HIST 180 - Going Global: The Experiment of World History

What broad patterns do we see repeated across human cultures and eras? How do current international concerns shape the way we perceive these patterns, and retell the past? This course is an introduction to the youngest and boldest experimenters in the discipline of history: global historians. We follow these trail-blazers to every corner of the planet and across the grandest expanses of time, all the way from the emergence of Homo sapiens to present day. Such a sweeping survey of human history invites us to look beyond chronological, national, cultural and geographic boundaries. It also forces us to sharply rethink the methodology of traditional historians. Throughout our critical survey of world history we will assess the usefulness (and potential outdatedness) of the concepts of civilization, empire, revolution, and global networks. This course fulfills the global/comparative requirement for the major. Meets the global and/or comparative history requirement, and can count towards “Colonization and Empire,” or “Environment,” or “Race and Indigeneity,” or “Global/Comparative” fields. Every year. (4 Credits)