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.

Monday, September 10, 2012

Week 3: The Rise of Europe Reading Questions



Week 3 Reading Questions

Charles Mann, "Two Monuments - The Seams of Pangaea," 1493, 3-47.
1.    What does "Pangaea" mean?

2. What does the author mean when he writes that globalization, from a long-term perspective, "may be primarily a biological phenomenon"? What do you think (p.6)?

3. What does the author have to say about the legacy of Columbus (pp.10-11)? What do you think?

4.Who was Bartolome de Las Casas? What does his writing suggest about the impact of Spanish colonization (pp.13-14)?

5. How did China influence European exploration (p.19)?

6. What is the thesis of the author (p.23)? What does homogenocene mean and what does the author mean by homogenocene? What do you think?


7. What were the effects of the silver trade (p.23 (pp. 28))?
            a. On globalization (p. 23, 29 , 35)?

            b. on Spain (pp. 36-37)?

            c. on Europe (p. 24)?

8. How did American plants influence China (p. 29) and Europe (p. 37)?

9. What is the "Little Ice Age" (pp.37-38), and what are the effects?

10. Who is William F. Ruddiman (p. 39), and what does his thesis suggest about climate change and the consequences of the destruction of American Indian societies (p.39-)? What do you think?
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