HIST 223 Global History I: 1400-1750
Rather than a familiar focus on a specific nation-state or its antecedents, this course explores the emergence of the first “Global Web.” We begin with the legacy of the crusades, the rise of Ottoman power, and the centrality of China’s economy. Frustrated by Ottoman strength to the East, Europeans turned west. Prior to 1492 the Atlantic Ocean existed as a barrier that separated two old worlds, which had developed independently for more than 10,000 years. After 1492, European vessels turned this former barrier into a web of exchange, migration, and violence that created much of the modern world. We will examine the interrelated political, social, and cultural histories of these continents from the fifteenth to mid-eighteenth century. This course will survey the origins of the modern capitalist world economy and subsequent ecological changes, the struggle for land and power, the development and consequences of the slave trade, the limits and legacy of cross-cultural exchanges, and the emergence of modern fiscal-military states as global powers.