European and World History 6: Early Modern Europe, 1500-1700

(9 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

The two hundred years of this period are amongst the most traumatic and destructive in world history, yet paradoxically a period of remarkable creativity, innovation and intellectual transformation. Religious division and dynastic politics provided an explosive combination, setting in train struggles fought across central and Western Europe. War was no less a fact of political life in Eastern and Northern Europe, where the respective political trajectories of Poland, Lithuania, and Muscovy were shaped by enduring conflict. The Ottoman Empire posed a territorial threat to Europe throughout this period, confronting Europeans embarked on global colonial enterprise with the possibility of being colonized themselves. Tutorials will provide the opportunity to employ historical approaches which have done much to challenge traditional interpretations of political, social and cultural history. Studies of the imposition of religious reformations, repression of crime and the treatment of minorities and those on the margins of society allow the student to make use of extensive recent work calling into question dichotomies such as popular and elite, and exploring concepts such as acculturation and syncretism as alternatives to simplified models of top down imposition. Artistic movements offer the possibility of developing recent ideas about the projection of soft power. The course can equally be directed towards economic history, making use of an extensive recent literature concerning developing patterns of trade, mercantile networks and the rapid development of European colonisation.