21H.009
World History and Its Fault Lines Since 1800
Explores how the world, as we know it today, came to be. Examines what it means to be modern and the consequences of modernity on people's everyday lives. Introduces real and perceived changes that made the world recognizably "modern." Surveys the rise of empires, nation-states, industrialized economies, mass consumption, popular culture, and political ideas and movements, and studies how they resulted in new, often contested, dynamics of racial, class, religious, gendered, and political identity. Instruction provided in how the evolving relationships of people with political, social, and economic structures produced a world that is highly interconnected and, at the same time, divided along different fault lines.
Spring 2014 · The World: 1400-Present
This course surveys the increasing interaction between communities, as the barrier of distance succumbed to both curiosity and new transport technologies. It explores Western Europe and the United States' rise to world dominance, as well as the great divergence in material, political, and technological development between Western Europe and East Asia post–1750, and its impact on the rest of the world. It examines a series of evolving relationships, including human beings and their physical environment; religious and political systems; and sub-groups within communities, sorted by race, class, and gender. It introduces historical and other interpretive methodologies using both primary and secondary source materials.
Readings
- Tignor, Robert, et al. Worlds Together, Worlds Apart. Vol 2: From 1000 CE to the Present . 4th ed. W. W. Norton & Company, 2013. ISBN: 9780393922097.
- Parks, George B., ed. “Description of the Island of Chipangu, and the Great Kaan’s Despatch of a Host Against It” and “What Further Came of the Great Khan’s Expedition Against Chipangu.” Chapters 2 and 3 in The Travels of Marco Polo , Book 3. The Book League of America, 1929, pp. 249–53.
- Lopez, Robert, et al, ed. “Traveling to China.” In Medieval Trade in the Mediterranean World . Columbia University Press, 2001, pp. 355–58. ISBN: 9780231123570.
- Filesi, Teobaldo. “Inscription on Tianfei tablet.” In China and Africa in the Middle Ages . Translated by David Morison. Routledge, 1972, pp. 57–61. ISBN: 9780714626048.
- deBary, William. “Selections on Mateo Ricci in China.” In Sources of Chinese Tradition, Vol. 2: From 1600 through the Twentieth Century. 2nd ed. Columbia University Press, 1999, pp. 14–29. ISBN: 9780231112710.
- Cooper, Michael, ed. João Rodrigues’s Account of Sixteenth-Century Japan . The Hakluyt Society, 2002, pp. 120–36. ISBN: 9780904180732.
- Elision, George. “Kirishitan Monogatari.” In Deus Destroyed: The Image of Christianity in Early Modern Japan . Harvard University Asia Center, 1988, pp. 319–74. ISBN: 9780674199620.
- Fernández-Armesto, Felipe. “Between Colonizations: The Americas’ First ‘Normalcy’.” In The Americas: A Hemispheric History . Modern Library, 2006. ISBN: 9780812975543.
- Symcox, Geoffrey, and Blair Sullivan, eds. “Columbus’s Legacy.” In Christopher Columbus and the Enterprise of the Indies: A Brief History with Documents. Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2005, pp. 30–34. ISBN: 9780312410216.
- Schwartz, Stuart B., ed. “The Siege and Fall of Tenochtitlan.” In Victors and Vanquished: Spanish and Nahua Views of the Conquest of Mexico . Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2000, pp. 182–211. ISBN: 9780312393557.
- Gibson, Charles, ed. “Documents of Spanish Colonial Rule, 1567–1580.” In The Spanish Tradition in America . Joanna Cotler Books, 1968, pp. 128–36. ISBN: 9780061387388.
- Chasteen, John Charles, ed. “Guaman Poma; the Mapuches.” In Born in Blood and Fire: Latin American Voices . W. W. Norton & Company, 2011, pp. 36–48. ISBN: 9780393935585.
- This week included a trip outside of normal meeting times.—eds. · Class Visit to the U.S.S. Constitution · No readings.
- Pomeranz, Kenneth, and Steven Topik. “How the Other Half Traded.” Section 1.9 in The World That Trade Created: Society, Culture, and the World Economy, 1400 to the Present . 2nd ed. M. E. Sharpe, 2005. ISBN: 9780765617095.
- Ching, Francis D. K., Mark Jarzombek, and Vikramaditya Prakash, eds. “Introductions,” “Versailles,” “Blenheim,” “Chengde,” and “Jaipur.” In A Global History of Architecture . 2nd ed. Wiley, 2011, pp. 551–55, 597–99, 563–65, 571–72, 602–04, and 626–27. ISBN: 9780470402573.
- “The Code Noir, 1685.” In Slavery, Freedom, and the Law in the Atlantic World: A Brief History with Documents . Edited by Sue Peabody and Keila Grinberg. Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2007, pp. 31–36. ISBN: 9780312411763.
- James, C. L. R. “The Property.” In The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution . Vintage, 1989, p. 6-26. ISBN: 9780679724674.
- “The Haitian Constitution, 1805.” In Slave Revolution in the Caribbean, 1789–1804: A Brief History with Documents . Edited by Laurent Dubois, and John D. Garrigus. Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2006, pp. 191–96. ISBN: 9780312415013.
- Smith, Adam. “The Division of Labor: The Pin Factory.” Chapter 1 in The Wealth of Nations . Bantam Classics, 2003. ISBN: 9780553585971.
- Lualdi, Katharine J. ed. “Factory Rules in Berlin, 1844.” In Sources of The Making of the West - _Peoples and Cultures, Volume II: Since 1500_. 2nd ed. Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2004, pp. 119–22. ISBN: 9780312412210.
- Frader, Laura L. “Lowell Mill Girl Account.” In The Industrial Revolution: A History in Documents. Oxford University Press, 2006, pp. 55–57 and 60–62. ISBN: 9780195128178.
- 18 · The Big Picture III: Imperialism, Nation-States, Colonialism, 1815-1914 & Beyond · [Tignor] Alternative Visions of the Nineteenth Century, pp. 594–627.
- Fernández-Armesto, Felipe. “Independence: The New Dependency.” In The Americas: A Hemispheric History . Modern Library, 2006. ISBN: 9780812975543.
- ———. “How to Turn Nothing into Something: Guano’s Ephemeral Fortunes.” Section 4.6 in The World That Trade Created: Society, Culture, and the World Economy, 1400 to the Present . 2nd ed. M. E. Sharpe, 2005. ISBN: 9780765617095.
- ———. “How the Cows Ate the Cowboys.” Section 4.11 in The World That Trade Created: Society, Culture, and the World Economy, 1400 to the Present . 2nd ed. M. E. Sharpe, 2005. ISBN: 9780765617095.
- Rice, John. “Galant Music in the New World.” In Music in the Eighteenth Century (Western Music in Context: A Norton History) . W. W. Norton & Company, 2012, pp. 153–70. ISBN: 9780393929188.
- Excepts from “Missa Pastoril”. Available on: Garcia, José Mauricio Nunes. “Missa Pastoril para Noite de Natal.” Luiz Alves da Silva and Mathias Weibel, conductors. Ensemble Turicum. K617 Records France CD, 2002.
- The overture and first ten minutes of “Il Guarany” by Carlos Gomes. Available on: Gomes, Antonio Carlos. “Il Guarany.” John Neschling, conductor. Placido Domingo, Carlos Alvarez, et al. Sony CD, 1996.
- “El rancho abandonado” by Alberto Williams. Available on: Williams, Alberto. “‘En la sierra’ and other works for piano.” Vol. 4. Valentín Surif, pianist. Acqua CD, 2013.
- Kenyatta, Jomo. “Initiation of Boys and Girls.” In Facing Mount Kenya: The Tribal Life of the Gikuyu . Vintage Books, 1962. ISBN: 9780394702100.
- [Tignor] Nations and Empires, 1850–1914, pp. 628-65
- [Tignor] An Unsettled World, 1890–1914, pp. 666–703.
- Manela, Erez. The Wilsonian Moment, Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anticolonial Nationalism . Oxford University Press, 2009, pp. 3–34 and 55–75. ISBN: 9780195378535. (recommended: 215–25).
- In-class viewings
- “Japan and the Rise of Asia,” (Japan, 1940).
- [Tignor] The Three World Order, 1940–1975, pp. 742–83.
- Goldin, Ian, Geoffrey Cameron, et al. “PostWorld War II Migrations” and “Brain Drain and Brain Circulation.” In Exceptional People: How Migration Shaped Our World and Will Define Our Future . Princeton University Press, 2011, pp. 85–93 and pp. 179–86. ISBN: 9780691145723.
- Lim, Shirley Geok-lin. Among the White Moon Faces: An Asian-American Memoir of Homelands . The Feminist Press at CUNY, 1997, pp. 9–12, 63–76, 117–22, 134–41, 146–51, and 230–32. ISBN: 9781558611795.
- [Tignor] Globalization, 1970–2000, pp. 784–823.
Prerequisites & course information
Prereq: None Acad Year 2027-2028: U (Fall) Acad Year 2028-2029: Not offered 3-0-9 units. HASS-H; CI-H
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026–2027
- MIT OpenCourseWare ↗Spring 2014
- MIT OCW readings ↗
- MIT OCW syllabus ↗
- Historical MIT OpenCourseWare offering. Named reading entries and schedule topics are automatically extracted from the linked source pages.