Course Description

Course Description

This course covers the time period from the thirteenth century to the present day. We will focus on the Atlantic world – Africa, Europe, and the Americas – with considerable emphasis on Africa and will connect global issues and patterns over time to local developments. The main theme of the course is “connections” between groups of people and places. Global history or world history emphasizes crossing of boundaries and the linking of systems in the human past, and students will be challenged to think of history inclusively as the history of a human community rather than exclusively as history of distinct groups/nations/empires. We will focus on broad patterns such as world systems, slavery, imperialism and globalization but will pay attention to the uniqueness of localities and how various factors shaped people’s interactions, experiences and responses. We will also pay close attention to human agency in shaping these patterns and systems and focus on the complexity of encounters and outcomes.