DCU Home | Our Courses | Loop | Registry | Library | Search DCU
<< Back to Module List

Module Specifications.

Current Academic Year 2024 - 2025

All Module information is indicative, and this portal is an interim interface pending the full upgrade of Coursebuilder and subsequent integration to the new DCU Student Information System (DCU Key).

As such, this is a point in time view of data which will be refreshed periodically. Some fields/data may not yet be available pending the completion of the full Coursebuilder upgrade and integration project. We will post status updates as they become available. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Date posted: September 2024

Module Title Empires & Globalisation
Module Code HY347 (ITS) / HIS1044 (Banner)
Faculty Humanities & Social Sciences School History & Geography
Module Co-ordinator-
Module Teachers-
NFQ level 8 Credit Rating 5
Pre-requisite Not Available
Co-requisite Not Available
Compatibles Not Available
Incompatibles Not Available
None
Description

In this module, taught over eleven weeks in the first semester, students will encounter the early exploration and trading activities of Portugal and Castile (later Spain) in Asia, the Americas, Africa and the Caribbean; the commercial rivalry and struggle for colonies by the European states of England, France, Spain and Portugal, the Dutch and the Danes; European trade overseas, mercantilism and the overseas empires; the establishment of administrative and judicial machinery outside Europe; the activities of Christian missionaries in the imperial projects in Asia and the Americas in the Golden Age of Spain; England, and the Elizabethan Age; the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the industrial revolution, and the wonders of science and technology and the colonisation of North America, Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Examining these explorations and themes allows us to see the shift towards globalisation as several parts of the world were incorporated into European empires, giving rise to interconnectivity, change and continuity, transforming the world’s cultural, demographic, socio-economic and political landscape.

Learning Outcomes

1. LO1: Historicise how Portugal, Spain, Holland, England, and France expanded beyond Europe to other parts of the world in the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries and explain the significant social, political, and cultural changes that resulted from these voyages of discovery, expansion, and empire.
2. LO2: Describe the nature of European empires in Africa, the Far East, Brazil, the New World, the Americas, and Asia between the fifteenth and the twentieth centuries.
3. LO3: Critically evaluate the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade and how it changed the tide of world history.
4. LO4: Develop a basic understanding of the external and internal historical forces that contributed to the Industrial Revolution, Christian missionary revival in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and colonial expansion.
5. LO5: Evaluate the impact of European expansion, empire-making, new imperialism, and globalisation on other parts of the world and a fundamental historical outline of global history to 1945.



Workload Full-time hours per semester
Type Hours Description
Lecture240No Description
Total Workload: 240

All module information is indicative and subject to change. For further information,students are advised to refer to the University's Marks and Standards and Programme Specific Regulations at: http://www.dcu.ie/registry/examinations/index.shtml

Indicative Content and Learning Activities

Assessment Breakdown
Continuous Assessment40% Examination Weight60%
Course Work Breakdown
TypeDescription% of totalAssessment Date
EssayThere is one assigned paper for this module, which is worth 40% of the module grade. The writing guidelines and the topics will be given well before the due date.40%n/a
Reassessment Requirement Type
Resit arrangements are explained by the following categories:
Resit category 1: A resit is available for both* components of the module.
Resit category 2: No resit is available for a 100% continuous assessment module.
Resit category 3: No resit is available for the continuous assessment component where there is a continuous assessment and examination element.
* ‘Both’ is used in the context of the module having a Continuous Assessment/Examination split; where the module is 100% continuous assessment, there will also be a resit of the assessment
This module is category 1
Indicative Reading List

  • Abernethy B. David: 2000, The dynamics of global dominance: European overseas empires, 1415-1980, New Haven and London,
  • Weisner-Hanks Merry: 2006, Early Modern Europe 1450–1789, Cambridge,
  • J.C. Sharman: 2020, Empires of the weak: The real story of European expansion and the creation of the new world order, Princeton,
  • Michael C. Meyer, William L. Sherman and Susan M. Deeds,: 2003, The course of Mexican history, 7th, New York and Oxford,
  • Albert Adu Boahen, (ed.): 1990, UNESCO General History of Africa: Africa under colonial domination, 1880-1935, Vol. VII, Paris and Ibadan,
  • Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper: 2010, Empires in world history: power and the politics of difference, Princeton,
Other Resources

None

<< Back to Module List