World History
Reading global connections, comparisons, and ruptures from antiquity to the present
A comparative and connective survey of world history that treats civilisations, empires, and revolutions not as isolated national stories but as nodes in shared networks of trade, ideas, conquest, and resistance. The course consistently situates the Indian subcontinent within these global processes, training students to compare, contextualise, and write research articles that avoid both Eurocentrism and uncritical nationalism.
- 01
The First Civilisations: Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus, China, and Mesoamerica Compared
A comparative study of the earliest urban civilisations, examining why cities, writing, and states emerged along particular rivers and what this reveals about the diversity of early complex societies.
5 concepts · 5 sources · 3 exercises
- 02
Connected Antiquity: Rome, Han China, Persia, and the Silk Roads
Examines classical-era empires as nodes in an interconnected Afro-Eurasian world linked by the Silk Roads and Indian Ocean trade, with India as a central hinge.
5 concepts · 5 sources · 3 exercises
- 03
The Medieval World: Islamic Caliphates, Mongol Empire, African Kingdoms, and Feudal Europe
A comparative study of medieval polities from roughly 700 to 1400 CE, emphasising the Islamic world's centrality, Mongol integration of Eurasia, African state formation, and Europe's relative marginality in this period.
5 concepts · 5 sources · 3 exercises
- 04
Early Modern Globalisation: Oceans, Slavery, Colonialism, and Revolution, 1500-1900
Traces the emergence of a genuinely global economy through maritime empires, the Atlantic slave trade, colonial extraction in Asia and the Americas, and the political revolutions that followed.
5 concepts · 5 sources · 3 exercises
- 05
The Twentieth Century: World Wars, Decolonisation, Cold War, and Globalisation
Surveys the defining global ruptures of the twentieth century — two world wars, the collapse of colonial empires, Cold War bipolarity, and accelerating economic globalisation — with India's independence and non-alignment as a central case.
5 concepts · 5 sources · 3 exercises