Geography 450: Making of the Modern World

Course Focus:

The making of the modern world, the process of modernization, has been in its expression an intensely geographic one: one of overseas expansion, of the creation of new geographic divisions of labor, of dramatic transformations of natural environments, of urbanization, colonialism and what we have come to know more recently as globalization. In turn the conditions for these changes have been processes of capitalist development, state formation, the creation of the global polity and new forms of consciousness. It is the objective of this course to trace out these changes in world geography and to link them to these underlying processes, though with attention to the way in which those processes have in turn been altered by their encounter with new geographical contexts.

Course Outline:

The course is organized around ten modules as follows:

• The Making of the Modern World: Preliminary Considerations
• Turning the World Into a Marketplace: The Initial Phase
• Creating One World?
• The Formation of the Global Polity
• Diasporas
• Imperialism, Colonialism and Neo-Colonialism
• Transforming Nature
• Consciousness and the Rise of Abstract Thought
• The Globalization of Culture?
• Geographies of Uneven Development
• Modernization in Question (Whose World Is It Anyway?)

For each of these modules I plan to make available a written narrative.

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