Overview of Course

This introductory world history course provides an overview of the history of the global human community from the 1500s to the twenty-first century. We will explore major issues that shaped the world we live in today with a focus on many of the regions that we will be visiting this semester. With an emphasis on global interconnections, the course covers such themes as migration, imperialism, gender, and the industrial revolution with its attendant creation of new global inequities. Our aim is to better understand patterns of increasing global integration and its discontents, and to appreciate the tension between global change and local identities. Ultimately, we will investigate how these patterns impacted the ways that peoples interacted with each other.
The course is designed to encourage students to think globally and compassionately about the problems that plague us in the twenty-first century. Global events and the common needs of all humanity are joining diverse cultures and societies into one civilization in a shrinking, fragile, and interdependent world. Foundational questions underlying the course ask: Where are we today as a human community? How did we get here? Where are we headed? And do we want to get where we are headed? It is my hope that each of you will leave this course with a better understanding of the complex historical issues that have shaped the modern world and have direct impact on the social, political, economic, and ecological conditions of the world you live in and the one your children will inherit.