Lectures were very dry and fragmented. Exam were rather difficult. Her study guide should say, memorize entire text book, making note of page numbers.

I have created a page(s) Lecture Notes for Hist M127A.
You can check out the document by going to http://www.notehall.com/docs/213760.
Hope this helps you out on the exam.

Nutshell: do not ever, ever take a class with this woman. If you are in her class, drop it. If it's too late to drop it, withdraw. If it's too late to withdraw, welcome to the party.

Unlike other reviewers, I quite liked Professor Lenhoff...up until I got my midterm back, the day after the drop deadline. So long, 4.0!

Quite frankly, your grade will be completely independent of the quality of your work. It will depend entirely on whether you pass Lenhoff's bizarre tests of character. Generally this means if you're a man, you're screwed.

Lenhoff's lectures are essentially content-free repetitions of the material in the textbook, with her own "brilliant" interpretations of the historical record. Oh, yeah, you'd better write down every one of her "corrections" to Riasanovsky, who only LITERALLY WROTE THE BOOK ON THE SUBJECT, whereas Lenhoff has personal insight into THE TRUTH.

But like I say, the worst part isn't that she's a terrible lecturer, or that she's an idiot. Those can even be features, in certain classes. The worst part is merely that what you write on the midterm, what you write on the essay, what you write on the final, do not matter and will not play any role in your grade. Taking this class is like playing Russian roulette with all the chambers full.

I really enjoyed this class. There were some modifications from previous years, so our grade was based on 2 take-home exams and a paper. I'd suggest this class for anyone who has an interest in Russian history.