The political and economic configuration of the modern world has been shaped -- to a significant extent -- by the historical experience of European overseas expansion since the end of the fifteenth century. In the few centuries after 1492 when Columbus “discovered” what became known as the “Americas,” numerous European powers developed “maritime empires” connecting enclave outposts and settlements around the world in a network of trade and cultural exchange that has left a powerful mark on the modern world. The Spanish, the Portuguese, the Dutch, the English and the French each developed their own distinctive traditions in these maritime empires. Neverthless, although there were some significant differences between the evolution of various European maritime empires, they manifest many broad-scale similarities that have endured over the centuries and continue to characterize world economic, political and cultural institutions until the present day. This short course considers the emergence, expansion and eventual decline of European colonial domination over the last five hundred years of world history. It begins by considering the mercantile empires of 15th through the 18th centuries, and then turns to the growth of the industrial and financial empires of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Throughout the course attention well be given on the one hand to the motives and mechanisms of European expansion and on the other hand to the unconscious and unintended consequences of the global ecological, economic and political legacies that have emerged in the subsequent aftermath of European colonial expansion. It is expected that students will conduct individual research reports. These reports will be developed over the course of the whole program, and they will be presented to the group at the end of the course as an up-to-date guide to answer the question: "Where can we turn to learn...about...[selected topic]" Those of sufficient quality can be submitted for publication online in the "Where Can We Turn to Learn?" series on the Transition Studies weblog. The initial online presentation will give an overview of the topic and provide an introduction to the seminar procedures and best practices for conducting online research in colonial studies. In subsequent sessions attention will be given to specific features of the European colonial legacy and their implications for human activity in the decades and centuries ahead. The sequence can be summarized as follows: |
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