This lecture-discussion class will explore some of the really big questions in history: Why did empires rises in some places rather than others? What accounts for the size and durability of civilizations? What can we attribute to technology? To geography? To ideas?

This course does not assume knowledge of any specific region's history, but will be more interesting to those who have already taken at least one course on the history of some part of the old world. There will be no attempt to cover the facts of world history; emphasis rather will be on processes, patterns, and explanatory frameworks.

The format of the course will be lecture and discussion. Monday classes will be lecture, Wednesday classes discussion.

Graduate students may take the 400-level version of the class, but if they do additional work, described below, they can take it for 500-level credit.  

Class

Class discussion and reading reactions (25%). By the night before class, students must post online a paragraph-long reaction to each of the readings and raise an issue they would like to have discussed in class.  Use e-post

Short paper (25%). Each student will write a 4-6 page analysis/assessment of an article on world history to 1500, preferably from the Journal of World History (available online through UW library).  Your analysis should consider not only assumptions and arguments, but also how the issue is framed and how evidence is used. In reading the article pay particular attention to the footnotes. Can you identify earlier scholarship that the author is responding to? Does the author draw on a body of primary sources? Is the nature of this body of material clear to you? How well does the evidence support the arguments? Due 2/20

For graduate credit: After reading the article, read at least one work cited in the article, choosing one that you expect will help you understand why the author frames the issue the way he/she does.

Long paper (50%). Select one of the broad topics cover in class (that is, technology, disease, trade, religion, and so on) and write an 8-10 essay on a relatively broad issue within it, drawing not only on readings done in class but also several other sources as well. Your paper should cover more than just one part of the world. If you are unsure of the suitability of your topic, be sure to check with the instructor. Due 3/5

For graduate credit: The long essay should draw on both primary and secondary sources (at least primary sources in translation). 

Presentations: Graduate students are expected to make presentations of their long papers during the last week. Undergraduate students may also volunteer to share their main arguments.

Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (Norton, 1999)

William H. McNeill, Plagues and Peoples (Knopf, 1998)

David Morgan, The Mongols (either the first, 1986 edition, or the new, 2007 second edition)

Other readings are available online.