HONR 2210 - Early Modern Culture and Global Expansion

4 credit hours
This course will explore significant and selected developments in European culture and society from the Renaissance through the period of early globalization. The approach will be one that seeks to discern the interconnections and tensions between the cultural, social, economic, and intellectual spheres that marked the transformation of Europe from the beginning of the fifteenth century through the end of the seventeenth century. Points that will be highlighted include the development of the market and early consumer culture, the religious upheavals of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the development of the absolutist state and centralized political culture, and the early phases of European imperialism and colonialism. Our intent in this will be to come to a better understanding of the manner in which early-modern European life was lived in terms of its values, beliefs, and ideals, so as to better define the nature of early modern European culture.