A History of the World 1850 to the Present - Einzelansicht

This course takes you on a voyage into the past. Like many of the explorers you will meet along the way, you will explore the history of the modern world. You will learn about the past you will also learn about how to think about the past – to consider models and concepts for explaining the cycles of integration and disintegration, like empire and free trade, religious conversion and global governance. The aim of this course is to understand the forces that pull the parts together as well as those that drive them apart.

Course themes include migration and statelessness, economic integration, warfare and conflict, the transformation of the ecological balance, and cultural responses and innovations. To grapple with these themes, we explore first-hand perspectives of historical actors through a collection of texts and images.  Because learning global history is much more exciting in a global context, your Potsdam teams will join teams from different universities all over the world, including from Cambridge University's Global History Lab.

In this global history course, you will learn by reading excerpts from the textbook, watching lectures, and engaging in class discussions. The core of this course is a series of weekly lab assignments (case studies) in which you will work in teams to use historical knowledge from the course to solve problems and develop new connections and interpretations of primary sources.

If you are interested in taking this course, please email the course tutor Katharina Wegmann before the start of this course (katharina.wegmann(at)uni-potsdam.de)  so we get you signed up to the online learning platform for this course.

Worlds Together, Worlds Apart by Robert Tignor et al. Norton and Company, 2017.

This class consists of online lectures, group work to solve challenges and questions based on primary source problem sets, textbook reading, and in class discussions. You should calculate time to watch the lectures (ca 1. hr) and prepare the textbook reading and primary source materials (ca. 2 hrs) in time for class discussion (1.5hrs). In addition, you will need to plan for a weekly team meeting to prepare the presentation of your case study (1.5hrs). You will write a final paper in accordance with your Studienordnung (due March 31st).