We take it for granted that we live in a globalized world. But is globalization a modern phenomenon or has the world also been deeply interconnected at points in the past? How did we arrive at the forms of globalization that are familiar to us and that we encounter each day? In this course we will examine the history of globalization and, more specifically, the ways in which globalization has affected how individuals lived their lives in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. Our focus is on the commercial, political, cultural, and environmental changes that increasingly connected people living thousands of kilometers apart in geographically distinct regions. We will examine recent forms of globalization by examining industry, war, global climate change, migration, communications, and ideas. Through lectures, readings, and historical source analysis we will see how global connections shape people’s everyday lives in different ways today than they did in the more distant past. We will learn how the new forces of globalization create both connections and divisions, in the world and in our own lives, and how increasing globalization was neither constant nor unchallenged.
- מורה: אליסה בלוטי