Honestly, this class was pretty doable as long as you did the readings. The lectures were also helpful, but they weren't really required to understand the material because the main textbook (Calloway) covered all of the information needed. There are five books and 3 movies for this class, but he spaces them out so you have enough time to read everything. They were also really interesting and coincided with each week's lecture theme, so the class went by smoothly. There were 3 possible essay prompts given at the beginning of the quarter, and you write 2 (25% each), and the final was 50% of your grade. He gave a study guide for the final a week in advance, so you could prepare your entire exam before the final exam date. Madley also responded to emails within 2 days MAX and was very receptive to student concerns. Overall, the class was well organized and I would recommend taking a class with him.

This class is conflicting for me. The lectures were fascinating but really didn't add anything. I only listened to the first 10 and then about 14 minutes from random ones for clarity on a thing or two. Ultimately, the workload was not bad for me. I'm coming from a hardcore STEM major so take that with a grain of salt.
My largest set of gripes with this class are all logistical. The final format was confirmed in Week 10, and we were never given a hint it would be an essay, which was frustrating, to say the least. This meant that within about three weeks, a lot of us wrote three essays for this class. An A was >95, which is absurd to me. His grading scheme was kinder to those in the low B to C ranges, but that doesn't mean that being told Wednesday Week 10 that you need a 95 for an A is pleasant. The Prof never sent us an email until Week 10, which was just weird. He didn't release the reading list in a timely manner at the beginning, which meant some people were forced into doing essay options 2 and 3 because their books weren't arriving in time. Some people had alternating TA's grading essays, some had both from either the harder or easier TA, a lack of grading consistency from paper to paper. Just lots of small things that made it hard to feel secure in this class.
The assignment breakdown was to pick 2/3 essays to write and turn in. The final was to pick 10/15 terms to ID with a who, what, when, where, why, and then an essay with no citations required, just make your case type of essay.
I cranked out 1491 and the textbook at the very beginning of the quarter, only taking notes (google doc with pages listed) for the textbook. I think that was invaluable in not needing to spend as much time on essays later in the quarter. I wish I had done the first two essays, but the election derailed those plans. For each essay, I read the relevant book the day before (didn't take great notes as I prefer to paraphrase rather than quote) and then combed through the book while writing my essay from 10 p.m. to about 7 a.m. before the 10 a.m. deadline. This meant that besides the first week, I probably only spent like 14 hours total on each essay, which in my opinion, is pretty low compared to other classes' assignments.
That being said, the grading is a crapshoot. They are sticklers for grammar, but Grammarly premium meant I didn't ever get a grammar comment, so apparently not too picky. My biggest gripe is I got 23/25 on both my essays, but absolutely no comments on how to improve for the next essay. There's no rubric or advice provided, which was frustrating. Not sure it will help, but our TA's were Zavardino and Marissa Jenrich. Everyone said Zav was a very harsh grader, but he treated me well.
The final was fine, with a 50/50 very possible for the terms, but that section took longer than expected. For the essay, I got a 24/25, meaning I scraped an A with not a point to spare.
Given that I had to put comparatively less work into this class, I think it was a win, but I don't know that it was as good as it could have been or that I would recommend it. fascinating

I don’t understand how this professor got such positive reviews. I am not sure if this class is worse because we are remote. There is very little clarity on the requirements for the essays. The TAs were unbelievably harsh on the essays. They graded the essays harder than an english class at UCLA in terms of grammar and structure. It felt as if the structure was more important than the content. The class was poorly structured and very unorganized. I understand that everything is tougher since it is remote but I feel Professor Madley could have done more to make this class better structured. This class is not very friendly if you are going for an A. Professor Madley waited until the very end of the course to tell us that 95% is required for an A which I thought was just unfair and way too high. So, definitely keep that mind if you are gunning for an A. He also promised extra credit if we went to the writing center but walked back on that offer and didn’t give anything else to make up for that. Overall, I didn’t like this class and the essays were very painful due to the lack of clarity and effort from the professor and TAs. If you are taking this class for a GE, do yourself a favor and take something else.

I took this class in Fall 2020, and although it was interesting, the TA's and professor were not much help as they never held one single class for us to meet and discuss the material. This class is all self-taught. The class required 2 5-page essays and 1 final, which consisted of 10-15 ID terms and a last-minute, surprise 5-page essay. He gave us a study guide with 100 key terms, making it unnecessarily difficult to study for the final. He also requires 5 books in total which I think is a bit excessive. His lectures were extremely boring and monotone and seemed recycled. We never got to meet him even once, even after requests for one. Overall, my reading and studying for hours got me an A- because an A in his class was a minimum of 95%, which is too high. The grading was inconsistent, as one TA gave me a 23/25 with lots of feedback and the second TA gave me 22/25 with no comments on how to improve. This same TA gave me a 46/50 on the final with no comments either. Overall, it seems like no one in this class can get an A+, let alone an A.

I took the class asynchronous during Fall '20, so your mileage may vary. I hear he is amazing in person and it's not that he was bad online, but he certainly didn't live up to the hype of the reviews from the previous years. That's my fault though for putting too much faith in reviews that don't even apply to online learning. I did have a problem with the communication in the class, though, primarily from the TAs. Asynchronous is not synonymous with "never send out more than one or two emails throughout the quarter."

Readings were doable and actually incredibly interesting. I typically find US history super boring but the material never ceased to amaze me. In that sense, the class extremely eye-opening. You just have to make sure to get ahead if you like to really pick apart what you read because you'd typically get two weeks to read each book (anywhere from 150-250 pages total). You'd then write two essays (out of three prompt options) which were five pages each. I know people only read the books applicable to their essays, and while it's possible, I wouldn't recommend doing it looking back because content from all four books was on the final.

The lectures are a bit of a different story. I really love the way he lectures, but I'm not entirely sure how useful they are beyond just consolidating what you read in the textbook and required readings. If your eyes glaze over and you have trouble retaining information in denser literature, then the lectures are perfect. But don't expect your knowledge of the course material to be derived from the lectures. You'll mostly learn from the readings.

I loved taking this class with Professor Madley. He doesn't post his slides so you have to go to lecture, but his lectures are very interesting. On the first day of class, he'll give 3 essay prompts that will be due later in the quarter. You only have to choose 2 out of the 3. If you go to the history writing center and have them stamp your paper, you get extra points on your paper.

There are a couple of books that you need because you'll use these for the citations in your papers. However they're all on reserve in the libraries, so you don't have to buy all of them if you don't want to.

The final will be 10 identification and a short essay. All of this will be given before the final so you can prepare everything ahead. He'll give you about 50 identification to memorize (who, what, where, when, and why).

Overall great class and I am looking forward to taking another class with him in the spring.

Amazing professor. Class is extremely organized and exactly what you want from a class. Completely straightforward and clear, he wants you to do well and he gives you all the tools to succeed. Definitely take him.

this professor was the highlight to my quater.