Browse Hierarchy GEG6105: Global Historical Geographies, 1492-1800

This module aims to introduce students to the complexities of the historical geography of globalisation from Christopher Columbus's landing in America to the end of the eighteenth century. During this period there were enormous changes in the relationships between places - particularly between Europe and the rest of the world - which had profound implications for the way in which the world worked then and which have also structured the ways in which the world works now. Based on the key module text Global Lives (Ogborn, 2008) the module distinguishes between various forms, phases and types of global connection: first encounters, settlement, trade both east and west, mariners' and pirates' travelling lives, the slave trade, plantation slavery in the Caribbean and North America, anti-slavery movements, and science and discovery in the Pacific. It uses biographical material to show how those processes shaped people's lives and were shaped by them. The module's substantive material will be taught through lectures, through student discussion sessions which will support the production of coursework and through museum visits which will show how these issues are being presented to contemporary audiences.