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Semester 2

Global Connections since 1450 (HIST08041)

Subject

History

College

CAHSS

Credits

20

Normal Year Taken

2

Delivery Session Year

2023/2024

Pre-requisites

Visiting students must have completed one introductory level History course at grade B or above for entry to this course. We will only consider University/College level courses. **Please see Additional Restrictions below**

Course Summary

This course explores the past history of global connections and disconnections from c. 1450 to the present day. The course builds on the foundations established in the first year history courses which explore the makings of the medieval, early modern and modern worlds. In this course, we drill down into key themes in global history to provide a foundation for honours courses in global history and in regional histories beyond Europe and North America.

Course Description

The course explores the global history of three themes - goods, peoples and ideas. We interrogate the new forms of power which sought to reshape global connections in the period from c. 1450 and explore the ways in which polities and societies in Asia, Africa and Latin America engaged with and resisted the rise of European power and produced alternative imagined geographies, leading to the creation both of new connections and new forms of disconnection. This enables us to engage critically with linear narratives of globalization. At the same time, the course also provides an opportunity to reflect critically on the writing of global history and to consider how we best make sense of the intersections of the local and the global in this period. Goods: (three themes from the following indicative list of topics, depending on staff availability in any given year): 1. From the Silk Road to the New World; 2. Trading Companies; 3. Spices; 4. Gold, Silver, and Diamonds; 5. Ceramics; 6. Coffee and Tea; 7. Tobacco and Potatoes; 8. Opium; 9. Sugar; 10. Arms and weapons; 11. Loot; 12. Art; 13. Rubber and Oil; 14. Silk, Cotton and Jute; 15. Cars. People: (three themes from the following indicative list of topics, depending on staff availability in any given year): 1. The Indian Ocean world; 2. The Atlantic world; 3. Slave trade; 4. Indentured labour; 5. Germs and DNA: disease in global history; 6. Refugees in History; 7. Pilgrimage; 8. Revolutionaries; 9. Missionaries; 10. Soldiers. Ideas: (three themes from the following indicative list of topics, depending on staff availability in any given year): 1. Time; 2. Religion: Christianity-global religion, local practice?; 3. Religion: Buddhism and Islam in Asia; 4. Religion: Neo-Confucianism, Neo-Buddhism, and Pentecostalism; 5. Secularism and Atheism; 6. Law and legality; 7. Orientalism; 8. Racial thought; 9. Feminism/Gender; 10. Paradigms of health and healing; 11. Political ideologies; 12. Pan-Asianism/Pan-Africanism; 13. Technology; 14. Railways and Canals

Assessment Information

Written Exam 0%, Coursework 100%, Practical Exam 0%

Additional Restrictions

**Please note that spaces on History courses are limited and cannot be guaranteed for any students who are not nominated to study with us on a History exchange agreement.** Unless you are nominated on a History or HCA exchange agreement, visiting students are only permitted to enrol in two 1st/2nd year History courses each, per semester, before the start of the relevant semester’s welcome period – and spaces on each course are limited so cannot be guaranteed for any student. This includes courses in Economic History and Scottish History. Enrolment in a third course from this group will depend on whether there are still spaces available in the January Welcome Period, and cannot be guaranteed. It is NOT appropriate for students to contact staff within this subject area to ask for an exception to be made; all enquiries to enrol in these courses must be made through the CAHSS Visiting Student Office. This is due to the limited number of spaces available in this very popular subject area.

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