- The Atlantic World

Catalog description

The processes initiated by Christopher Columbus’s voyage in 1492 brought four continents and three “races” into interaction where there had been little or no communication before. Those contacts, in many ways, profoundly shaped the world in which we live today. Drawing together the histories of Europe, Africa, and the Americas, this course explores the origins, development, and meanings of this new Atlantic World. Topics will include imperial expansion and colonization, the Colombian Exchange, European-Amerindian relations, slavery and the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the establishment of an Atlantic capitalist economy, and the struggles for autonomy and national independence in Euro-American societies.