Participants will learn key concepts related to the histories of empires and roots of globalization in modern history. They will learn to discuss and examine global integration as well as understand the emergence of forms of nationalism. At the end of the course participants are able to critically examine systems of governing and circulation from a broad perspective of global history.

This course introduces students to the study of global history of empires across the varied centuries 1400-1900. Examined and explored here are the emergence of empires in global history and the role of building contacts, commerce and colonization on the foundation of transcontinental dynasties. We analyze and learn about the functions of empires, how they were managed, what kind of attempts different empires have made at unifying and/or assimilating their populations such as russification. The course explores how questions of representation, multi-ethnicity and multi-religious identity were solved and how empires in general made reforms. The Ottoman, Russian, German, and Habsburg empires are studied in detail and in relation to one another. Also, closely analyzed are maritime empires in the examples of the Danish, Swedish and Dutch sway, as well as the continental empire of the United States. We address the roots of today’s globalization by discussing how empires in the later 18th and 19th centuries created an intense era of integration, the legacies of which are crucially still felt still today. This course seeks to overcome a sharp division between ´the internal’ and ‘the external’ by treating imperial centers and colonies within a single analytical field and by mapping multidirectional networks and flows of ideas, practices, and peoples - within and in between empires. In doing so, we address also the assimilation policies of ethnic minorities such as the Saami, Finnish settlers in America, missionaries, and explorers in the service of empires, as well as transnational flows of raw materials and commodities. Finally, we take stock over how empires came apart and we compare the dissolution of the eight empires closely studied in class.