Atlantic World (NEW)

This course explores the beginnings of globalization and the coming together of all the worlds populated continents, but particularly Europe, Africa, and the Americas, the continents bordering the Atlantic Ocean, in the wake of the Columbian encounter of 1492. Special themes include legal changes, unfree and semi-free labor, religion and secularization, cultural hybridity, gender and family life, metropole versus periphery, and the repercussions of absolute monarchy. We will focus on extrapolating larger trends from interesting cultural vignettes and the lives of exceptional individuals, in contrast with the top-down and theory-heavy approach of my more advanced courses on early modern and Atlantic history.