Course Description

Welcome! This site is for students, parents, teachers and anyone else interested in the tenth-grade World History 2 Course at Santa Fe Prep.

The overall course covers the history of the world from roughly 1500 to the present. The first quarter opens with the time when Asia was the center of world affairs, then traces European encounters with Asia and the Americas, and the complex interactions and consequences of the so-called "Columbian Exchange" between Europe, Asia, the Americas and Africa. The first quarter ends with a survey of the European Renaissance and Reformation, in both its local and global dimensions. The second quarter will focus on the rise of absolute monarchies and new ideas and practices, especially with the scientific revolution and Enlightenment. The second quarter ends with assessments of the legacies of the French Revolution, Napoleon and the emergence of the British Empire. The third quarter starts with the implications of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars in the wake of the Congress of Vienna, i.e., the discourse on rights, reaction, revolution and reform, the rise of new ideologies, in particular, Classical Liberalism, nationalism, and romanticism, and conservative reactions to the changes wrought by the American and French Revolutions. The course then examines the rise of industrialization and social change in 19th-century Europe, and the emergence of middle and working class cultures, followed by new iterations of liberalism and conservatism, the proliferation of more ideologies, e.g., socialism, communism, ultranationalism, social Darwinism, and antisemitism. Then the course examines the unification of the Italian and German nation states, and the creation of the modern welfare state. From there the course traces the rise of a new wave of Western imperialism, followed by the rest of the world's reactions to the rise of European empires and ideas, and in particular, the emergence of industrial Japan and their surprising victory over Russia. The third quarter ends with the outbreak of the First World War. The fourth and final quarter surveys the effects of the First World War, followed by the brief peak of classical liberal nation states and promises for peace, and the rapid rise of authoritarianism, in both communist and fascist variations, with a special focus on the rise of Nazism, the Nazi racial transformation of Germany and the Holocaust and Shoah of modern Europe. The fourth quarter concludes by looking at the causes and effects of the Second World War, the Cold War, the end of European empires in Asia and Africa, the emergence of the Modern Middle East and China, the end of the Cold War, history since 1989, all the way to the present, including current events.

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

DBQ (Document-Based Question) #1



The Rise of Europe

Question: What accounts for the rise of Europe in the 1500s?  Using the documents below and your own knowledge, discuss what you think are the key factors for the successful rise of Europe in the 1500s.  Be sure to use primary sources of evidence for your argument and demonstrate awareness of historians' arguments that are already out there.

Document 1
This document is a map of Spanish and Portuguese explorations from 1400 to 1600 (for images, see PDF version in the class readings section on the right):
 
Document 2:
This document includes an excerpt and an illustration from an Aztec account of the Spanish conquest of Mexico (for images, see PDF version in the class readings section on the right):

The Spaniards took refuge in Acueco, but they were driven out by our warriors. They fled to Teuhcalhueyacan and from there to Zoltepec. Then they marched through Citlaltepec and camped in Temmazcalapan, where the people gave them hens, eggs and corn. They rested for a short while and marched on to Tlaxcala.
      Soon after, an epidemic broke out in Tenochtitlan. Almost the whole population suffered from racking coughs and painful, burning sores.

Document 4
This document is an excerpt from Bernal Diaz del Castillo's account of the conquest of Mexico:
     
However, I saw that our troops were in considerable confusion, so that neither the shouts of Cortes nor the other captains availed to make them close up their ranks, and so many Indians charged down on us that it was only by a miracle of sword play that we could make them give way so that our ranks could be reformed. One thing only saved our lives, and that was that the enemy were so numerous and so crowded one on another that the shots wrought havoc among them, and in addition to this they were not well commanded, for all the captains with their forces could not come into action and from what we knew, since the last battle had been fought, there had been disputes and quarrels between the Captain Xicotenga and another captain [...].


Document 4
These documents are images that illustrate what is known as the "Columbian Exchange" thesis (for images, see PDF version in the class readings section on the right):


Document 5
These documents include a photograph of the silver mines in Potosi, Bolivia, and examples of Spanish silver coins minted in the Americas (for images, see PDF version in the class readings section on the right).









 
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