Global Connections: non-Eurocentric historical narratives

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This course stages historical perspectives on globalization. It sets out to recognize and compare different views on globalization. In doing so it critically looks at Eurocentrism that for a long time tended to predominate in global historiography. Important elements of a Eurocentric view on globalization, like the closure of China in the fifteenth century, non-rational Oriental despotism and the allegedly typical Western entrepreneurship, are critically discussed to counter the mainstream 'rise-of-the-west'-paradigm stating the supremacy of Europe after 1500. To do so, the course will take a long-term and broad view on globalization, west and east, sometimes going back as far as the year 500 CE. The course challenges students to examine their own assumptions about East and West in long-term globalization processes.