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World History: The human story, connected
History is one species in many places becoming one world, slowly and usually violently.
Agriculture changed everything
Farming concentrated people, stored surplus, and produced states, writing and inequality in roughly the same package everywhere it took hold.
Connections compound
The Silk Road, Indian Ocean trade, and finally the Columbian exchange tied regions together. Trade moved goods, and worse, moved plagues, plants and empires.
What this course teaches
Nine units walk from the first states through classical empires, the post-classical world, the Americas, the early modern period, revolutions, imperialism, the World Wars, and the contemporary world.
Flashcard
c. 3200 BCE
Writing in Sumer and Egypt
Record-keeping appears where surplus agriculture supports administration and tribute.
Check your understanding
The Columbian exchange was most devastating to New World peoples through: