Dr H Braun, E500

For second and third year historians and general course students. Available as an outside option for second and third years where regulations permit.

The purpose of this course is to introduce the theme of the early expansion of Europe by analysing in some detail the Spanish and Portuguese imperial systems in Asia, Africa and America. The course will then go on to study seventeenth century commercial companies and their impact on European politics through the development of rival colonial projects. The emphasis of the course will be on comparing different colonial systems rather than studying them in isolation. It will consider both European activities and non-European reactions.

Frontier societies in the Latin Christian world and the medieval expansion of Europe; Exploration and discoveries in the Atlantic: explaining Vasco de Gama and Columbus; The Portuguese in Asia: trade, mission, conquest; The Spanish in America: a successful conquest?; Mission and acculturation in the Catholic world; The Dutch and British companies and the question of political economy; Trade and slavery before the eighteenth century; Asia in the seventeenth century; America in the seventeenth century; Colonial competition before and after the war of Spanish succession; The Golden century in Brazil.

20 lectures and 20 seminars.

Students will be required to write 3 essays, and prepare two seminar presentations, one of which will be formally assessed.

A full bibliography divided by topics will be provided at the start of the course. Introductory reading includes: J H Parry, The Age of Reconnaissance. Discovery, exploration and settlement, 1450-1650 (1981); F Fernández-Armesto, Before Columbus (1987); L Bethell (Ed), Colonial Spanish America (1987); J H Parry, The Spanish Seaborne Empire (1990); J H Elliott, The Old World and the New, 1492-1650 (1970); L McAlister, Spain and Portugal in the New World, 1492-1700 (1984); C R Boxer, The Portuguese Seaborne Empire 1415-1825 (1989); B W Diffie & G Winius, Foundations of the Portuguese Empire 1415-1580 (1977); S Subrahmanyam, The Portuguese Empire in Asia, 1500-1700 (1993); C R Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire, 1600-1800 (1998); A M McFarlane, The British in the Americas, 1480-1815 (1994); P Curtin, The rise and fall of the plantation complex (1990); H Furber, Rival empires of trade in the Orient, 1600-1800 (1976).

Three-hour written examination in the ST.