IDS 101: History of the World in Three Parts

Detail from "The City of Saccai" in Montanus, Arnoldus, and John Ogilby. Atlas Japannensis: Being Remarkable Addresses by Way of Embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces, to the Emperor of Japan. London: Printed by T. Johnson for the author. 1670. 

This class takes three subjects —horses, art, and refugees— to understand the ways in which world history has been shaped by interconnection, exchange, and human contact. In the first part, we read the archaeological study Hoof Beats: How Horses Shaped Human History. This book carries us across millions of years and thousands of miles. In the second stage of our intellectual journey, we read a global history of the seventeenth century that uses paintings by Johannes Vermeer [1632-1675] to explore transcultural exchange in an era of exploration. Our final segment brings together the global and the local in a book examining the lives of present-day Somali Bantu refugees who call Lewiston Maine home. Ranging across space and time, our conversations will focus on the dynamic forces of global exchange as well as the processes of adaptation and innovation that have shaped our world.