World History: Global Connections (HIST1601)

PART A: THE GLOBAL MEDIEVAL, WEEK ONE. LECTURE: Introduction and Medieval Empires

We start with a brief introduction to the course and outline of assessment. The lecture then looks at the critical role of the Mongols in conquering much of Eurasia and helping to lay the foundations for a medieval 'world system'. It proceeds to give an overview of some of the world's great empires during the medieval period c.1200-1350 CE, including the Byzantine Empire in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Holy Roman Empire, China's Song Dynasty, Korea's Goryeo Dynasty, the Kamakura shogunate in Japan, and the Sri Vijaya and Angkor empires in Southeast Asia. It ends with the Mongols' destruction of the Abbasid Caliphate in 1258 CE.

READINGS

Janet L. Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250-1350 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 1-40.

The Mission of Friar William of Rubruck: His Journey to the Court of the Great Khan Mongke 1253-1255, trans. Peter Jackson (London: Hakluyt Society, 1990), pp. 55-99.

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03

PART A: THE GLOBAL MEDIEVAL, WEEK TWO. LECTURE : The Power of Religion, to c. 1500

This week's lecture examines the remarkable expansion of the 'world religions' in the medieval period which created the global religious landscape that largely still exists today. The lecture considers the expansion of Christianity (both Catholic and Orthodox) through Europe and beyond; Judaism and Jewish life in the European Middle Ages; Confucianism in East Asia; Hinduism and Buddhism in South, Central, Southeast and East Asia; as well as the spread of Islam to India and Southeast Asia in the late medieval period. The lecture also looks at the relationship between religion and political authority, and religious ideas of kingship and political organisation.

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03

PART A: THE GLOBAL MEDIEVAL, WEEK TWO. TUTORIAL: Religious and Political Authority: Medieval Patterns

Week 2 Tutorial: Religious and Political Authority: Medieval Patterns

TUTORIAL QUESTIONS: What factors caused the spread of world religions around the globe in the medieval period? Discuss the relationship between religious and secular authority in the regions dominated by Christianity and Islam. How did the Papacy become such a powerful institution in Western Europe during the Middle Ages? Did this differ from other parts of the world, and why?

REQUIRED READING: SECONDARY SOURCE

Norman F. Cantor, ‘The Peace of Innocent III’ in his The Civilization of the Middle Ages (New York: HarperCollins, 1994) chapter 18.

Norman Cantor (1929-2004) was a prominent Canadian-American medieval historian, the author of this widely-read survey textbook originally published in 1963. Known for his lively style and provocative commentary on fellow historians, Cantor wrote for general audiences rather than historical specialists.

REQUIRED READING: PRIMARY SOURCE

Ibn Battutah, ‘The Pilgrimage to Mecca’, in The Travels of Ibn Battutah, Tim Mackintosh-Smith, ed. (London: Picador, 2002), pp. 43-57.

While we may be more familiar with Marco Polo, the fourteenth-century Muslim scholar, Ibn Battuta (1304-1377?) was arguably more significant as a medieval traveller. His travels took him from Tangier in North Africa to the Arabian peninsula, Iran, India, Southeast Asia, and China. He left a famous description of his travels, The Rihla (“Travels”), which is one of the world's great travelogues, only fully translated into English in the 1990s. Ibn Battuta's travels demonstrate how interconnected the world already was in the fourteenth century as a result of integration forged by the Mongol Empire, and the role of Islam as a globalizing force in the medieval period.

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03, L05

PART A: THE GLOBAL MEDIEVAL, WEEK THREE. LECTURE: Empires on the Move, c. 1400-1550

This lecture considers case studies of territorial and maritime expansion of kingdoms and empires across the world in the late medieval period (approx. 1400-1550), and the interactions that resulted from this expansion. Particular attention will be given to the Venetian trading empire in the eastern Mediterranean, the rise of the Russian Empire, the beginnings of Portuguese and Spanish maritime power; the expansion of the new Ming Dynasty in China, the rise of the Mughals in India and the Safavids in Iran, as well as the founding of the Ottoman Empire in what is modern Türkiye.

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03

PART A: THE GLOBAL MEDIEVAL, WEEK THREE. TUTORIAL: Venice: Republic, Empire, Globe

Week 3 Tutorial: The Venetians: Republic, Empire, Globe

TUTORIAL QUESTIONS: What were the main features of the statecraft practiced by the ‘Serene Republic’ of Venice in the Middle Ages? In what ways was it distinctive, and how did this compare to other empires and kingdoms considered in our course? How was Venetian power and influence extended throughout the Mediterranean, and what were its ambitions and constraints?

REQUIRED READING: SECONDARY SOURCE

John Julius Norwich, ‘The Shameful Glory’ in his A History of Venice (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1982 [1977]), pp. 122-43.

A former diplomat, John Julius Norwich (1929-2018) was a highly effective narrative historian and broadcaster with expertise in the Byzantine Empire and the Republic of Venice. In this reading he evokes the dramatic events of the Fourth Crusade, when in 1204 a Venetian fleet and Doge Enrico Dandolo orchestrated the calamitous attack on Constantinople.

REQUIRED READING: PRIMARY SOURCE

Pietro Bembo, [from his] History of Venice (Book 1), Robert Ulery ed. and trans., Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2007 [orig. publ. 1551], vol. 1, pp. 39-49.

The literary scholar Pietro Bembo (1470-1547) was a member of the Venetian nobility, who in 1529 was asked to complete the work of the city’s official historian. His account of the recent history of the ‘Serene Republic’ concentrated on the Italian Wars (1494-1513) and conflicts with the Turkish forces. In this extract, Bembo describes the intrigues and diplomacy that accompanied the ceding of Cyprus to Venetian control in c. 1488-89.

Further Reading:

Jerry Bentley, Old World Encounters: Cross-Cultural Contacts in Pre-Modern Times (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).

Philip D. Curtin, Cross-Cultural Trade in World History (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1993).

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03, L05

PART B: THE GLOBAL EARLY MODERN, WEEK FOUR. LECTURE : Merchants and Global Trade, to 1700

This week's lecture discusses a new age in world history with the expansion of global maritime trade and commercial interactions in the early modern period (c.1500-1800). It highlights the importance of technological advances in ship-building and warfare; the rise of Portuguese naval power and Portugal's historic entry into Asian trade networks in the Indian Ocean in the late fifteenth century; the creation of the Atlantic economy including the beginning of transatlantic slavery; the global spice trade and Islamic commercial power in the Indian Ocean; and imperial China's ‘tributary system’ which sought to regulate China's trade relations with the outside world. A guest lecturer this week, Dr Pedro Guedes, will discuss 'The Portuguese Silk Route of the Sea.'

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03

PART B: THE GLOBAL EARLY MODERN, WEEK FOUR. TUTORIAL: Europe and the Birth of the Atlantic Economy

Week 4 Tutorial: Europeans and the Birth of the Atlantic Economy

TUTORIAL QUESTIONS: What factors enabled the Spanish conquest of the Americas? How are these events constructed in historical memory, and how does Camilla Townsend's approach challenge conventional ideas? What is the substance of de las Casas's defence of Indigenous peoples in this context? What are some of the larger ramifications of these events?

REQUIRED READING: SECONDARY SOURCE

Camilla Townsend, ‘Introduction’ to her Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), pp. 1-12.

Fifth Sun is a path-breaking new interpretation of one of world history's most significant events: the Spanish encounter with the Americas in the early sixteenth century. For a long time our understanding of the history of these events was based on Spanish sources (like de las Casas). Townsend has used sources in the Nahuatl language of the indigenous people (formerly known as 'Aztecs') to produce a markedly different history of Aztec civilization. While not downplaying the violence associated with the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, Townsend highlights the continuity of Aztec history after the conquest. Fifth Sun demonstrates how the discovery and use of new sources can fundamentally change our understanding of historical events.

REQUIRED READING: PRIMARY SOURCE

Lantigua, David M. and Lawrence A. Clayton, ‘The Black Legend’ in their Bartolomé de las Casas and the Defense of Amerindian Rights: A Brief History with Documents (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2020), pp. 38-48.

The Spanish colonization of the Americas is infamous for its violence and cruelty. Bartolomé de las Casas (c.1474-1561), a Spanish Dominican friar, was one of few to speak out about the atrocities of the conquistadors against the indigenous peoples. His A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (1542) is an early account of the Spanish colonization of the Caribbean, and is significant as one of the earliest critiques of Western colonialism.

Further Reading:

Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (New York: W.W. Norton, 1997).

Alfred Crosby, The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (Westport: Praeger Publishers, 2003 [1972]).

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03, L05

PART B: THE GLOBAL EARLY MODERN, WEEK FIVE. LECTURE: The Urban World of Early Modernity, 1500-1800

This lecture examines the developing sophistication of city life across the globe in the early modern period, c. 1500-1800. As centres of consumption, finance, knowledge, religion, political authority and civic participation, such cities included Venice, Florence, Amsterdam, London, Constantinople, Delhi, Beijing, and Edo. We also look at changing social relations and cultural life in these urban centres and the rise of 'bourgeois society' in different parts of the world.

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03

PART B: THE GLOBAL EARLY MODERN, WEEK FIVE. TUTORIAL: Cities and the Merchant Elite: Making a Bourgeois World

Week 5 Tutorial: Cities and the Merchant Elite: Making a Bourgeois World

TUTORIAL QUESTIONS: Which countries were the major trading powers in the 'Age of Commerce' in Southeast Asia between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries? What factors drove commercial expansion in Asia at this time (including India, China, and Japan)? Why was the Kingdom of Ayutthaya (Siam/Thailand) so cosmopolitan in the early modern period? Explain Ayutthaya's relations with the major trading powers at this time. Describe the main features of urban society in the city of Ayutthaya, and their similarities with and differences from commercial cities in other parts of the world. Discuss gender relations in Siam at this time. Why were women so prominent in trade?

REQUIRED READING: SECONDARY SOURCE

[from] Chris Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit, ‘Peace and Commerce’ in their A History of Ayutthaya: Siam in the Early Modern World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017) pp. 119-34, and 182-210.

"European travellers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries placed Ayutthaya or Siam among the three great powers of Asia alongside China and India. They reckoned the city as large as London or Paris and marvelled at the gold in the temples and treasuries..." (Baker and Pasuk, 2017, p. ix). Ayutthaya was the Siamese capital in the Early Modern Period, a major city that served as a focus for both political and economic power. It flourished from the 1350s until defeated by invading Burmese forces in 1767, after which the Thai capital moved to Bangkok. These sections consider the kingdom of Ayutthaya as a major ‘Entrepôt between East and West’. They discuss the Dutch, Persian, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese, Malay, Viet, and French merchants who frequented the city in the 1600s.

REQUIRED READING: PRIMARY SOURCE

Chris Baker et al, eds., Van Vliet's Siam (Chiang Mai: Silkworm: 2005), pp. 138-141.

Jeremias Van Vliet (1602-1663) was a Dutch merchant who travelled east to make his fortune. He became head of the Dutch 'Factory' (trading post) in Ayuttthaya. He was later convicted of massive corruption. Van Vliet was also the author of one of the earliest Western accounts of old Siam, written between 1636 and 1640, as the commercial power of the Dutch East India Company was on the rise in Southeast Asia.

Further Reading:

Anthony Reid, 'The East Asian Trading System of 1280-1500'; 'The Islamic Network'; 'The Europeans', pp. 65-73; and 'Cities and Production for the World, 1490-1640', pp. 74-95. A History of Southeast Asia: Critical Crossroads, The Blackwell History of the World Series (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015).

Southeast Asia is usually on the margins of mainstream history, but in the Early Modern Period (c.1500-1800) it was central to the global spice trade. The region attracted merchants from China, Southeast Asia, India, Persia, Arabia and Europe. Many of the most lucrative spices - pepper, cloves, nutmeg - were produced and traded in Southeast Asia and exported all over the world. For most of this period Southeast Asian rulers and merchants were independent and key players in this global trade. Anthony Reid, one of the leading historians in this field, refers to this era as Southeast Asia's 'Age of Commerce'. One of the most important factors that facilitated the spice trade was a maritime network of Muslim traders which spanned the Indian Ocean and connected the Middle East to China. In this period the global economy centred on the Indian Ocean.

K.N. Chaudhuri, Asia before Europe: The Economy and Civilization of the Indian Ocean from the Rise of Islam to 1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

Frédéric Mauro, ‘Merchant Communities, 1350-1750’ in James D. Tracy (ed.), The Rise of Merchant Empires: Long Distance Trade in the Early Modern World 1350–1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 255-86.

Charlotte A. Jirousek, Ottoman Dress and Design in the West: A Visual History of Cultural Exchange (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2019).

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03, L05

PART B: THE GLOBAL EARLY MODERN, WEEK SIX. LECTURE : Religious Reform Movements, c.1500-1800

The early modern period saw religious reform movements and new currents in religious thought and practice arise around the world. In Europe the Reformation that began with Luther's famous declaration of his '95 Theses' in 1517 fundamentally changed religious life, but also had ramifications for personal and group identity, political thinking, and intellectual life. The lecture also looks at religious reform movements in the Islamic world, and in East Asia, where the lesser-known rise of Neo-Confucianism in China, Korea, Japan and Vietnam, pushed back against long-standing Buddhist social, economic and political influence in these countries.

Sub-activity:

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03

PART B: THE GLOBAL EARLY MODERN, WEEK SIX. TUTORIAL: Religion and the State: The Reformation Experience

Week 6 Tutorial: Religion and the State: The Reformation Experience

TUTORIAL QUESTIONS: What were the basic ruptures associated with the European Reformation? How did ‘Protestant’ ideas challenge the status quo? What was the long-term significance of Luther’s concepts?

REQUIRED READING: SECONDARY SOURCE

Diarmaid MacCulloch, ‘Luther, a Good Monk’ and ‘An Accidental Revolution’ in his Reformation: Europe’s House Divided 1490-1700 (London: Allen Lane, 2003), pp. 115-32.

The English historian of Christianity Diarmaid MacCulloch has written widely on the Reformation through biographies and broad historical surveys for general readers. In this extract he examines Luther’s career and the evolution of his radical stance, sparking what MacCulloch calls an ‘accidental revolution’ in 1517-21.

REQUIRED READING: PRIMARY SOURCE

Martin Luther, ‘Ninety-five Theses’ [originally printed 1517], in Charles Eliot (ed.), The Harvard Classics (vol. 36), (New York: Collier and Son, 1910), pp. 259-73.

In this famous ‘disputation’ the German Augustinian monk Martin Luther outlined a number of theological objections to the sale of indulgences by the Catholic Church. His provocative stance animated long-standing controversies about church practices and doctrines, leading in time to Luther’s excommunication and a widening rift within European Christianity.

Further Reading

Lee Palmer Wandel, The Reformation: Towards a New History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).

Lisa Jardine, Worldly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance (New York: Doubleday, 1996).

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03, L05

PART B: THE GLOBAL EARLY MODERN, WEEK SEVEN. LECTURE: Early Capitalism and a World Economy

In the context of our focus on the rise of global maritime trade in the early modern period, this week's lecture considers the diverse origins of early capitalism and the key factors that influenced its development. These included new sources of finance and investment, the creation of joint stock companies in Amsterdam and London in the early 1600s, the founding of new trade routes, the slave trade, and the rise of mercantilism. We look at these developments in different parts of the world, including northern Europe, the 'New World', the Indian Ocean and the Pacific. We examine how the Spanish discovery of massive silver deposits in South America in the sixteenth century led to closer commercial ties between China, Spanish America, and Europe, and the emergence of the Spanish silver dollar as the world's first international currency. We also consider some of the politically destabilising effects of this economic and commercial revolution.

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03

PART B: THE GLOBAL EARLY MODERN, WEEK SEVEN. TUTORIAL: Capitalism and Colonialism: The Case of the East India Company

Week 7 Tutorial: Capitalism and Colonies: The Case of the East India Company

TUTORIAL QUESTIONS: How was the East India Company able to take control of large areas of India in the late eighteenth century? What responsibilities did the East India Company adopt in India? What factors and influences shaped its decisions? What features of colonial rule did it prefigure?

REQUIRED READING: SECONDARY SOURCE

William Dalrymple, ‘Racked by Famine’, in his The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company (London: Bloomsbury, 2019), pp. 215-58.  

William Dalrymple is a best-selling popular historian who mainly writes about the history of India and British imperialism. He writes well with an eye for vivid historical detail. His vibrant narrative history of the East India Company explains the growth of this corporation, the largest in the world at the time, until it functioned as the arm of the British state in India. This chapter deals with the crisis-torn 1770s, including the infamous 1770 Bengal famine, the company’s financial troubles, and the background to the celebrated trial of Warren Hastings.

REQUIRED READING: PRIMARY SOURCE

Adam Smith, [extract from his] An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, (London: Bell and Sons, 1921 [1784; orig. pub. 1776]), vol. 2, pp. 275-77.

In this reading, Adam Smith (renowned as the first truly ‘modern’ economist) provides part of his argument against the monopoly power of corporations such as the East India Company. After surveying the company’s history (not presented in this abstract), Smith draws some conclusions about the character of the company’s rule in India, as well as critical reflections on the broad nature of joint stock companies at this time.

Further Reading:

Sanjay Subramanyam, The Portuguese Empire in Asia, 1500–1700: A Political and Economic History (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012 [1993]).

Sanjay Subramanyam, Penumbral Visions: Making Polities in Early Modern South India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001).

C.A. Bayly, Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire (The New Cambridge History of India), (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). 

Sidney Mintz, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History (New York: Viking, 1985).

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03, L05

PART B: THE GLOBAL EARLY MODERN, WEEK EIGHT. LECTURE: Despots and Absolutists, c.1600-1800

This lecture discusses the 'age of absolutism' characterised by the growing concentration of power in the 'old regimes' of the early modern period. We consider the emergence of absolutism in Europe and Russia, and in the various Asian empires including the Qing Dynasty in China, the Mughals in India, and the Ottomans in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. We also consider the curious case of England, where revolutions in the seventeenth century ended absolute royal power and instituted constitutional government.

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03

PART B: THE GLOBAL EARLY MODERN, WEEK EIGHT. TUTORIAL: The 'Enlightened Despot': The Concentration of Power

Week 8 Tutorial: The ‘Enlightened Despots’: Concentrations of Power

TUTORIAL QUESTIONS: What features distinguished ‘Absolutist’ government from other forms of rule? How did courtly patronage affect the arts, culture and intellectual life? To what extent was ‘The Enlightenment’ a product of Absolutism?

REQUIRED READING: SECONDARY SOURCE

Christopher Clark, ‘Father vs Son’ and ‘The Limits of the State’, in his Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006), pp. 101-14.

The Australian scholar Chris Clark (now at the University of Cambridge) has emerged in recent years as a major historian of modern Europe. His work on the history Germany, the outbreak of WWI and recently the European ‘nationalist’ revolutions of 1848, has drawn widespread acclaim. In this extract from his ambitious history of Prussia, he captures both the intense personal politics of the early Hohenzollern dynasty and some of the challenges to centralised authority in this period.

REQUIRED READING: PRIMARY SOURCE

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Writings on China, trans. Daniel J. Cook and Henry Rosemont (Chicago: Open Court, 1994).

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) was one of Europe's most famous mathematicians (along with Newton he was one of the inventors of calculus), and a noted scientist and philosopher of the Early Modern Period. Like numerous European intellectuals at that time he was also fascinated by China, which he regarded as an example of 'enlightened despotism'. Leibniz wrote a number of influential essays which presented a positive view of China's political system, religions, science, and economy - even though he had never visited the country. The European study of China (sometimes known as 'Sinology') had only recently begun with the arrival of Jesuit missionaries in China in the seventeenth century.

Further Reading:

Cesare Cuttica, ‘A Thing or Two About Absolutism and Its Historiography’, History of European Ideas 29, 2 (2013).

Stephen Miller, State and Society in Eighteenth-Century France: A Study of Political Power and Social Revolution in Languedoc (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 2011).

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03, L05

EASTER & MID-SEMESTER BREAK, 18th-25th APRIL

NO LECTURE OR TUTORIAL

PART C: THE GLOBAL MODERN, WEEK NINE. LECTURE: The 'Dual Revolution' and the Modern World

This lecture examines how the old absolutist order of the eighteenth century was shaken by the American and French Revolutions on the one hand, and the Industrial Revolution on the other. We follow the spread of revolutionary ideas to other parts of the world, especially the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in Latin America. We also consider how far-reaching changes in politics and industry, population growth, revolutionary thinking, and social conflict gave rise to what we now call 'modernity'.

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03

PART C: THE GLOBAL MODERN, WEEK NINE. TUTORIAL: Revolutionary Ideas and Modern States

Week 9 Tutorial: Revolutionary Ideas and Modern States

TUTORIAL QUESTIONS: What key ideas in the American Declaration of Independence would you think of as ‘modern’? Considering these ideas in context, how and why did they spread, and to where?

REQUIRED READING: SECONDARY SOURCE

Linda Colley, ‘The Force of Print’ in her The Gun, the Ship and the Pen: Warfare, Constitutions and the Making of the Modern World (London: Profile, 2021), pp. 107-54.

Linda Colley is a highly original British historian who became prominent in the 1990s with her book, Britons, that re-cast the origins of British national identity through an emphasis on empire, conflict, and Protestantism. Her later books have looked at ‘captivity narratives’ in the history of the British empire, and most recently the development of constitutionalism as a global mode of state-building since the 1750s.

REQUIRED READING: PRIMARY SOURCE

Congress of the United States, ‘Declaration of Independence’ 4 July 1776. Transcription and digitised version of the original document at the US National Archives: https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript

The US Declaration of Independence has a significance far beyond its status as the founding statute of the United States of America. It is one of the foundational documents of what historians consider the ‘modern age’. It expresses a number of key Enlightenment ideas about ‘despotism’ and ‘liberty’ that were nothing short of revolutionary.   

Further Reading:

Eric Hobsbawm, ‘Revolutions’, in his The Age of Revolution 1789-1848 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962), pp. 138-63.

Peter N. Stearns, The Industrial Revolution in World History (New York: Westview Press, 2013) (4th edition).

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03, L05

PART C: THE GLOBAL MODERN, WEEK TEN. LECTURE: The Age of Imperialism, 1815-1914

In this lecture we examine the global expansion of the European colonial empires in the nineteenth century, especially after 1820. This period saw the development of European hegemony around the world, and the so-called 'Great Divergence', when the Western European economies overtook the formerly larger Asian economies. The lecture looks at how the East India Company took control of Mughal India; how British power overcame the might of imperial China in the Opium Wars of the mid-nineteenth century; how Southeast Asia came under British, French, and Dutch colonial rule; and how Japan alone managed to escape that fate, successfully modernized, and itself became an imperial power by the end of the nineteenth century.

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03

PART C: THE GLOBAL MODERN, WEEK TEN. TUTORIAL: The Imperial Nineteenth Century: Remaking the Globe

Week 10 Tutorial: The Imperial Nineteenth Century: Re-Making the Globe

TUTORIAL QUESTIONS: What was the 'new imperialism' and how did it differ from earlier forms of imperial expansion? What were the similarities and differences between Japanese and European colonial rule? Which countries escaped direct European colonization, and how did they do it?

REQUIRED READING: SECONDARY SOURCE

Eric Hobsbawm, 'The Age of Empire', The Age of Empire, 1875-1914 (London: Phoenix Press, 2000), pp. 56-83.

Eric Hobsbawm (1917-2012) was one of the most celebrated historians of his generation. Although a life-long Marxist, his books have appealed to a wide audience worldwide, especially his famous four-volume series on world history; Age of Revolution, Age of Capitalism, Age of Empire and Age of Extremes. Hobsbawm is also responsible for conceiving some influential concepts in modern history writing, such as 'social banditry', the 'age of revolution', the 'dual revolution', the 'long nineteenth century', and the 'short twentieth century'.

REQUIRED READING: PRIMARY SOURCE

J. A. Hobson, ‘Economic Parasites of Imperialism’, in his Imperialism: A Study (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011 [1902]), pp. 51-68.

The English liberal economist, J.A. Hobson (1858-1940), was a highly influential critic of European imperialism at its zenith in the early years of the twentieth century (during the brutish colonial war in South Africa). Somewhat surprisingly, his views on the economic basis of imperialism were adapted with devastating consequences by the Bolshevik revolutionary V. I. Lenin in his famous work, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917). From Lenin, the idea of a nexus between capitalism and imperialism had a powerful influence on anti-colonial revolutionaries around the world for much of the twentieth century.

Further Reading:

Daniel R. Headrick, The Tentacles of Progress: Technology Transfer in the Age of Imperialism, 1850-1940 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988).

Niall Ferguson, Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World (London: Penguin, 2003).

Niall Ferguson (1964-) is a conservative British-American historian. His bestselling 2003 book, Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World, presents a provocative, conservative view of the history of the British Empire and of Western imperialism more generally. Ferguson argues that on balance British imperialism was 'a good thing', in that it provided a political framework for the development of free market capitalism around the world.

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03, L05

PART C: THE GLOBAL MODERN, WEEK ELEVEN:. LECTURE: Colonialism and Indigenous Peoples

This lecture aims to understand how Indigenous societies around the world responded to colonial expansion, emphasising the destructive impacts of dispossession and 'settlement' along with patterns of accommodation and resistance. We examine the history of Indigenous peoples in European settler societies, including Australia. We also compare the historical experiences of Indigenous peoples in Asia, where 70% of the world’s Indigenous peoples live, who were absorbed into expanding non-Western empires such as imperial Japan.

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03

PART C: THE GLOBAL MODERN, WEEK ELEVEN. TUTORIAL: Indigenous Experience in a Colonial World

Week 11 Tutorial: Indigenous Experience in a Colonial World

TUTORIAL QUESTIONS: What is the place of indigenous peoples in global history? What characteristics of colonial ‘settler’ societies were most destructive of Indigenous ways of living? How did religious agencies and actors feature in indigenous dispossession and governance? (see William Ridley’s 1861 advice as an example).

REQUIRED READING: SECONDARY SOURCE

C. A. Bayly, ‘The Destruction of Native Peoples and Ecological Depredation’ in his The Birth of the Modern World, 1780-1914 (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), pp. 432-50.

Christopher Bayly (1945 - 2015) was one of the founders of the field of global history. Originally a historian of the British in India, through a series of richly interconnected studies of global themes he developed a sophisticated critique of imperial history, Marxist history, and post-colonialism. His approach to global history is noted for his attention to and emphasis on the agency of ordinary people - including in colonised countries.

REQUIRED READING: PRIMARY SOURCE

William Ridley, ‘Considerations on the Means to be Adopted for Civilizing the Aborigines of Australia...’ in Queensland Legislative Assembly, ‘Report of the Select Committee on the Native Police Force’, Votes and Proceedings (1861), pp. 165-66.

William Ridley was an active Presbyterian missionary in the Darling Downs and Moreton Bay districts in the 1850s, and later one of the first Europeans to study Australian Aboriginal languages and ethnography in depth. In this advice tendered to the 1861 Queensland parliamentary inquiry into the frontier violence of the Native Mounted Police, he outlined what (in his view) represented the best means to ‘civilize’ Aboriginal people.

Further Reading:

James Belich, Replenishing the Earth: The Settler Revolution and the Rise of the Anglo-world (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 356-72.

Ann McGrath and Lynette Russell, ‘History’s Outsiders? Global Indigenous Histories’ in their The Routledge Companion to Global Indigenous History (London and New York: Routledge, 2020), pp. 1-30.

Rosalind Kidd, The Way We Civilise: Aboriginal Affairs - The Untold Story (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1997), esp. ‘Competing Interests’, pp. 36-79.

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03, L05

PART C: THE GLOBAL MODERN, WEEK TWELVE. LECTURE: The Crisis of Modernity, to 1918

This lecture explores the global crisis of the First World War (1914-18) and its origins in European imperialist conflicts of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. We consider how the war shattered the nineteenth-century world order and initiated major developments and problems that have shaped the history of the twentieth century. We look at the factors that caused the collapse of the world's great dynastic empires of imperial Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, and Qing China, and the rise of the revolutionary new political ideas of nationalism and communism.

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03, L05

PART C: THE GLOBAL MODERN, WEEK TWELVE. TUTORIAL: Empires and Nationalism after the 'Great War': Imagining a New World Order

Week 12 Tutorial: Empires and Nationalism after the 'Great War': Imagining a New World Order

TUTORIAL QUESTIONS: In what sense did the First World War mark the end of one era and the beginning of a new one? What are the origins of Wilson's thinking and proposals in his famous 14 Points speech to the US Congress in 1918? How were these proposals viewed elsewhere? How did these ideas help reshape the map of Europe and the global order?

REQUIRED READING: SECONDARY SOURCE

Christopher Bayly, Remaking the Modern World 1900-2015: Global Connections and Comparisons (Oxford: WileyBlackwell, 2018). Please read ''The World Crisis, c.1900-1930: Europe and the "Middle East"'; and 'The World Crisis, c.1900-1930: Africa, Asia and Beyond', pp. 12-48.

Christopher Bayly (1945-2015) was one of the pioneers of global history. Formerly a scholar of the British Raj, he expanded his scope to cover the history of the modern world with perhaps his most famous work, The Birth of the Modern World: 1780–1914 (2004). His approach was critical of Marxist, postcolonial, and postmodern styles of history writing, and is particularly notable for his attention to the agency of ordinary people, especially in colonized countries around the world, in the making of their own history.

REQUIRED READING: PRIMARY SOURCE

President Woodrow Wilson's 14 Points (1918), National Archives <https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-woodrow-wilsons-14-points>

President Woodrow Wilson's "14 Points" speech to the US Congress on January 8, 1918, is one of the most famous speeches in American political history. It set out an internationalist vision of a world order based on American liberal ideas and the principle of the right to national self-determination. It had a great influence on the Paris Peace Conference in 1918 and the Treaty of Versailles the following year. 'Wilsonian idealism' would be influential on US foreign policy for the remainder of the century.

Further Reading

Eric Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century 1914-1991 (London: Abacus, 1995)

PART C: THE GLOBAL MODERN, WEEK THIRTEEN: LECTURE: Globalisation in our Time

The lecture reflects on the remaking of the global order following the end of the First World War. It looks at radical nationalist movements in Asia, the rise of fascism and communism in Europe and its culmination in the Second World War (1939-45). The war not only defeated fascism, but also brought to an end the era of European and Japanese imperialism. We consider the post-war founding of global institutions like the United Nations and the Bretton Woods agreements in the 1940s, and US and Western powers' attempts to establish a global 'liberal rules-based order.' We examine the ideological clashes between capitalism and communism during the Cold War, decolonization in the former colonial states in Africa, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, rapid economic growth and its environmental impact, social movements for justice and change, and the emergence of the US as the sole global hegemon following the end of the Cold War in 1991. We conclude the course with a consideration of the strength of globalising forces - and resistance to these forces - in recent years.

PLEASE NOTE: No HIST1601 tutorials this week.

Recommended Reading

Peter Frankopan, The Silk Roads: A New History of the World (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), esp. the chapter, 'The New Silk Road', pp. 508-21.

Peter Frankopan is professor of global history at Oxford University. Formerly a scholar of medieval Byzantium, he later expanded his horizons to explore themes of global connection in history. In the concluding chapter to this bestselling book Frankopan reflects on today's changing global order shaped by the rise of China and other rapidly developing countries, the shift from US global hegemony to a more multi-polar world, and the return of the world's economic centre of gravity to the Eurasian continent.

Richard Drayton and David Motadel, "Discussion: The Futures of Global History", Journal of Global History, Vol. 13 (2018), pp. 1-21.

Written shortly after Brexit (Britain's withdrawal from the European Union) and the rise of Donald Trump's 'America First' movement in the United States, Richard Drayton and David Motadel consider the future of the field of global history.

Learning outcomes: L01, L02, L03