources shaped American environmental history from the 1960s forward, tracing the transition from conservation practices to market-driven resource exploitation and its ecological consequences.
