This course examines how the natural world has shaped and been shaped by the exercise of state power over time. It considers how the pursuit of natural wealth has led people and governments to alter the world around them, and what the consequences of those alterations have been for natural and human communities. It considers places and practices as wide-ranging as silver production in sixteenth-century South America, sugar in the eighteenth-century Caribbean, opium in nineteenth-century India, cocaine in twentieth century Latin America and the United States, and petroleum in the modern Middle East. It examines how capital investment in labor and technology has reflected political regimes and how the production and circulation of natural commodities have shaped global patterns of forced and free migration. It will also examine global themes such as imperialism and colonialism, the spread of epidemic diseases, and global capitalism, among others.
- Subject:
- History
- World History
- Material Type:
- Syllabus
- Author:
- Alliance for Learning in World History
- Date Added:
- 04/20/2024