Global History: comparative and connected approaches

Module code: HS7310

The ‘global turn’ describes a field of historical research that emerged in part as a response to decolonisation and the break-up of European empires, challenges to white supremacy and the global order, and demands for the recognition of the histories of post-colonial nations. Global history has also been shaped by ‘history from below’ and the need to understand history from the perspective of marginalised groups and individuals, including women, people of colour, and the poor, and particularly those in the ‘Global South’.

This module takes a comparative and connected approach to the study of global history, and is taught through a series of case studies organised around the following key historical themes:

• resources
• migration
• identity
• governance
• resistance

Seminars will focus on topics such as:

• commodity extraction
• exchange and movement
• transregional and transnational sojourning and labour mobility
• governance, agency and political space
• community formation, cultural syncretism and cosmopolitanism
• mutiny, rebellion and struggles for liberation

You will work closely with archival documents (in English, or in English translation) as well as visual sources, to develop skills in reading, analysing, and interpreting primary source materials in the context of their wider historiographical reading. The module concludes with a session bringing together the case studies, to analyse their value and significance for a connected approach to global history.