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Columbus's 1492 voyage to the Bahamas inaugurated a new era in world history. The European conquerors and settlers who followed in Columbus's wake carried strange diseases and deadly weapons. Millions of Native Americans died. Over the course of the next three centuries, Europeans created a flourishing Atlantic trade that unsettled native societies and relied on the labor of millions of African slaves. This course will explore several aspects of this early modern Atlantic world: the European empires in the Americas and the new worlds they created; slavery and the slave trade; and the age of revolution that began in 1776 and ultimately dismantled the structures and institutions of European imperial rule. We will also try to discern the extent to which the patterns and characteristics of the early modern Atlantic world have left imprints on its inheritors. Course assignments will consist of oral presentations, short papers, and a final research essay.
Unless preregistered students attend the first class meeting or communicate directly with the instructor prior to the first class, they will be dropped from the class list. NOTE: Students must still submit a completed Drop/Add form to the Registrar's Office.
COURSE FORMAT: Discussion
Level: UGRD Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: SBS HIST Grading Mode: Graded
Prerequisites: NONE
Last Updated on MAR-26-2001
Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459