CHIST 1501 World History I
This course is a globally integrated survey of world history from 4000 BCE to 1500 of the Common Era. Tracing world history from the emergence of complex riverine societies in the fourth millennium Before the Common Era to the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453 CE, we will examine the geographical, political, economic, social, cultural, and intellectual developments that took place in pre-modern Afro-Eurasia and the Americas. Historical case studies will be used to emphasize both the global interconnectedness and regional divergence of the ancient and medieval world, and to elucidate broader topics and themes that transcend these individual civilizations, including: settlement and migration patterns; climatic and environmental change; trans-cultural diffusion; demographic transition; agricultural revolution; technological innovation; political transformation; long-distance commerce; warfare and imperialism; and the spread of universal religions. In addition to these regional case studies, several trans-regional and trans-oceanic topics will be covered in the course, such as the pandemic known as the “Black Death” that devastated Afro-Eurasia in the mid-fourteenth century. Along the way, we will endeavor to integrate historical narrative within our analysis, and also to investigate the lives of ordinary people within these societies. This course is not a teleological account of world history, a master narrative about increasing globalization and the rise of the West, nor does it privilege any one part of the globe in its geographical approach. Rather, it attempts to provide an academically critical and regionally balanced historical survey of the pre-modern world.