HIST 4922

Ocean: The Sea in Human History

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2016-2017.

This course focuses on the role of the oceans in human history, from earliest times to the present.  It does so by moving both chronologically and topically through oceanic history, so that a number of important topics are covered.  We start by looking at a number of different methodologies that may be useful in examining the sea, and then proceed to week-long reading sections on the sea in the ancient world, the Age of Discovery (European and non-European), and at the science of the sea.  The second half of the course gets more geographic in focus: week-long sessions deliberate on individual oceans and the main themes that have driven them, covering the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Indian Ocean and the polar seas.  Slavery, piracy, discovery, cultural transmission, nautics and science are a part of all of these stories, though in different ways.  The course hopes to impart to students the overwhelmingly important role of the oceans in forging human history, both in the centuries that have past and in our modern world.  Open to all students with an interest in the sea.

When Offered Spring.

Distribution Category (HA-AS)

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