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Religion is a good place to start with early modern history. Religion was not only about saying prayers and going to church; it was also a social, cultural, political and economic phenomenon. As a result, the religious disputes that broke out in western Europe in the sixteenth century quickly spread to many other areas of human life. These disputes became known as ‘the Reformation’, and their consequences were so profound that they arguably defined an age and not just an event.

All that said, the precise nature and extent of the changes wrought by the Reformation are hard to specify. There were precursors in earlier centuries, there were rival groups of reformers, and their aim was often to restore older practices rather than forge new ones. Christian missionaries had mixed success outside Europe; elites struggled to control popular beliefs.

The Reformation is therefore a good example of the complexities of historical change, as well as being a window onto the mental and material worlds of early modern people.

The Reformation coincided with a period of geographical expansion. The arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Caribbean in 1492, and of Vasco da Gama in the Indian Ocean in 1498, were events of world-historical importance. They created new connections between Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas that would have long-term consequences for all four continents.

But Spain and Portugal were not the only expansionist powers in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The Songhai empire subdued much of West Africa. The Aztecs and Incas grew into large, sophisticated civilizations before falling to Spanish conquistadores. In Asia, three Islamic empires (the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals) rose to prominence in the sixteenth century, while China and Japan engaged with the wider world. People, goods and ideas travelled along new routes, especially maritime ones. These exchanges coincided with a kind of cultural expansion. Ancient thinkers were recovered and reworked, from Plato in Italy to Confucius in China.

The result was a complex and volatile age that can be usefully approached from the sea. We focus on three major oceans, looking at the encounters that happened across them and around them.

This block of lectures moves into the seventeenth century and onto the theme of politics. The seventeenth century is often seen as a time of political crisis. The Thirty Years War (1618-1648) was the most destructive conflict in Europe before World War I. The English Civil Wars in the 1640s ended with the execution of a king and the abolition of the House of Lords. There were violent revolts against existing regimes in France, Spain, Italy, and elsewhere. The most populous state in the world, Ming China, collapsed.

Historians have given various explanations for these events, from population growth to climate change. Others have downplayed crisis and focused on more gradual changes. Many historians are wary of reading later developments (such as modern bureaucracies or the dominance of European empires) into the seventeenth century.

Historians continue to debate these issues. Crisis or no crisis, the seventeenth century is a useful laboratory for exploring early modern political life. In these lectures we construe politics broadly to include popular, local, imperial and environmental politics, as well as nations and monarchs.

The eighteenth century is often remembered for the Enlightenment, an intellectual movement that ranged widely across Europe and beyond. ‘Progress’ and ‘reason’ were key Enlightenment ideas. Clear thinking can make life better for everyone, or so it was claimed.

These ideas did not occur in a vacuum. They were mixed up with political, economic, and social life. They were a response to the events of the preceding centuries that we covered in the first three blocks of this module. They were also a response to contemporary events, such as the intensification of Caribbean sugar economies and the exploration of the Pacific Ocean.

These ideas made a real difference, but whether they should be called ‘rational’ or ‘progressive’ is an open question. Enlightenment attitudes to work, slavery, and gender were decidedly mixed. They were out of touch with the lived experience of many people.

In these lectures, we use the Enlightenment to explore the place of ideas in history. We look at the optimistic ideas that were put forward by major thinkers; we then compare these ideas to the reality on the ground.

Early modern history is still happening. Our view of the period is changing in response to new research, which is in turn shaped by wider changes in twenty-first-century life.

These lectures showcase some of the ongoing work on early modern history being done at the ¹û¶³´«Ã½ history department and beyond.

These lectures also support the third assignment, a research project in which you join the conversation about early modernity by looking closely at some primary sources and forming your own view about them.

Bentley, Jerry H., Sanjay Subrahmanyam, and Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks (eds), The Cambridge World History, vol. 6, The Construction of a Global World, 1400-1800 CE (parts 1 and 2) (2015)

Blanning, Tim, The Pursuit of Glory: Europe 1648-1815 (2008)

Darwin, John, After Tamerlane: the Rise and Fall of Global Empires, 1400-2000 (London, 2007), chaps. 1, 2, 3 and 4

Greengrass, Mark, Christendom Destroyed: Europe 1517-1648 (2014)

Kümin, Beat (ed.), The European World, 4th edn, (2022)

Wiesner-Hanks, Merry E., Early Modern Europe, 1450-1789 (Cambridge, 2006)