History of Capitalism: The Eastern Mediterranean and the World Around

This course is an analysis of where the Mediterranean region fits in the evolving capitalist world-economy in the aftermath of the so-called Age of Discovery. The context of the Mediterranean is set in our own age’s “globalization” as histories of capitalism push on the “world” in new ways challenging our mental maps for historical change. The seminar takes on a critical approach to the European historiography on the rise of capitalism and the view that the Mediterranean collapsed with the rise of the Baltic and the Atlantic.