Professor Madley is a gem. You have to work to get that A, but if you do, it's incredibly rewarding. I highly recommend.

This class offers a subaltern perspective of the west that will transform your outlook. We often think of the west as a frontier of cowboys, bandits, and lawmen, when in reality it is a profoundly diverse landscape.

The reading load in this class is intense but rewarding, and the assignments are thought provoking. Professor Madley is great. He is always willing to help and is among the brightest professors at UCLA. Your vocabulary and writing skills will be tremendously improved by his classes.

This class is TOUGH and definitely not an easy A. I had to work my but off for this class but it was extremely rewarding. Madley is an excellent lecture and his choice of readings was very good. My TAs were Christian and Javier. Javier is the tougher of the two graders but he was extremely kind and compassionate to me when I was struggling to get through particularly trying time mentally and physically. Madley is also a very reasonable professor because he knew a lot of us were struggling and he was pretty generous when it came to extensions.

Where to start with this class...what a rollercoaster. Prof Madley's lectures are fine, but I feel like you could probably get all the content you need for the papers without even watching them, since you can't cite them in your essays anyway. The class consists of reading 6 books (one of which was written by him and is really good), 2 essays & 1 final in which you're given 2 essay prompts and get to pick one + some ID terms to define. The content of the class can actually be really interesting, and this is coming from somebody who usually HATES history. Some of the books were also really good & I recommended them to some friends and again, can't stress this enough, I HATE history. Definitely learned a lot. Your grade depends on the TA who grades your essay each time & let me just say this: Christian is a king, Javier will wreck your life. Overall though, I definitely recommend this class.

I am not a history major, and this class was my second course in the history department at UCLA. Yet, I'm glad I took this course with professor Madley, because I learned so much and he is probably one the best professors I've taken since transferring to UCLA. His course consists of reading six books, two essays, and the final exam. You'll be given three essay prompts, but you only have to choose two. All three essay prompts ask for five page papers. I did the first two since we only had two weeks between each essay and it gave me a grace period during week nine to study for finals. The first essay was due during week five, the second was due week seven, and the third essay was due week nine. In general, your grade consists of the two essays, which are worth twenty-five points each and the final which was worth fifty points. The final was another five page paper worth twenty-five points and the other twenty-five was identifying terms (who, what, when, where, why). The terms took a little more time than usual as he gave us sixty-five terms on the final study sheet and he only chose fifteen to put on the exam. However, you'll only have to identify ten out of those fifteen terms on the exam. This class was a little more reading than I expected, but I'm glad he chose interesting reads as week eight you'll be instructed to read over 350 to 400 pages in a single week. As mentioned, the readings are six books ranging from 100 to 450 pages. Make sure you set aside time in your schedule for the readings. Especially if your other classes have dense reading assignments. It was most helpful to take notes and annotate during the readings for the essays, which helped me from having to continually look back in the books for important points for my essays. All your papers and final are graded by TA's and I would recommend you drop in during their office hours to speak with them to get a general idea of what they'll be looking for in your papers. Our TA's were Zavardino and Munoz. I would say the former was a little more forgiving than the latter, but they are both stringent about how concise your thesis is structured, how you provide backup evidence from the readings in your argument, and the accuracy of your argument. The first paper I did not go to the writing center and I got a 21/25. The second paper, I did go to the writing center and got 23/25. So if you have time it might help to go by the writing center and get a second opinion on your paper. Professor Madley's lectures are some of the best I've encountered from a history professor, both at community college and UCLA. His research is in the study of California Indians, but his general knowledge of American Indians is the most in-depth and impressive. I learned so much more about the American Indian during the American conquest than I originally thought I knew. In all honesty, I'm so disappointed that I did not get to experience this class in person and I'm sure his in-class experience is that much more intellectually gratifying. With that said, I would definitely recommend this course.

Professor Madley is an amazing lecturer and is very insightful in his field. The books and movies that we were required to read and watch were, for the most part, very pleasant to engage with. There were 3 essays, which you could pick 2 to do, which would account for half of your grade. The other half of the grade was a final which was one 5 page paper and ID's. The paper topic was given a week in advance before it was due, which made the final incredibly easy to knock out. I would take the class again, but only would wish that the lectures were not just slides that you had to download.