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Professor: Alan Fisher

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History 150

History 150 is the second semester of a year-long course on World History. [more]

History 140

World History to 1500

During the 1990s the word "globalization" began to be used by political leaders, journalists, media reporters and others who were newly interested in the tight connections which linked the world's societies and peoples.  By the late 20th century, global transportation and communication networks had become more tightly connected but at the same time more complicated than they had ever been before.  And huge amounts of trade in goods, services, and information were now widespread across all lands and seas in ways that our ancestors never dreamed possible.

These global connections, however, produced problems as well as opportunities.  We are becoming aware, almost daily if we pay attention to the news, of environmental changes - global warming and shortages of fresh and safe water - which have effects on conflicts between states, between ethnic groups, between cultures.  And now at the beginning of the 21st century, we are also increasingly threatened by massive human and natural violence in the form of "weapons of mass destruction" and virulent diseases.  And very recently we have learned that mortgage problems in the United States can have international financial and economic consequences. Everyone on the planet is affected by these events and developments, even those taking place far away.

Obviously there have been millions [perhaps billions?] of separate events and developments, and individual actions and activities, not to speak of people, which/who together have produced world history.  In a single course, let alone in a single lifetime, it is impossible to examine even a fraction of these.  It is necessary to organize some of them in themes and broad subjects and topics in order to begin to make sense of our global past, which is the prelude to our present.  In turn, it is always important to recognize that our present will soon become someone else's past!

In this course, we will begin the process of this organization of the many pasts into an understandable past.  It will be a challenging, interesting, and we hope enjoyable exercise.  In the process, we will focus on careful reading and thinking about important subjects.  You will have many opportunities for analytical writing.  The assignments are on this syllabus.  On it you will find the reading and writing schedule for this course, and information about the grading system that we use.  While this is a "semester-long" course, it is offered this summer in a much shorter period of time - 7 weeks!  So the assignments will occur more often than they would in this course when offered over an entire semester.

History 140 is the first semester of a year-long course on World History.  Here, we include the period primarily before 1400 CE - a hundred years or so before the first European circumnavigation of the globe.  We have picked this approximate date intentionally - so that we can examine global history without having to consider the eventual European - "Western" - domination of human society.

We will see that by 1400 CE many areas were in cultural and economic contact with each other and that there were important interconnections long before the most recent millenium in many of the important realms of human experience:  economics, technology, politics, religion, and more generally culture as a whole.

There are only two required books for this course, though there are other readings online which we expect you to read too.  Be sure to use the correct volumes and editions of these books, as the assignments relate specifically to them:  Jerry Bentley and Herbert Ziegler, Traditions and Encounters, Vol. I, From the Beginning to 1500, Fourth Edition, McGraw-Hill, 2008 (ISBN: 0-07-333062-0); and Kevin Reilly, Worlds of History: A Comparative Reader, Vol. I, To 1550, Third Edition, Bedford/St. Martin's, 2007 (ISBN: 0-312-44687-x).  They are currently available at the bookstores in East Lansing, as well as online at Barnes and Noble and other online booksellers.  Because they are not inexpensive, we are not asking you to purchase any other books this semester!