Taught by Marshall C. Eakin Vanderbilt University Ph.D., University of California at Los Angeles
Why was Christopher Columbus's voyage to the Americas in 1492 arguably the most important event in the history of the world?
Professor Marshall C. Eakin of Vanderbilt University argues that it gave birth to the distinct identity of the Americas today by creating a collision between three distinct peoples and cultures: European, African, and Native American.
As the inheritors of this legacy, some 500 years hence, we forget how radically the discovery of the Americas transformed the view of the world on both sides of the Atlantic.
Environment and Empire (History of the British Empire Companion)
European imperialism was extraordinarily far-reaching: a key global historical process of the last 500 years. It locked disparate human societies together over a wider area than any previous imperial expansion; it underpinned the repopulation of the Americas and Australasia; it was the precursor of globalization as we now understand it.
The cultural and intellectual achievements of Old World civilizations-ancient Greece or Egypt, for instance-can be glimpsed in present-day societies the world over. Unfortunately, accomplishments of the ancient civilizations of the New World have often been obscured by the colonial forces that eventually eradicated much of their populations. One glance at the imposing architecture left behind by the Inca or the mathematical strides made by the Maya reveals that the early peoples of the Americas were equally as enterprising as their Old World counterparts.
1491 - New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
1491 is not so much the story of a year, as of what that year stands for: the long-debated (and often-dismissed) question of what human civilization in the Americas was like before the Europeans crashed the party. The history books most Americans were (and still are) raised on describe the continents before Columbus as a vast, underused territory, sparsely populated by primitives whose cultures would inevitably bow before the advanced technologies of the Europeans.
Ferdinand Magellan and the Quest to Circle the Globe (Explorers of New Lands)
This series presents the Spanish and Portuguese conquest of the Americas, focusing on the figures that had a profound influence on the exploration of new worlds. It will enable students to understand the stages of European oceanic and overland exploration amid international rivalries. Magellan set out in 1519 with five ships to find a passage through the Americas. In 1522, a lone ship returned, making Magellan's crew the first men to sail completely around the world.
Course No. 888
