HIST 308 - Encounters, Conquest and European Expansion, 1300-1650

CR: 3
Prerequisite: HIST 143 or HIST 224 . This course examines the interactions between China, west Africa, and the Americas in the period of early European commercial and colonial expansion (1300-1650 AD). It focuses on the impacts those interactions had on non-European cultures, as well as how non-European societies affected (often in unexpected ways) early modern Europe. Topics include: the “Columbian exchange;” the Portuguese slave trade in Africa; Italian connections with the Far East; Spanish and British colonization of the Americas; and Europe’s scientific responses to the new and strange environments they encountered. It also considers factors that prompted European expansion, justifications offered for it, criticisms voiced against it, and methods used to gain control of new territories. Offered alternate years. III.W, V.1