Early Modern Empires and Diplomacy

Master 2023/2024

Category 'Best Course for Broadening Horizons and Diversity of Knowledge and Skills'

Type: Elective course (Global and Regional History)

Area of studies: History

Delivered by: Department of History

Where: School of Arts and Humanities

When: 1 year, 1, 2 module

Mode of studies: offline

Open to: students of one campus

Instructors: Adrian A. Selin

Master’s programme: Global and Regional History

Language: English

ECTS credits: 6

Contact hours: 44

Full Syllabus Ask Question

Abstract

Early modern history is the history of internal and overseas expansion. In early modern time the majority of the states were composite states, including more than one country under the sovereignty of one ruler. Moreover, since the 15th century a number of European powers started their colonial expansion to Africa, Asia and the New World, starting mainly (albeit not exclusively) from the establishment of the networks of littoral trading stations, which eventually evolved in the early modern colonial empire. The course takes the definition of empire as a polity that reaches outwards and that maintains distinction and hierarchy in the process of incorporation of new peoples. It will consider different European imperial scenarios and trajectories between 1400-1700: composite states, overseas empires and land empires, and contextualize ‘early modern empire’ as a distinct form of polity. The course will be focused on the Holy Roman Empire, British composite monarchy, Muscovite Tsardom, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Spanish composite monarchy, Sweden; Portuguese, Castilian, Dutch, French and English colonial empires as well as Gunpowder empires, revolving around key issues such as expansion and struggle for territories; imperial discourse; governance; elite formation; identities; economies; ethnographies and religion.The aim of the course is to examine ‘early modern empires’ from the variety of perspectives and to probe advantages and limitations of the concept of the ‘empire’ as an analytical unit with regard to early modern time.

Learning Objectives

The course aims to familiarize the students with the historical context of early modern European expansion; governance of early modern empires; the elite formation in early modern empires; identities in early modern empires; imperial economies; imperial ethnographies
The course aims to familiarize the students with main lines of historiographical inquiry into early modern empires
The course aims to familiarize the students with primary sources connected with the history of early modern empires

Expected Learning Outcomes

The student can comprehend primary sources effectively
The student can identify main thesis and issues raised in scholarly literature
The student is able to review scholarly literature in English
Students can comprehend primary sources effectively
The student can discuss scholarly issues in groups and present the results of these discussions; can solve scholarly issues in collaboration with groupmates.
The student can write an essay concerned with one of the issues of the early modern empires
The student consistently uses the terminology of the scholarship of the early modern empires
The student knows main facts of the history of early modern empires
The student knows main facts of the history of the early modern empires

Course Contents

Early modern theories of empire
Notions of empire in early modern sources
How to study early modern empires?
Brokers of Empire
The age of discovery
Expansion in early modern Muscovy
Moral justification of Spanish conquest and its criticism.
Imperial expansion and the issues of property
Early modern cartography and empires
Composite monarchies: Britain
Governance of the overseas colonies
Composite monarchies of the Baltic sea: Sweden, Polish-Lithunian commonwealth, and Muscovy
Resistance to empire-building and colonization
Composite monarchies: Holy Roman Empire and Gunpowder empires
Elite formation in the early modern empires
Subjecthood in early modern composite monarchies and empires
British identity and forging territorial identities
Imperial economies in early modern time
Ethnicity and race in early modern time
Early modern ethnographies - primary sources
Religion in early modern empires: comparative aspects
Remembering early modern empires

Assessment Elements

Formative assessment
Formative assessment consists of a written assignment which includes 1 open question based on the issues discussed in the seminars and lectures, and 1 fragment from the primary source which the student has to comment on.
Exam essay
The essay is concerned with one of the topics discussed at class. The length of the essay is 25000 characters with spaces. The topics of the essays are provided by the lecturers 4 days before the date of the exam. The essays are home assignments. Students have 4 days to write their exam essays and submit them via SmartLMS.
Seminar discussion
At the seminar students discuss issues raised in scholarly literature and primary sources. Students themselves propose questions for discussion.
Review
A review is a critical evaluation of the book chosen by a student dedicated to history of early modern empires (15th-18th centuries). The book for the review has to be chosen by a student and approved by an instructor until October 18, 2022. The approval should be obtained from the lecturer depending on the region your book is dedicated to. The review must be submitted until December, 5

Interim Assessment

2023/2024 2nd module
0.4 * Exam essay + 0.15 * Formative assessment + 0.3 * Review + 0.15 * Seminar discussion

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

Alexander Grant, & Keith Stringer. (1995). Uniting the Kingdom? : The Making of British History. Routledge.
Armitage, D. (2000). The Ideological Origins of the British Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=112408
Braddick, M. J. (2000). State Formation in Early Modern England, C.1550–1700. Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=77695
Cameron, E. (1999). Early Modern Europe : An Oxford History. Oxford: OUP Oxford. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=364431
Elliott, J. H. (2009). Spain, Europe & the Wider World, 1500-1800. Yale University Press.
Evans, R. J. W., & Wilson, P. H. (2012). The Holy Roman Empire, 1495-1806 : A European Perspective. Brill.
Herberstein, S., Major, R. H., & Hakluyt Society. (2010). Notes Upon Russia : Being a Translation of the Earliest Account of That Country, Entitled Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii: Vol. Vol. II. Ashgate Publishing Ltd.
Hodgen, M. T. (1971). Early Anthropology in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Vol. 1st pbk. ed). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=17294
Immanuel Wallerstein. (2011). The Modern World-System I : Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. University of California Press.
Kappeler, A. (2014). The Russian Empire : A Multi-ethnic History. Hoboken: Routledge. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=837915
Kidd, C. (1999). British Identities Before Nationalism : Ethnicity and Nationhood in the Atlantic World, 1600–1800. Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=54555
Muthu, S. (2012). Empire and Modern Political Thought. Cambridge University Press.
Van Ruymbeke, B., & Roper, L. H. (2007). Constructing Early Modern Empires : Proprietary Ventures in the Atlantic World, 1500-1750. Brill.

Recommended Additional Bibliography

Behn, A., Southerne, T., Hughes, D., & Neville, H. (2007). Versions of Blackness : Key Texts on Slavery From the Seventeenth Century. Cambridge University Press.
Bushkovitch, P. (2012). A Concise History of Russia. New York: Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=432731
David Arnold. (2002). The Age of Discovery, 1400-1600: Vol. Second edition. Routledge.
Elliott, J. H. (1992). A Europe of Composite Monarchies. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsbas&AN=edsbas.A96675F4
Franklin, S., & Bowers, K. (2017). Information and Empire: Mechanisms of Communication in Russia, 1600-1854. Open Book Publishers.
Herberstein, S., & Major, R. H. (2010). Notes Upon Russia: Being a Translation of the Earliest Account of That Country, Entitled Rerum Muscoviticarum Commentarii, by the Baron Sigismund Von Herberstein : Ambassador From the Court of Germany to the Grand Psrince Vasiley Ivanovich, in the Years 1517 and 1526: Vol. Vol. I. Hakluyt Society.
Hsia, R. P. (2017). A Companion to Early Modern Catholic Global Missions. Brill.
Kivelson, V. (2002). Muscovite “Citizenship”: Rights without Freedom*. Journal of Modern History, 74(3), 465. https://doi.org/10.1086/345109
MAARTEN PRAK. (2001). Early Modern Capitalism : Economic and Social Change in Europe 1400-1800. Routledge.
S. J. Connolly. (2007). Contested Island : Ireland 1460-1630. OUP Oxford.

Authors

Selin Adrian Aleksandrovich
Erren Lorents Mattias
LYUBAVINA SVETLANA VYACHESLAVOVNA

Course Syllabus