History 324 - Globalization/Indian Ocean

Globalization is a phenomenon that seems to be occurring everywhere around us and yet seems to have no origin. Is the world really flat? Or have certain places, people and things become better connected than others? This course seeks to answer these questions by exploring when and why certain places became better connected, people became more mobile and things gained wider circulation. Since the Indus valley civilization started trading with the Mesopotamian civilization four millennia ago, the Indian Ocean has been an important space of economic and cultural exchange. Technological innovations were pioneered within the Indian Ocean littoral and others were imported from other parts of the world. We can then see how ideas, commodities and people became incorporated into the Indian Ocean world and how they were resisted.