Global history for beginners

Global history offers a broad perspective on the past by examining connections, communities, and comparisons across time and space. While traditional histories often focus on nations, global history highlights themes such as trade, migration, and empire. Today, historians increasingly engage with contemporary concerns—climate change, energy transitions, and globalization—recognizing that we are in a pivotal moment of world history and applying global lenses for a new reading of the past.

This course introduces global history through three broad phases: 1) the world before fossil fuels, 2) the age of industrialization and empires, and 3) the modern world and its uncertain future beyond fossil fuels.

By the end of this course you should be able to...

• Connect historical events across different time periods and regions
• Describe key developments from early civilizations to today’s globalized world
• Analyse empire, imperialism, and their long-term legacies
• Identify challenges in studying and interpreting global history
• Relate contemporary global issues to historical trends.