An amazing lecturer. Definitely history heavy, so if you don't really enjoying learning about history, I would skip out on this course. But as a history major, Professor Boswell was a really fantastic instructor. Readings can get dense throughout the semester, but other than that, the workload is quite light for this course. Highly recommend!Rate My Professors ↗
Historical instructor
Laird Boswell
What students say
Original student reviews · all captured dates
Quality 5/5Difficulty 3/5
Quality 5/5Difficulty 3/5
Prof. Bowsell is amazing lecturer and he makes history extremely engaging. He also is very funny and often would tell us personal accounts of the historical topics we are going over in class which is super cool. This class has 2 major papers but other than that it isnt a burden and I often just had to read interesting books.Rate My Professors ↗
Quality 5/5Difficulty 3/5
Great lecturer. Manages to keep things engaging and can be kind of funny, but you definitely have to somewhat like history to enjoy the class. LOTS of reading (like a book a week, but you can sparknotes a bunch of them) and frequent papers. TA is much more responsible for your grade than Boswell isRate My Professors ↗
Quality 5/5Difficulty 3/5
I can't speak to his assignments or grading since I was just auditing the course, but he is a terrific lecturer! I thoroughly enjoyed this course.Rate My Professors ↗
Quality 5/5Difficulty 3/5
One of the best lecturers I've ever seen - he makes the content very interesting to listen to. However, would not recommend taking this class as a graduation requirement for STEM majors since the workload can be pretty significant - very reading and essay intensiveRate My Professors ↗
Quality 5/5Difficulty 4/5
Professor Boswell is one of the best professors I have had here at Madison. He is very passionate about the material he teaches and makes lectures engaging for students. However, the course is extremely heavy with reading material, as you are expected to read a full book every week. Would recommend for those into history/readingRate My Professors ↗
Personal experiences, not a representative survey. Profile matching and captured coverage are shown in the source details.
Classes with Laird Boswell
No teaching recorded in Fall 2026.
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Recorded teaching history
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Teaching history may be incomplete. Course pages contain course-specific feedback and citations.
Instructor identity & provenance
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