UCSB Hist 2C, Spring 2006
World History, 1700-present (course homepage)

Prof. Marcuse (Prof's homepage)
May 1, 2006; updated 5/3/06, 10:30pm

The midterm counts for 20% of your final grade (90 points as noted below, plus 10 "free" points).

1. Identify and define the significance (15 minutes total, 2 @ 10 points each)
   On the actual exam, you will be given 6 of the following terms, from which you will select two. You should identify each one (including an approximate date), situating it correctly in relation to other important events. Then take special care to explain why the term is significant in the context of world history. Ask yourself: Would history have taken a different course without this event or person? Or: Is this term an example of some important principle that played a role in the later course of history? (Your answer should be yes.) Then write down the reason(s) WHY as part of your answer to the ID. (the numbers in ( ) refer to the textbook)

2. Source Interpretation. (10 minutes, 20 points)
   

   From one of the primary sources in the course reader (#3-9), Vassa/Equiano's Interesting Narrative (a key passage), or one of the boxed primary sources in the textbook (pp. 129, 205, 215, 225, 256, 259) I will select a short passage and ask you to answer some specific questions about it.

   To study for this part, go through your notes from section and jot down the issues you discussed about the sources in the reader. For the sources in the textbook, simply read the discussion accompanying the boxed sources, and the relevant passages of the textbook itself, and think about why the authors chose that source from the hundreds of possibilities.
   
   I will ask you questions that you can answer based mainly on the words of the source text itself.
   [note 5/3/06, 11pm: See the sample source question and answers by a TA and the professor.]

3. Essay question: You will be asked to compose an essay on one of the following topics. (40 minutes, 50 points)
   

   A question similar to one of these will be on the midterm.

1. We use the term "revolution" to denote both the French and Industrial Revolutions, although these world-historical events were very different in many respects.
   • Compare the causes and effects of the two:
     • What causal factors contributed to the emergence and unfolding of both?
     • Which were important for only one, but not the other?
     • Did one revolution play a role in causing the other? Explain how they were independent or connected.
     • What changed in each one? (Think about how things were before, and how they were after--what was different?)
   • Conclude your essay with some reflections on which one was more important for shaping the global system that we have today.
     • Why do you think that the changes brought about during that revolution were more consequential? How would the world today be different if either revolution hadn't happened?
2. Slavery has been a feature of human societies since the earliest times.
   • Discuss the various types of slavery, describing typical examples of the areas and time periods in which they were practiced.
   • The transatlantic "triangle trade" was a defining feature of international interaction from the 17th to 19th centuries.
     • What was it? How did it work? Why did it develop? Who benefited from it?
     • What world-historical consequences did it help to engender?
   • Over the course of the 19th century first the transatlantic slave trade, then the practice of slavery itself was banned in Europe and the Americas.
   • Describe some of the causes historians (activists, economists, ...) have argued were the forces behind the demise of Atlantic and plantation slavery.
   • Which do you think were most important? Why? Are the reasons the same for all regions? If some factors were missing, would abolition have occurred? In the same way, at the same time?
   • [In addition to lecture, textbook pp. 128-36 and 208-16 may be especially helpful.]