Introductory description

This core module for the MA in Global and Comparative History is intended to give a critical overview of one of the fastest growing and most dynamic areas of modern historical enquiry - global history. It aims to provide students with an understanding of how global history has emerged from earlier approaches to the study of history, what makes it distinctive and what its principal strengths and weaknesses might be. As the core course, this module not only examines the range of historical methods and interpretations that constitute global history, but also looks at ways in which 'the global' can be investigated in relation to the regional and the local by taking up perspectives from Asia, Africa and the Atlantic and Islamic Worlds.

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.

1. Introduction
2. Methods and Concepts in Global History
3. Global Economic History and Capitalism
4. Global Labour History
5. Environment and the Anthropocene
6. Reading week
7. Global Urban History
8. Gender
9. Empires
10. Science

Learning outcomes

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

• Demonstrate a conceptual and practical understanding of the skills of a global and comparative historian.
• Demonstrate the ability to formulate and achieve a piece of critical and reflective historiographical writing.
• Demonstrate the ability to undertake critical analysis.
• Demonstrate the ability to formulate and test concepts and hypotheses.

Indicative reading list

• Janet L. Abu Lughod, Before European Hegemony: The World System, 1250-1350
• Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization
• Gurminder Bhambra, 'Historical Sociology, Modernity, and Postcolonial Critique', American Historical Review 116.3 (2011): 653-662
• Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference
• Philip D. Curtin, Cross-Cultural Trade in World History
• 'Global Times and Spaces: On Historicizing the Global', History Workshop Journal, 64:1 (2007), comments by Driver, Burton, Berg, Subrahmanyam, Boal, pp. 321-46.
• Eliga H. Gould, 'Entangled Histories, Entangled Worlds: The English-Speaking Atlantic as a Spanish Periphery', American Historical Review, 112 (2007), pp.764-86 (see also following article by Jorge Canizares-Esguerra on 'Entangled Histories', pp. 787-99)
• Bruce Mazlish, 'Comparing Global History to World History', Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 28:3 (1998), pp. 385-95
• David Palumbo-Liu, Bruce Robbins, and Nirvana Tanoukhi, eds., Immanuel Wallerstein and the problem of the world: system, scale, culture (2011)
• Kenneth Pomeranz, 'Social History and World History: From Daily Life to Patterns of Change', Journal of World History, 18: 1 (2007), pp. 69-98
• Merry E. Wiesner, 'World History and the History of Women, Gender, and Sexuality', Journal of World History, 18:1 (2007), pp. 53-67
• Pamela Crossley, What is Global History? (2008)
• Samuel Moyn and Andrew Sartori, eds., Global Intellectual History (2013)
• Lynn Hunt, Writing History in the Global Era (2014)
• Evely Edson, Mapping Time and Space: How Medieval Mapmakers Viewed Their World (1997)
• Jagdish Bhagwati, In Defense of Globalization (2004)
• Nile Green, Bombay Islam: The Religious Economy of the West Indian Ocean (2011)
• Jane Burbank & Frederick Cooper, Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference (2010)
• Bill Schwarz, The White Man’s World (2011)

View reading list on Talis Aspire

Subject specific skills

See learning outcomes.

Transferable skills

See learning outcomes.