Course Details in 2024/25 Session

Module Title	LI Option: State and Empire in the Early Modern World, 1400-1800
School	History and Cultures
Department	History
Module Code	09 38269
Module Lead	Christopher Markiewicz
Level	Intermediate Level
Credits	20
Semester	Semester 2
Pre-requisites
Co-requisites
Restrictions	None
Contact Hours	Lecture-10 hours Seminar-20 hours Guided independent study-170 hours Total: 200 hours
Exclusions
Description	Our contemporary world is haunted by the patterns of early modern state and empire formation. To understand empires and their legacy, we need to understand the formation of empire-states. Between1400 and 1800, states intensified their control over peoples and territories, as empires expanded across oceans and landscapes. We root our exploration of early modern empires in specific themes each week to ask how did early modern states and empires function and why did empire become such a powerful and widespread form of political organization in a globalizing world? We look at the origins of capitalism and ask how did global trading companies become associated with early empires? How did slavery develop out of vested economic interests? We revisit the cultural heterogeneity of early modern polities and explore how religious and ethnic differences overlapped between Islam, Confucianism, and Christianity across Eurasia. This module takes up these questions, among others, to consider early modern state and empire. In this module, students will be introduced to the overseas empires of Spain and Portugal, the centralized states of the European northwest, the Ottoman Empire, and Ming and Qing China. By taking a comparative and connected approach to the study of early modern states and empires, this module explores and implements cutting edge developments in global history. We examine early modern empires comparatively and from the perspectives of political philosophy, historical sociology, sociocultural and economic exchange, ethnicity, gender, law, multilingualism, and cultures of knowledge. This module suggests that understanding the comparative and connected cultures, economies, and politics of early modern empires opens up new possibilities to thinking through and beyond the contemporary nation-states and globalization in our own day.
Learning Outcomes	By the end of the module students should be able to: Analyse and explain key events and historical processes relevant to the subject under scrutiny. Analyse and explain reasons for and implications of these events and processes. Identify the main scholarly views on the subject under investigation. Work with an appropriate degree of learner independence to explain and analyse the material under scrutiny. Communicate explanation and analysis of the subject clearly and effectively in writing.
Assessment	38269-01 : 3,000 word take home paper : Exam (School Arranged) - Written Unseen (100%)
Assessment Methods & Exceptions	Assessment: S1 = 1 x 3,000 word essay (100%) S2 = 1 x 3,000 word Take Home Examination (100%) Reassessment: Resubmission of failed component(s)
Other
Reading List