Course Description

Course Description

Events half way across the globe can impact our lives in a matter of seconds. In some ways the world we live in would have been unimaginable to people 500 years ago. Yet in other ways, our experience of a densely interconnected globe would feel quite familiar to some of our ancestors. Minor shifts in the Chinese economy had profound impacts on finance in Europe, antagonisms between Christians and Muslims were at a fever pitch, the indigenous peoples of the Americas were being dispossessed of their lands. So much has changed and yet so much has stayed the same, or more precisely the past haunts us in altogether new ways.

This course traces how the world became interconnected, and how and where it did not. We cannot possibly cover the entire history of the world over 500 years so instead we will focus on the technological, economic, political and cultural drivers of this long history of globalization. The course will also focus on the “Global South” (Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia) rather than Europe and North America. In emphasizing these places and developments, I hope we can gain a greater understanding of when, how and why this long and complicated history shapes our lives today.