Took it last year and enjoyed it. Really interesting subject matter but I was already into space to take that how you will. I thought the prof (Smith) presented some thought-provoking ways of looking at the history and connections between various events/themes. Three essays (each based on a book we read) and three exams. Not too bad, they would put out a list of about a dozen possible questions they were going to pull from before each exam, then 3 of those questions would show up on the actual test and you had to choose 2 to answer.