Introductory description

This module considers the history of cultural interactions between different parts of the world, especially in the exchange of material artefacts, knowledge, and trade in the period 1500-1800. This one-term module follows the circulation of silver, commodities such as spices, porcelain and textiles, plants and diseases, as well as technology and ideas. It deals with the connections created between empires and across cultural and religious divides. Such contacts could lead to peace and prosperity but also to war, enslavement and destruction. As a module which engages with material culture and visual sources alongside textual sources, an integral part is the Ashmolean Museum visit.

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Week 1: Empires and Global Connections, 1500-1800
Week 2: Silk and South American Silver in Asia and Europe
Week 3: Moving Plants, Diseases and Animals
Week 4: War and Imperial Expansion
Week 5: Maritime Empires and the East and West India Companies
Week 6: Reading week
Week 7: Diplomatic Gifts and Material Culture
Week 8: Scientific Knowledge and the Enlightenment
Week 9: Slavery in Global History
Week 10: Exploration and Knowledge of the Pacific

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Demonstrate a detailed knowledge of non-European histories, and their connections with and impact on early modern and 18th century European history.
• Communicate ideas and findings, adapting to a range of situations, audiences and degrees of complexity.
• Generate ideas through the analysis of a broad range of primary source material.
• Analyse and evaluate the contributions made by existing scholarship.
• Act with limited supervision and direction within defined guidelines, accepting responsibility for achieving deadlines.

Indicative reading list

• Mazlish, Bruce, ‘Comparing Global History to World History’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 28, no. 3 (1998), pp. 385-395.
• Pamela Crossley, 'Divergence', in What is Global History. [On Course Extracts]
• Gould, Elijah J., ‘Entangled Histories, Entangled Worlds: The English-Speaking Atlantic as a Spanish Periphery American Historical Review , 112 (2007), pp. 764–786
• Pomeranz, Kenneth, 'Histories for a Less National Age', American Historical Review, 119:1, (2014), pp. 1-22.
• AHR Roundtable: 'Historians and the Question of Modernity', American Historical Review, 116:3, pp. 631-7.
• Chakrabarty, Dipesh, 'The Muddle of Modernity', AHR Roundtable, Itinerario, 116:3, (2011), pp. 663-675
• Flynn, Dennis O., and Giráldez, Arturo, ‘Cycles of Silver: Global Economic Unity through the Mid-Eighteenth Century’, Journal of World History, 13, no. 2 (2002), pp. 391-427
• Zahedieh, Nuala, The Capital and the Colonies, (Cambridge, 2010), chap. 2, pp. 17-34. [HF3093.Z35]
• Braudel, Fernand, The Structures of Everyday Life, (London, 1981), chap. 8, pp. 509-558. [D208.B7]
• Haneda, Masashi, Asian Port Cities, 1600-1800, (2009), intro., and chap. 1. [DS33.7.A67]
• Inalcik, H., ‘Istanbul and the Imperial Economy’, in Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, vol. 1, ch. 8 [HC492.E26]
• de Vries, Jan, 'The Limits of Globalisation in the Early Modern World', Economic History Review, 63:1, (2010), pp. 710-733.
• Farrington, Anthony, Trading Places: The East India Company and Asia 1600-1834 (London, 2002) [DS 465.F2]
• Maxine Berg et. al, Goods from the East: Trading Eurasia 1600-1800 (Palgrave, 2015 – ebook)
• Berg, Maxine, ‘In Pursuit of Luxury: Global History and British Consumer Goods in the Eighteenth Century’, Past and Present, 182 (2004), pp. 85-142
• Gerritsen, Anne and McDowall, Stephen, 'Material Culture and the Other: European Encounters with Chinese Porcelain 1650-1800', Journal of World History, 23, 2012, pp. 87-113.
• Anne Gerritsen and Giorgio Riello, The Global Lives of Things (Routledge, 2016).
• J.R. McNeill, 'Environmental History', in Ulinka Rublack, ed., A Concise Companion to History,
• (Oxford, 2012), chap. 13, pp. 299-316. [D13.C629]. 4 copies in library. see here.
• Earle, Rebecca, ‘European Cuisine and the Columbian Exchange: Introduction’, Food and History, vol. 7:1 (2009), pp. 3-10.
• Crosby, Alfred W., “Columbian Exchange”, Food and History, vol. 7:1 (2009), pp. 225-226
• Headrick, Daniel, 'Technology, Engineering and Science', in Jerry Bentley, The Oxford Handbook of World History, (Oxford, 2012), chap. 13, pp. 229-246. [D 20.O974] Also available as an E-Book.
• Mokyr, Joel, 'The Intellectual Origins of Modern Economic Growth', Journal of Economic History, 65:2, pp. 285-351.
• Parthasarathi, Prasannan, Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not: Global Economic Divergence, 1600-1850, (Cambridge, 2011), chap. 7. [HC240 .P2485]. Also available as an E-Book
• McNeill, William H., 'The Age of the Gunpowder Empires, 1450-1800', in Michael Adas, ed. Islamic and European Expansion: the Forging of a Global Order, (Philadelphia, 1993), pp. 103-139. [D13.I8].
• Parker, Geoffrey, 'The "Military Revolution" 1560-1660: a Myth?', Journal of Modern History, 48:2, (1976), pp. 195-214.
• Walvin, James, Atlas of Slavery (Routledge, 2014), chaps. 1 and maps.
• Inikori, Joseph, 'Africa and the Globalization Process: Western Africa, 1450-1850', Journal of Global History, 2:1, 2007, pp. 63-86.
• Douglas, Bronwen . ‘Voyages, Encounters, and Agency in Oceania: Captain Cook and Indigenous People’, History Compass, 6:3, (2008), pp. 712– 37.
• Thomas, Nicholas, ‘Licensed Curiosity: Cook’s Pacific Voyages’, in John Elsner and Roger Cardinal, eds., The Cultures of Collecting (London, 1994), pp. 116-136. [AM 231.C8]. Also available as an E- Book.

View reading list on Talis Aspire

Subject specific skills

See learning outcomes.

Transferable skills

See learning outcomes.