World Civilizations from 1453 to the First World War:
Revolution, the State, and the Good Society
Core 133: Scarboro / Fall 2017
A detail from the silk scroll 'The Mission of Commodore Perry to Japan' (1854)
Section |
C: MWF 12:00 (H-M 303) |
Office |
Hafey-Marian 306 |
E-mail |
|
Website |
|
Phone |
(570) 208-5900 ext. 5637 |
Office Hours |
TTh 9:30-12:00 |
Moodle Site |
I. Description:
While contact between cultures and civilizations is as old as recorded history,
in the 15th century the world became knitted together through trade
and conquest as never before. This course traces the development of this
interconnectivity between and among cultures and civilizations from the
mid-fifteenth century to the present. Central to understanding these
processes is the relationship between the growing role of the state and the
lives of its would-be subjects or citizens. This period—the era of
modernity—was most importantly characterized by ever more powerful attempts to
create ideal subjects and societies (understood, among other things, in terms of
empire, nation, religion and economic models). Our discussion of the last 500
years will focus on the manner in which societies sought to order, control and
transform the world, communities and individuals around them according to their
own understanding of the correct relationship between people, the state and
ideology.
II. Purpose:
A. CART Goals and Student Learning Outcomes
Students who complete courses in the Civilizations CART (Core 13x) will be able
to:
III. General Requirements
A. Course Readings:
Ansary,
Tamim, Destiny Disrupted: A History of
the World through Islamic Eyes, Public Affairs, 2010.
Conrad,
Joseph, The Heart of Darkness,
Classics Deluxe Edition, 2012.
DeTocqueville, Democracy in America,
Signet Classics, 2010.
Hobsbawm, Eric, The Age of Revolutions:
1789-1848, Vintage, 1996.
Hobsbawm, Eric, The Age of Capital:
1848-1875, Vintage, 1996.
Hobsbawm, Eric, The Age of Empire:
1875-1914, Vintage, 1996.
Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engles, The
Communist Manifesto, Signet Classics, 2011.
B. Written Assignments
1. First Primary Source Analysis:
due September 25th
(4-5 pages)
On September 25th you will historically contextualize three films
used as primary sources. This will
require you to place the films in dialogue with one another, analyze how they
are asking similar questions (if coming to different answers), and articulating
their theses. Your analysis should make use of the Hobsbawm text (and
potentially additional texts) in order to situate the films, and their themes,
historically.
Essays: All Found on the Course
Moodle Site:
Diderot, Supplement to the Voyage of
Bougainville, 1771
Rousseau, The Social Contract
(excerpts), 1762
Voltaire, Treatise on Tolerance, 1763
Your analysis will need to be turned in both on the turnitin link on the course
moodle site and in paper form in class.
2. Second Primary Source Analysis:
due December 4th
(4-5 pages)
On December 4th you will historically contextualize three essays used
as primary sources. This will
require you to place the films in dialogue with one another, analyze how they
are asking similar questions (if coming to different answers), and articulating
their theses. Your analysis should
make use of the Hobsbawm text (and potentially additional texts) in order to
situate the essays, and their themes, historically.
Sources:
Joseph Conrad, The Heart of Darkness,
Penguin Deluxe Edition, 2012
Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Imperialism, Science and Religion (two Essays), 1883
and 1884
José Martí, “Mother America,” 1889
Your analysis will need to be turned in both on the turnitin link on the course
moodle site and in paper form in class.
3. Reflection Assignment:
(1-2 pages)
At the end of the semester you will be asked to write a short reflection on what
you have learned this semester, how you experience the question of modernity,
and the good society.
Your reflection will need to be turned in both on the turnitin link on the
course moodle site and in paper form in class.
D. Exams:
There will be three exams in this class: two midterms: the first due on October
2nd at 11:59 p.m.; the second due November 6th at
11:59 p.m.; and a final given during finals week. All exams will be
taken on the course moodle site. The exams will cover material from class
lectures, readings and discussions.
The exams will consist of four parts: 1) questions from the syllabus dealing
with lectures covered during the course of class meetings (these are listed on
the syllabus and will be randomly chosen for the exam) 2) questions from the
syllabus dealing with readings covered during the course of class meetings
(these are listed on the syllabus and will be randomly chosen for the exam), 3)
source interpretation—you will be asked to interpret (place in time and assign a
historical meaning to) a source (written or visual) that we have discussed in
class, and 4) questions pertaining to your primary sources used in your essays.
E. Source Quizzes
Five times over the course of the semester you will have to interpret a primary
source connected to a course discussion or lecture in a one page analysis.
The due dates for these quizzes are as follows—all quizzes are due on the
date assigned by 11:59 p.m.:
Sources |
Date |
An Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico,
c. 1519 and
Excerpts from Hernan Cortes’
Second Letter to Charles V, 1520 |
September 11th |
Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen,
1789 and
Olympe DeGouges, Declaration of
the Rights of Woman and Citizen, 1793 and Maximilien
Robespierre,Justification of the Use of Terror, 1794 |
October 9th |
Johann Gottfried von Herder, Materials for the Philosophy of the History
of Mankind, 1784 |
October 25th |
Caillebotte, Paris Street, Rainy
Day, 1877 |
November 1st |
Yoshitora, The Complete
Enumeration of Scenic Place in Foreign Lands, 1850-1880 |
November 15th |
F. Class Discussion and Participation
As well as providing you with the methodological and analytical tools for
engaging in historical thinking, this class will ask you to actively take part
in a larger conversation of historical issues within the class. I expect
this class to allow us to delve deeply into the historical topics of each week’s
readings. To that end you need to make sure that you arrive to class on
time ready to discuss the weekly readings, having carefully read and thought
over the material. You must take an active role in the class discussions.
Thus a portion of your grade will depend on your in-class performance and
presence.
In a class of this nature it goes without saying that a classroom environment in
which everyone feels comfortable is essential. You should treat your
fellow classmates with respect, listen carefully to their comments and respond
to them in a polite manner.
G. Grading:
It is your responsibility to understand why you have achieved a certain grade,
and what steps you can take to maintain or improve your grade. You should
consult with the instructor during office hours or by appointment before and
after exams and written assignments. Your final grade will be based on the
following percentages
100-95 |
A |
94-92 |
A- |
91-89 |
B+ |
88-85 |
B |
84-83 |
B- |
82-80 |
C+ |
79-77 |
C |
76-75 |
C- |
74-70 |
D |
69< |
F |
Your grade distribution for class assignments is as follows:
First Midterm |
15% |
Second Midterm |
15% |
Final Exam |
15% |
Primary Source Analysis #1 |
15% |
Primary Source Analysis #2 |
15% |
Primary Source Quizzes x5 |
10% |
Reflection Assignment |
5% |
Class Participation |
10% |
H. Academic Integrity:
The Department of History adheres to guidelines on academic integrity outlined
in the Student Conduct Code in the Student Handbook:
http://www.kings.edu/student_handbook/studentregulations_rights/conductcode.htm
Cheating and plagiarism will be penalized in accord with the penalties and
procedures indicated in that source. All students are responsible for
familiarizing themselves with the definition of these infractions of academic
honesty.
I. Absences:
I will regularly take attendance in this class. Absences due to college
activities, emergency or extended illness may be excused by the appropriate
college official. You should consult with the professor about making up missed
work in advance or as soon as possible after your return. Other absences
are unexcused and will lower the class participation portion of your grade.
After any absence, you are responsible for requesting hand-outs and already
returned assignments from me or borrowing notes from other students. If you miss
an exam, contact me as possible. You may take a missed exam only at the
discretion of the instructor.
J. Disabilities:
King’s College and I will make every effort to accommodate students with a
bona-fide disability that impacts on their ability to learn the course material.
Please meet with me privately so that appropriate arrangements can be made to
help in the learning process.
Introduction: Sources and History
Monday, August 28th
|
Modernity, Revolution, and Ideology
Wednesday, August 30th
Question: What do we mean
by modernity? How is it
related to new and revolutionary ways of understanding the world and
building national, imperial and religious communities? |
Growth of the Global / Growth of the Local—Exploration, Conquest, and
Trade
Friday, September 1st
Question: Why did Europeans
become the leaders in 15th century overseas exploration,
conquest and discovery?
What models of colonization did they establish? |
New Worlds, Old Worlds
Wednesday, September 6th
Question: How and why did
the Spaniards conquer the Aztec Empire?
How is this conquest emblematic of other European conquests of
the non-European world? How did the Spaniards and Portuguese seek to
remake America? How did
this conquest transform American Societies? |
Discussion:
Revelation, Codification and the Problem of the State: The Birth of
Islam
Friday, September 8th
Question: How does Ansary understand Islam as a political project?
What are its ends?
Implications? How does this
play out in the period prior to the “arrival of the Turks?”
**Readings: Ansary, 1-117 |
Humanism
Monday, September 11th
Question: What is humanism?
How was it a challenge to the established powers of Medieval Europe? How
does it change the way people think of themselves in the world?
***First Quiz Due 11:59 p.m. |
Epistemological Revolutions: Scientific Revolution, Protestant
Reformation and the Enlightenment
Wednesday, September 13th
Question: How did the
Protestant Reformation and the Wars of Religion remake Europe?
What was the impact of the Scientific Revolution in transforming the
worldview of those in Europe? How does it reflect questions of authority
over knowledge? How did the
Enlightenment challenge traditional societal organization? How
does it change the way people think of themselves in the world? |
Absolutism: The Growth of the Modern State
Friday, September 15th
Question: How was Absolutism an answer to the chaos of the
European 16th Century? How did it lead to the development of the
European state system? How did it seek to arrange the word around
it?
**Readings: Hobsbawn, The Age of
Revolution, 1-27 |
Discussion:
Bougainville’s Voyage: Enlightenment and “the Other”
Monday, September 18th
Question: How is Diderot’s text reflective of the Enlightenment project?
How does it understand the good society?
How does it presage and challenge colonial understandings of
order?
**Reading: Diderot, “Supplement to the Voyage of Bougainville” (moodle) |
The Rise of the Ottoman Empire
Wednesday, September 20th
Question: How did the Ottoman Empire organize its society?
How was difference understood? What role did religion play? What
was the role of nationalism?
Reading: Ansary, 117-159 |
Discussion:
Aquirre the Wrath of God
Friday, September 22nd
Question: What is Werner Herzog saying about the colonial experiment?
The relationship between civilization and madness? |
Mughal India and the Coming of the British East India Company
Monday, September 25th
Question: What accounts for the success of the Mughal Empire under
Akbar? What factors account for its decline? Why were the
British successful in colonizing the Indian subcontinent?
***Primary Source Analysis |
Black Atlantic and the Invention of Race
Wednesday, September 27th
Question: How did race develop in the Atlantic World?
What are its connections to slavery and capitalism?
Colonialism and modernity?
|
Catherine the Great and the Bronze Horseman
Friday, September 29th
Question: What does Catherine the Great tell us about the ambiguities of
modernity? The Role of the
State? The relationship
between state and society?
Rebellion? |
Revolution, Part I: France
Monday, October 2nd
Question: What were the
causes of the French Revolution?
What were the three phases of the Revolution?
How did each phase differ in its vision of the “good society?”
What was the role of Napoleon?
***First Exam due 11:59 p.m. |
Discussion:
The French Revolution
Wednesday, October 4th
Question: How does Hobsbawm understand the impact of the French
Revolution? Why, according
to Hobsbawm, did it happen?
How does he periodize it?
Interpret its results?
**Reading: Hobsbawn, The Age of
Revolution, 53-77 |
Revolution, Part II: Haiti and the Revolution of the Criollos
Friday, October 6th
Question: Whose Revolutions were the Haitian and American Creole
Revolutions? What were its causes and effects? What role did
new social classes have to play in its development? How did they
each seek to organize their newly revolutionary societies? What role did
nationalism play? |
Discussion:
Democracy in America, part I
Monday, October 9th
Question: What does De Tocqueville see as the underlying tensions in the
American democratic experiment?
What are the perils and promises of democratic structures?
**Reading: De Tocqueville,
Democracy in America, 37-161
***Second Quiz Due 11:59 p.m. |
Revolution, Part III: Industrial Revolution
Wednesday, October 11th
Question: How did the Industrial Revolution remake European Society?
How did it change the place of Europe in the World? |
Discussion:
The Industrial Revolution
Monday, October 16th
Question: How does Hobsbawm understand the impact of the Industrial
Revolution? Why, according
to Hobsbawm, did it happen?
How does he periodize it?
Interpret its results?
**Reading: Hobsbawn, The Age of Revolution, 27-53 |
Discussion:
War, Revolution, Nationalism
Wednesday, October 18th
Question: According to Hobsbawm, what are the impacts of the wars
emerging from the French Revolution?
The Peace? The
Revolutions of 1830?
**Reading: Hobsbawm, The Age of
Revolution, 77-149 |
19th Century Nationalism
Friday, October 20th
Question: What factors contributed to the development of European
nationalism? What forms did
it take? What was its
impact on the traditional European state system?
How did Europe and then the world become divided politically into
nation states? What were
the difficulties in defining the nation? |
Discussion:
Democracy in America, part II
Monday, October 23rd
Question: How does De Tocqueville understand the development of American
identity and political philosophy?
(In other words, what makes America, America)?
**Reading: De Tocqueville,
Democracy in America, 163-217 |
19th Century Brazil
Wednesday, October 25th
Question: How does the Brazilian national experience relate to the
revolution of the criollos earlier in the century?
How is it a modern experience?
What role does slavery play?
***Third Quiz Due 11:59 p.m. |
Discussion:
Revolutionary Society / Industrial World
Friday, October 27th
Question: How does Hobsbawm understand the transformation of the
European world in the era of revolution and industry?
Where is he pointing when he points “towards 1848”?
How does this frame his narrative of revolution?
**Reading: Hobsbawm, The Age of
Revolution, 149-309 |
Discussion: The Communist Manifesto
Monday, October 30th
Question: How do Marx and Engles understand the contradictions of
capitalism? How are they to
be resolved?
*Reading: Marx and Engles, The
Communist Manifesto (entire) |
Discussion:
The Great Boom
Wednesday, November 1st
Question: What is the “Age of Capital?” How does Hobsbawm understand the
conflicts underlying the revolutions of 1848?
How was the world unified?
What were the consequences?
**Reading: Hobsbawm, The Age of
Capital, 1-82
***Fourth Quiz: Caillebotte,
Paris Street, Rainy Day, 1877 |
Middle Class Societies and its Discontents
Friday, November 3rd
Question: How did the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat seek to reorganize
the world around them in the 19th Century?
What were the results of these processes?
|
Discussion:
Nations and Democracy, part I: Winners and Losers
Monday, November 6th
Question: According to
Hobsbawm, who were the winners and losers of the process of
nation-building?
Democratization? How do
these processes unfold?
**Reading: Hobsbawm, The Age of
Capital, 82-173
***Second Exam Due 11:59 p.m. |
Discussion:
Democracy in America, part III
Wednesday, November 8th
Question: Question: According to De Tocqueville, what is American
Democracy? How does it
shape American identity? Is
he right?
**Reading:
De Tocqueville, Democracy in
America, 218-372 |
19th Century Japan
Friday, November 10th
Question: How does the Japanese experience of nation-building in the 19th
century compare to other similar (and dissimilar) processes underway
simultaneously in Asia? |
Discussion:
Havoc Rebirth and the Coming of “the West”
Monday, November 13th
Question: What does Ansary
mean by “havoc?” How does this relate to his project of understanding
history read from an Islamic perspective as the conflict between “two
impulses: changing our notion of ‘civilized’ to align with the flow of
history or fighting the flow of history to realign it with our notion of
‘civilized’”?
**Reading: Ansary, 133-247 |
The Chinese 19th Century
Wednesday, November 15th
Question: How does the Chinese experience of nation-building in the 19th
century compare to other similar (and dissimilar) processes underway
simultaneously in Asia?
***Fifth Quiz: Yoshitora, The
Complete Enumeration of Scenic Places in Foreign Lands, 1850-80 |
India and Colonialism / India and Capitalism
Friday, November 17th
Question: How does the Indian experience of nation-building in the 19th
century compare to other similar (and dissimilar) processes underway
simultaneously in Asia? |
Discussion:
Age of Empire!
Monday, November 20th
Question: What are the contradictions “penetrating” and “dominating” the
age of empire? What are its
most important results?
**Reading: Hobsbawm, The Age of
Empire, 1-84 |
Discussion: The Heart of Darkness
Monday, November 27th
Question: How does Conrad understand the colonial experiment (how does
his vision compare with Herzog’s)?
Modernity? Horror?
Reading: Conrad, The Heart of
Darkness (entire) |
European Imperialism: Scramble for Africa
Wednesday, November 29th
Question: Explain the motivations for European imperialism in the 19th
century? What role did imperialism, racism and nationalism have to play?
What did European imperialism look like on the ground in Africa? |
Discussion:
Nations and Democracy, part II: Bourgeois Anxieties
Friday, December 1st
Question: Why does Hobsbawm understand the age of empire to be a period
of bourgeois anxieties?
What are the implications?
Where is his narrative leading (where is the terminus)?
**Reading: Hobsbawm, The Age of
Empire, 84-192 |
Discussion:
Rise of Secular Modernism / The Crisis of Modernity
Monday, December 4th
Question: How does Ansary interpret the transformations put in place in
Europe by the Protestant Reformation?
Does he see analogous movements in the Islamic world?
To what effect? What
does he mean by the crisis of modernity?
**Reading: Ansary, 247-349
***Primary Source Analysis |
Discussion:
New Uncertainties: New Worlds / Old Worlds
Wednesday, December 6th
Question: How is the late
imperial world one of uncertainties?
How do they relate to Hobsbawm’s “contradictions of the era?”
How are they reflected culturally?
**Reading: Hobsbawm, The Age of
Empire, 192-341 |
World War I: Glitter and Doom
Friday, December 8th
Question: How did World War
I complete the 19th Century process of creating European
nation-states? What was the
war’s impact on the culture of the interwar years?
What was the war’s impact on interwar politics? |