HIST 1112

HIST 1112-World History II: Emergence of the Modern Global Community

This class, according to its official catalog description, “[a]ddresses the historical context of contemporary global society by tracing developments from the fifteenth century to the present.”

FRESHMEN ONLY: According to the Registrar, we must submit mid-term grades for you. The grade “U” (unsatisfactory) means “D or F;” the grade “S” (satisfactory) means “A, B, or C.”

REQUIRED BOOKS FOR HIST 1112, FALL 2011 (see this link for the honors section books; the rest of the page applies to all sections):

Textbook: Bulliet et al., The Earth and its Peoples: A Global History (cited below as “Bulliet”), FIFTH EDITION--not any previous edition, not any brief version.

****If you have a previous edition, please consult this chart to find the corresponding pages for the assigned readings.****

Discussion books: You are required both to read the assignments in these book and to bring them with you on discussion days. This list is in alphabetical order, not in order of assignment.

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart.

Endo, Shusaku. Silence.

Bartolome de las Casas. The Devastation of the Indies.

Levi, Primo. Survival in Auschwitz.

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein.

Completing the assigned readings is fundamental to your academic success. As you surely heard in your FYE or GSU 1210 class and during orientation, every student should spend at least two hours of preparation and studying for every one hour in the classroom. For this class, that means a total of nine hours per week (3 in class, 6 outside class).

NOTE ON STUDYING PRACTICES:

You must find your own way of studying. The Academic Success Center or your professors can help you, but studying is individual. Perhaps the worst way to study, regardless of your talents and interests, is to find a definition somewhere, memorize it, and print it as you found it. Why is this the worst way to study?

1. because you have memorized something in order to do something else, and will promptly forget it. Studying means really learning something.

2. because you will never in my class, or in most other classes, or in life, get credit for something you did not do. The people who wrote the textbook get an “A.” If you use their words, they still get an “A,” and you get a zero.

3. because the study sites on the web—everything from encyclopedia sites to studystack.com and related sites—rarely ask for the exact same information that your professors will. In other words, you’re unlikely to get full credit even if your professor does not notice.

4. because these study sites on the web are vulnerable to attack and misinformation.

5. because it teaches you bad habits, laziness, and dishonesty.

Please keep a copy of your syllabus, and any updates or corrections distributed in class, handy at all times. It has dates for assignments and exams; information on what is required in class meetings; tips on how to take notes; an explanation of the “no extra credit in this class” policy; the grade distribution; and other relevant information. If you lose your syllabus, you may print a copy from GeorgiaView at any time.

I use many images and graphics from websites in my class; although the WorldWideWeb changes at a very fast pace, it is a very interesting place to explore history. Just be sure that you are aware of all the misinformation and disinformation out there. Do not trust websites that are not signed and dated; do not trust “information only available here” without at least a few questions. You can, after all, find everything out there, true or not, and so you should be careful and skeptical.

Consult the following links for maps which may help you with the class:

A very large site with world maps and cartographic information is located at http://www.maphistory.info/webimages.html.

Maps on the historical development of Islam are at http://www.founders.howard.edu/IslamMaps.htm

The site http://www.hyperhistory.com/online_n2/maptext_n2/maptext.html contains maps from the period of Sumer up to World War II, and http://www.fsmitha.com/maps.html is similar in scope.

National Geographic magazine has a large collection of maps and graphics: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/maps.

Dozens of maps of the Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire, and Eastern Europe from 27 BC through 1922, along with text and graphics, are at http://www.romanity.org/friesian/romania.htm#first.

The Applied History Tutorial, found at http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/, is an expansive site with texts, images, and audio files; some concentrate on Canada, but the site is really comprehensive.

You can find maps at encyclopedia sites (e.g. encarta.msn.com and britannica.com, the State Department, and some newsmedia sites, for example the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/country_profiles/1061561.stm

Specialized information on and maps of specific regions can be found at a variety of sites. Try http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Qing/qing.html for China, for example.

Other useful information can be found at the following links:

The University of Kansas has a collection of images and maps, including maps of Africa from as early as the 15th century, at http://www.lib.ku.edu/digitalcommons/

The History of Technology Page is at http://technology.niagarac.on.ca/people/mcsele/history.htm

Many sources useful to your understanding of history are part of the Internet Modern History Sourcebook, http://www.fordham.edu/Halsall/mod/modsbook.asp and the Hanover History Text Project, http://history.hanover.edu/eti.html

This page was last edited on September 6, 2011.