The essays that are posted on this website were written during David Kute’s days as an undergraduate at UCLA. They date from the years 2003-2006.  Some have been edited slightly to reflect feedback from teaching assistants and professors. If an essay has been edited, there will be a note at the end that states it […]

David Kute History 154 11/20/05 Professor Lytle This work is original and unpublished by David Kute         The incorporation of California as a state in 1850 coincided with the much publicized discovery of gold in 1848 along the American River. A great influx of immigrants was to follow, and amongst the many […]

David Kute Honors Section 03/24/04 Professor Baum                 From the very beginnings of the Chinese Communist Party, the role of the intellectual writer presented a problem to the party leadership. The intellectual writer, in fact, was the victim of two of the CCP’s great political campaigns in the […]

David Kute Honors 107 Collegium 06/2006 Professor Ciavolella             In fourteenth century Italy, international trade was a driving sector of the urban economy (JN, pg.126). At the center of this trade, and the Italian Renaissance economy, stood the figure of the merchant. Oftentimes, the merchant acted as the intermediary between […]

David Kute PS 111A Professor Sissa 02/15/06               Within the ancient Greek world, the democratic form of government was associated with a set of principles that served as its raison d’etre. These positive attributes included freedom, equality, diversity, and justice. The importance of these democratic values is highlighted by an exchange from Euripides’ Suppliant […]

Gilgamesh and Immortality History 104, Professor Englund, 11/20/05 This work is original and unpublished by David Kute   For the people living in Mesopotamia during the third millennium B.C., the supernatural was a common part of life. Sumerians and the later Semitic speaking peoples of the region had substantial contact with rituals and esoteric methods […]

Tito and Stalin An analysis into why the Soviet response to independence differed in Yugoslavia              David Kute Honors Research Paper History 127 C 06/11/04 Professor Knudsen        In 1956, the political situation in Hungary emerged as a threat to Soviet hegemony in East Europe. In the post-WWII […]

David Kute Professor Summerhill History 191 03/2006 By late 1789, with the storming of the Bastille, the French Revolution had become irrevocable (WD, pg. 204). A return to the days of the Ancien Regime was unlikely, and the Revolution’s impact on the rest of Europe was extensive. Contemporary observers, witnessing events as they unfolded and […]

David Kute History 124B, Professor Ford, Honors Contract 04/11/05 This work is original and unpublished by David Kute The demise of the July Monarchy had, according to contemporaries, been unexpected. Alexis De Tocqueville had written that “the Revolution of February was unforeseen by all ….”(AT, pg. 229) Another contemporary, Karl Marx, had remarked that “the […]

David Kute Honors 107 06/05/06   In the Philosophy of the Art of Painting, Leonardo Da Vinci argues that painting is the ultimate art. This is due to the fact that the “eye, which is called the window of the soul, is the principal means by which the central sense can most completely and abundantly […]