Courses
HIST 469 Pirates In The Atlantic World
- According to Ralph Davis, an expert on early modern English shipping, wooden sailing vessels travelling on trade voyages around the Atlantic Ocean remained large and well armed over the course of the 1600s and 1700s for primarily one reason: the ever-present risk of pirate attacks. Pirates were real historical actors on one of the world's most dramatic stages set against the backdrop of a waving Jolly Roger. I n this course, we will explore the myths and realities of pirates in order to examine the social history of seafaring in the early modern Atlantic world. Why and how did people become pirates? Who became pirates? How did pirates really live and die? What impact did pirates have on history? Available for graduate credit. Arrrgh.
HIST 469W The Atlantic World
- This course is designed to expose students to the integration of the peoples and regions around the Atlantic Ocean beginning with Christopher Columbus’ voyage of 1492 and ending with the global race for colonies in the mid-nineteenth century. We will read about and discuss the historical processes responsible for connecting the four continents surrounding the Atlantic Ocean (Europe, Africa, North and South America) through the flow of diverse peoples, goods, and ideas.
HIST 470 Early America and the Atlantic World
- This course focuses on the social, economic, and political history of the thirteen British North American mainland colonies that eventually became the United States. We will study the period beginning with the settlement of Jamestown and ending with the American Revolution. Students will be encouraged to situate these colonial histories within the larger context of the Atlantic world through an investigation into the flow of diverse peoples, goods, and ideas between the regions surrounding the Atlantic Ocean.
HIST 498C The Atlantic Economy
- This course explores the origins of the Atlantic economy – a vast Atlantic circuit of exotic and mundane trade goods that included coffee, sugar, chocolate, wine, tobacco, fish, and furs. It examines fifteenth-to-nineteenth-century developments in maritime technology that facilitated trade, colonization, the production and distribution of commodities, consumption, European-Amerindian trade networks, European-African trade networks, slavery and the trans-Atlantic slave trade, labor, capital, the transition to capitalism, and industrialization.
HIST 596AW Graduate Readings Seminar: The Atlantic World
- This reading intensive course will introduce graduate students to major works in topics related to the relatively new field of Atlantic history. We will define this particular interpretive framework, and critically evaluate its advantages and limitations. Then we will examine how scholars have used Atlantic history to shed new light on traditional subjects such as race, class, and gender. This course will prepare students for future coursework in Atlantic history and their comprehensive exams.
HIST 676 Graduate Research Seminar: Early America and the Atlantic Economy
- This course will introduce graduate students to an Atlantic approach for exploring Early American economic history, from early settlement to the American Revolution. We will study the beginnings of America’s involvement in a global economy by focusing on colonial export production and distribution. During the first third of the semester, students will study various theories and methods for taking this Atlantic approach. The second portion of the semester will involve students in doing their own primary research. By the end of the course, students will be prepared to present their own original research paper.