This course is an introduction to the History of the Modern World – the events, people, and long-term developments which, since the end of the Middle Ages, have shaped and reshaped human society – with a focus on the growth of international developments and the creation of today’s globalized world. Throughout the semester, we will also be interrogating the continued tensions between local identities and dynamics, state centralization and the rise of nationalism, the spread of Western notions of universalism, and non-Western societies’ adaptation to or rejection of those dynamics. What role did the Christianization of Latin America play in the imperial project? What did it mean for a sparsely-populated settler-colonial society to declare that all men are created equal? How “anti-colonial” were the Marxist movements of the Global South?

Note that the course is designed to complement, rather than duplicate, already existing offerings in the history department. As most history majors who take the course will also be taking History 1002, this course will have only limited discussions of some of the major events in Western History.  

• Discussion board/response papers: 30%
• Tutorial: 20%
• Quizzes: 45%
• Quiz 1: 5%
• Quizzes 2 & 3: 10%
• Quiz 4: 20%
• Final project: 5%

Every week will have 3 assignments: a textbook chapter, giving an overview of the period and the topic; a primary source text (most of which are quite short); and a podcast to listen to. The secondary sources are all available via the library’s website (you will have to sign in); the primary sources are links you can click on; and the podcasts are also links that you can click on. Note that for the podcasts, many are available in a variety of places, including Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

You need to complete the readings by the time class meets; the podcasts you can listen to either before the class meets, or in the day or two following class. 

Week 1:

Secondary: (none)
Primary: (none)
Podcast: https://player.fm/series/history-extra-podcast/indigenous-american-travellers-in-europe

(Spotify link: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5qkn3OVF6cNsTbwf6e3xwH) 

Week 2:

Secondary: Thornton, John. “The Slave Trade and the African Diaspora.” Chapter. In The Cambridge World History, edited by Jerry H. Bentley, Sanjay Subrahmanyam, and Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks, 135–59. The Cambridge World History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Available via the CUHK library website.
Primary: https://web2.qatar.cmu.edu/~breilly2/odyssey/Montaigne.pdf
Podcast: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000pqbz

Week 3:

NOTE: There will be a quiz at the start of class.

Secondary: Rodríguez O., Jaime E. “Atlantic Revolutions: a Reinterpretation.” Chapter. In The Cambridge World History, edited by J. R. McNeill and Kenneth Pomeranz, 273–98. The Cambridge World History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Available via the CUHK library website.
Primary: The Avalon Project : Constitution of North Carolina : December 18, 1776 (yale.edu)
Podcast: https://benfranklinsworld.com/episode-282-vincent-brown-tackys-revolt/

Week 4:

Secondary: Sugihara, Kaoru. “Global Industrialization: a Multipolar Perspective.” Chapter. In The Cambridge World History, edited by J. R. McNeill and Kenneth Pomeranz, 106–35. The Cambridge World History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139196079.005
Primary: Internet History Sourcebooks: Modern History (fordham.edu)-Lowell Mills
Podcast: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001gjcm

Week 5:

Secondary: Aguilar Rivera, José Antonio, Eduardo Posada-Carbó, and Eduardo Zimmermann. “Democracy in Spanish America: The Early Adoption of Universal Male Suffrage, 1810–1853.” Past & present 256, no. 1 (2022): 165–202: https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtab028
Primary: The history of Don Francisco de Miranda’s attempt to effect a revolution in South America, in a series of letters : [Biggs, James] : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive – pp. 151-168 (not the whole thing)
Podcast: Challenging The Myths Of The Alamo : Fresh Air : NPR

Week 6:

NOTE: There will be a quiz at the start of class.

Secondary: Metcalf, Thomas R., ‘Colonial Cities’, in Peter Clark (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Cities in World History (2013; online edn, Oxford Academic, 2 Apr. 2013), https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199589531.013.0040.
Primary: Internet History Sourcebooks: Modern History (fordham.edu) – Louis Blanc
Podcast: https://timetoeatthedogs.com/2018/08/20/episode-46-australians-first-encounter-with-captain-cook/

Week 7:

Secondary: T. C. W. Blanning. 2000. The Nineteenth Century : Europe 1789-1914. The Short Oxford History of Europe. Oxford: OUP Oxford. Chapter 6 Overseas expansion, imperialism, and Empire, 1815–1914 https://search-ebscohost-com.easyaccess1.lib.cuhk.edu.hk/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=633241&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Primary: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/944/944-h/944-h.htm Preface, Chapters I V, XVIII, XIX
Podcast: https://newbooksnetwork.com/michael-g-vann-the-great-hanoi-rat-hunt-empire-disease-and-modernity-in-french-colonial-vietnam-oxford-up-2018

Week 8:

Secondary: Overy, Richard. “Global War 1914–45.” Chapter. In The Cambridge World History, edited by J. R. McNeill and Kenneth Pomeranz, 299–320. The Cambridge World History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316182789.014
Primary: Internet History Sourcebooks: Modern History (fordham.edu) The Junius Pamphlet; and Nuremberg–A Fair Trial? Dangerous Precedent – 46.04 (archive.org)
Podcast: https://newbooksnetwork.com/francine-hirsch-soviet-judgement-at-nuremberg-oxford-up-2020

Week 9:

NOTE: There will be a quiz at the start of class.

Secondary: Sargent, Daniel. “The Cold War.” Chapter. In The Cambridge World History, edited by J. R. McNeill and Kenneth Pomeranz, 321–46. The Cambridge World History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316182789.015
Primary: Internet History Sourcebooks: Modern History (fordham.edu)– Fidel Castro
Podcast: http://www.scienceforthepeople.ca/episodes/freedoms-laboratory

Week 10:

Secondary: Duara, Prasenjit. “Decolonization and Its Legacy.” Chapter. In The Cambridge World History, edited by J. R. McNeill and Kenneth Pomeranz, 395–419. The Cambridge World History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.  https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139196079.016
Primary: https://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/fanon/conclusion.htm
Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-mau-mau-the-court-case-and-the-hidden-documents/id1639561921?i=1000610489769

Week 11:

Secondary: Clifford, Rebecca, Robert Gildea, and Anette Warring, ‘9 Gender and sexuality’, in Robert Gildea, James Mark, and Anette Warring (eds), Europe’s 1968: Voices of Revolt (Oxford, 2013; online edn, Oxford Academic, 26 Sept. 2013) https://doi-org.easyaccess2.lib.cuhk.edu.hk/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199587513.003.0010
Primary: https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/ows/seminars/tcentury/FeminineMystique.pdf

Podcast: Podcast | Nicole C. Bourbonnais, “Birth Control in the Decolonizing… (newbooksnetwork.com)

Week 12:

Secondary: Middell, Matthias, ‘1989’, in Stephen A. Smith (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism (2014; online edn, Oxford Academic, 16 Dec. 2013),  https://doi-org.easyaccess2.lib.cuhk.edu.hk/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199602056.013.044
Primary: https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/declaration-civic-forum-representative-vaclav-havel-wenceslas-square-prague
Podcast: https://newbooksnetwork.com/vladislav-m-zubok-collapse-the-fall-of-the-soviet-union-yale-up-2021

Week 13:

NOTE: There will be a quiz at the start of class.

Secondary: Neuman, Gerald L. “Populist Threats to the International Human Rights System.” Chapter. In Human Rights in a Time of Populism: Challenges and Responses, edited by Gerald L. Neuman, 1–19. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. https://doi-org.easyaccess2.lib.cuhk.edu.hk/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199602056.013.044.
Primary: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/resolution-regarding-the-republican-party-platform

Podcast: https://newbooksnetwork.com/richard-j-bernstein-why-read-hannah-arendt-now-polity-2018

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學生遞交作業時，必須連同已簽署的聲明一併提交，表示他們知道有關政策、規則、指引及程序。

• 如屬小組習作，則所有組員均須簽署聲明；所有組員（不論有否簽署聲明及不論有否直接或間接撰寫有問題的內容）均須負上集體責任及受到懲處。
• 如作業以電腦製作、內容以文字為主，並經由大學「維誠」系統 (VeriGuide) 提交者，學生將作業的電子檔案上載到系統後，便會獲得收據，收據上已列明有關聲明。

未有夾附簽署妥當的聲明的作業，老師將不予批閱。

學生只須提交作業的最終版本。

學生將作業或作業的一部份用於超過一個用途（例如：同時符合兩科的要求）而沒有作出聲明會被視為未有聲明重覆使用作業。學生重覆使用其著作的措辭或某一、二句句子很常見，並可以接受，惟重覆使用全部內容則構成問題。在任何情況下，須先獲得相關老師同意方可提交作業。