Global Perspectives

Readings

Bayly, C. A. The Birth of the Modern World, 1780-1914: Global Connections and Comparisons. Wiley-Blackwell, 2004. ISBN: 9780631236160.

Questions

1. The craft of the historian: How does Bayly combine a chronological narrative with a thematic approach to the history of the nineteenth century? In other words, why does he alternate chronological and thematic chapters, and what do you think of this approach?

2. The message of the historian: What kind of global history can one write in the post-Eurocentric world of the early twenty-first century? What happens when you abandon a singular focus on European dominance, and on purely economic models of historical causation, whether Marxist, "modernizationist," or some other variant?

Partial Bibliography

McNeill, William. A World History. Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780195116168.

Braudel, Fernand. Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century. Translated by Siân Reynolds. 3 volumes. University of California Press, 1992. ISBN: 9780520081147; 9780520081154; 9780520081161.

Wallerstein, Immanuel. The Modern World-System. 4 volumes. University of California Press, 2011. ISBN: 9780520267572; 9780520267589; 9780520267596; 9780520267619.

Abu-Lughod, Janet L. Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250-1350. Oxford University Press, 1991. ISBN: 9780195067743.

McNeill, John R., and William H. McNeill. The Human Web: A Bird's-Eye View of World History. W. W. Norton, 2003. ISBN: 9780965739658.

Bailyn, Bernard. Atlantic History: Concept and Contours. Harvard University Press, 2005. ISBN: 9780674016880.

Elliott, John H. Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America, 1492-1830. Yale University Press, 2007. ISBN: 9780300123999.

Armitage, David. The Declaration of Independence: A Global History. Harvard University Press, 2008. ISBN: 9780674030329.

Greene, Jack P., and Philip D. Morgan. Atlantic History: A Critical Appraisal. Oxford University Press, 2008. ISBN: 9780195320343.

Armitage, David, and Sanjay Subrahmanyam. The Age of Revolutions in Global Context, c. 1760-1840. Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. ISBN: 9780230580473.