Semester at Sea Course Syllabus
Discipline: History
Semester and Year: Fall 2012
Course Number and Title: HIST 3559: The Age of Discoveries: The Columbian
Exchange: Europe and the New Worlds in the Early Modern Period
Faculty Name: Patricia O’Neill
Suggested Pre-requisites: None
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course will focus on the encounter of Europe and Europeans with the “new
worlds” in the time period known as the Age of Discoveries [1400s-1600s] and on
the process known as the Columbian Exchange. The outward global expansion
of Europeans resulted in many things: new patterns of cultural, religious and
economic diffusion, and also the interaction of different ecological systems
[including flora, fauna and microorganisms/ diseases]. This phenomenon will be
examined from the perspective of three themes: people’s perceptions of the
natural world, the impact "discoveries" and explorations had on Europe and on
the “new worlds” and the impact that the European concepts of race and gender,
and "the other" had on the radical reshaping of the culture and economy of what
was to them the “new worlds".
The course will be organized geographically and topically to take advantage of
the unique opportunities provided by Semester at Sea. Concepts such as
“ecological imperialism: the overseas migration of Western Europeans as a
biological phenomenon” will emphasize the impact of the Columbian exchange
on the areas we will be visiting. Through readings, discussions, lectures, films,
and field trips, we will question our assumptions about “nature” in order to
conceptualize environments as dynamic places shaped by both biological and
cultural processes. Finally, we will take advantage of the fact that we will be
sailing some of the routes taken by people, diseases, food products and
technologies during the Age of Discoveries to highlight the themes and concepts
of the course.
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COURSE OBJECTIVES
1. Provide students with a conceptual framework within which to understand the
Discoveries and the Columbian Exchange.
2. Employ historical thinking and inquiry to understand and to interpret events,
issues, developments, and relationships about the Age of Discoveries and
the Columbian Exchange.
3. Identify, analyze, develop and defend particular interpretations of the Age of
Discoveries and the Columbian Exchange. Explain how and why historical
interpretations differ and how they are affected by time [i.e., historical
context].
4. Utilize evidence from primary and secondary sources to understand and
describe events, issues, developments, relationships, and perspectives of the
Age of Discoveries and the Columbian Exchange.
5. To differentiate and analyze historical statistical evidence about the Age of
Discoveries and the Columbian Exchange.
6. Use formal and informal writing to develop and to express historical
interpretations and analysis of the Age of Discoveries and the Columbian
Exchange.
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OUTLINE OF COURSE:
Day 1: Saturday, August 25th: Introduction: Age of Exploration and the
Columbian Exchange
Reading:
John Thornton, “The Birth of the Atlantic World” in
Thomas Benjamin, ed., The Atlantic World in the Age of
Empire, Houghton Mifflin: New York, 2001, pp. 18-28
Day 2: Monday, August 27th: Did Vikings Predate Columbus in Americas?
Reading:
”A Leaf from Leif: Columbus Might Have Been a Viking
Disciple” U.S. News Online
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/doubleissue/mysteries/columbus.htm
“First American in Europe was native woman kidnapped by
Vikings and hauled back to Iceland 1,000 years ago” Mail
Online, October 12, 2011
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1330484/First-AmericanEurope-Native-woman-kidnapped-Vikings-1000-yearsago.html#ixzz1aXIRNmOZ
Day 3: Wednesday, August 29th: Cultural and Historical Context for
Columbus
Reading:
Timothy Foote, “Where Columbus Was Coming From”
Smithsonian December 1991, pp. 28-41
*** Galway - Dublin ***
Day 4: Tuesday, September 4th: The Myth of the Spanish Conquest
Reading: “A Handful of Adventurers: The Myth of ‘Exceptional’
Men” in Matthew Restall’s Seven Myths of the Spanish
Conquest, Oxford University Press, 2003, pp. 1-26
3
*** London - Antwerp ***
Mandatory Field Lab: Bruges
[Monday, September 10th]
Day 5: Sunday, September 16th: The Columbian Search for Spices
Reading: Wolfgang Schivelbusch, “Spices”, Tastes of Paradise: A
Social History of Spices, Stimulants and Intoxicants,
Pantheon: New York, 1995, p.3-14
Day 6: Tuesday, September 18th: Biological Determinism and European
Global Domination
Reading: “Yali’s People” in Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel:
The Fate of Human Societies, pp. 295-321
Video: Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germ and Steel
*** Lisbon - Cadiz ***
Day 7: Thursday, September 27th: Ecological Imperialism
Reading: “Ecological Imperialism: The Overseas Migration of
Western Europeans as a Biological Phenomenon” in Alfred
Crosby’s Germs, Seeds and Animals: Studies in Ecological
History, M.E. Sharpe: New York, 1994, pp.28-44
 Response Paper Assignment 1 due: Yali’s People
*** Casablanca ***
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Day 8: Wednesday, October 3rd: European Invention of Environmental
‘Otherness”
Reading: “Inventing Tropicality” in David Arnold’s The Problem of
Nature: Environment, Culture and European Expansion,
Blackwell: London, 1996, pp. 141-168
Day 9: Saturday, October 6th: The Ecology of African-American Slavery
Reading: Paul Bohannan and Philip Curtin, “The African Slave
Trade” in Lynn Nelson’s The Human Perspective:
Readings in World Civilization, Volume II: The Modern
World through the 20th Century, Wadsworth Publishing,
1996, pp. 20-31.
 Response Paper Assignment 2 due: Environmental ‘Otherness”
*** Ghana ***
Day 10: Saturday, October 13th: Africa Rice in the Atlantic World
Reading: Judith Carney, “Out of Africa: Colonial Rice History in the
Black Atlantic” Colonial Botany Science, Commerce, and
Politics in the Early Modern World, Londa Schiebinger and
Claudia Swan, Eds., University of Pennsylvania Press:
Philadelphia, 2005
Day 11: Monday, October 15th: Columbian Exchange of Animals
Reading: “Animals” in Alfred Crosby’s Ecological Imperialism: The
Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900, pp. 171-194
Video: 1492 The Columbian Exchange-part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3cg5jlJRkU&feature=related
 Response Paper Assignment 3 due: African Rice
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Day 12: Wednesday, October 17th: Transoceanic Exchange of Diseases
Reading: “Transoceanic Exchanges, 1500-1700” in William
McNeill’s Plagues and Peoples, Anchor Books: New
York, 1977, pp. 199- 234
*** Cape Town ***
Day 13: Wednesday, October 24th: The Early History of Syphilis
Reading:
“The Early History of Syphilis: A Reappraisal” in
Alfred Crosby’s The Columbian Exchange: Biological
and Cultural Consequences of 1492, Greenwood: New
York, 1992, pp. 123-163
Day 14: Friday, October 26th: The Drug Connection
Reading:
“The Drug Connection” in Jack Weatherford’s How the
Indians of America Transformed the World, Ballantine
Books: New York, 1998, pp. 197-216
 Response Paper Assignment 4 due: Disease Debate
Day 15: Monday, October 29th: Inebriants and Colonialism
Reading: Wolfgang Schivelbusch, “Tobacco: The Dry Inebriant”
Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants
and Intoxicants, Pantheon Books: New York, 1995,
pp. 96-146
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Day 16: Wednesday, October 31st: The Culinary Revolution
Reading: “The Culinary Revolution” in Jack Weatherford’s How the
Indians of America Transformed the World, Ballantine
Books: New York, 1998, pp. 99-115
*** Buenos Aires - Montevideo ***
Day 17: Friday, November 9th: Invention of Ethnicity/Race
Reading: Section 1. Race: Definitions and Problems
Steven, Holmes “You're Smart If You Know What Race
You Are” and Robert Boyd, “Color's Only Skin Deep:
More Scientists Rejecting Race Concept, Saying It's a
Social Idea with No Biological Reality” in Kevin Reilly,
ed. Racism: A Global Reader, M.E. Sharpe, 2002
 Response Paper Assignment 5 due: Why We Eat What We Eat
*** Rio de Janeiro ***
Day 18: Wednesday, November 14th: Brazil’s African Legacy
Reading: John Geipel, “Brazil’s African Legacy” Article 6 in
Annual Editions: Western Civilization, Vol II, 11th ed
Day 19: Friday, November 16th: Sweetness and Power: Place of Sugar in
Modern History
Reading: Sydney Mintz, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar
in Modern History, Penguin: New York, 1986, Chapter 1.
Stuart B. Schwartz, “Introduction,” Tropical Babylons:
Sugar and the Making of the Atlantic World, 1450-1680.
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Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004.
Day 20: Monday, November 19th: Coffee: The Great Soberer
Reading: Wolfgang Schivelbusch, “Coffee and the Protestant Ethic”
Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants
and Intoxicants, Pantheon Books: NY, 1995, pp. 15-84.
*** Amazon ***
Day 21: Wednesday, November 21st: Chinese Voyages of Discovery
Reading: “On the Shoulders of Giants” in Gavin Menzies’ 1421: The
Year the Chinese Discovered America, pp. 375-408
Video: 1421: The Year the Chinese Discovered America
*** Manaus***
Day 22: Monday, November 26th: Demographic Shifts as Consequence of
Columbian Exchange
Reading: “Spanish Interbreeding” and “Migration of Peoples” in
Marvin Lunenfeld’s 1492: Discovery, Invasion,
Encounter, Heath: New York, 1991pp. 321-334
Day 23: Wednesday, November 28th: Columbian Exchange: How Much
Have Things Changed?
Reading: Gilbert, Erik, Chapter 5: "Making Connections: How Much
Have Things Changed?” in Trading Tastes: Commodity
and Cultural Exchange to 1750, pp. 140–151.
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*** Roseau, Dominca***
Field Lab Paper and Final Paper due: Monday December 3rd
FIELD COMPONENT: 20% of the contact hours for the course is provided by
field work.
Students will create a two-three page field report based on the required field
lab trip to Bruges and on two readings:
Wolfgang Schivelbusch, “Chocolate, Catholicism and the Ancien Regime”
Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants and Intoxicants,
pp. 85-95.
Norton, Marcy, “Tasting Empire: Chocolate and the European
Internalization of Mesoamerican Aesthetics” in American Historical
Review 111 [3], 660-691.
FIELD LAB:
Antwerp – ATTENDANCE IS MANDATORY
Bruges: Chocolate Museum and Walking Tour of Historic Bruges

Monday, 10 September
________________________________________________
METHODS OF EVALUATION:
There will be a three page, final paper; the details of this will be handed out in
class worth 20% of the final grade.
In addition, each student will be required to complete two reflective response
papers based on the readings which are designed to reinforce the information
we cover in class. In total, there will be 5 possible response paper topics;
students may choose which two of the five they would like to do.
Each response paper will be worth 10% of the final grade. In total, the 2
assignments comprise 20% of the final grade.
Assignments that are turned in a class period late will lose one complete letter
grade.
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Percentages:
Final paper
= 20%
Written field lab report
= 20%
Reflective response papers [2]
= 20%
Class discussion participation
= 40%
GRADING:
A+ = 98-100%
A = 94 - 97%
A- = 90 - 93 %
B+ = 87 - 89%
B = 84 - 86%
B- = 80 - 83%
C+ = 77 - 79%
C = 74 - 76%
C- = 70 - 73%
D = 60 - 69%
F = >59%
Plagiarism: a critical part of the course is retention and analysis of the
information presented to you. The way in which that is determined in this course
is through writing assignment, class discussions and a final paper. It is very
disheartening to other students if someone turns in plagiarized written work. All
graded work must be done individually, not as a collaborative activity. If either
cheating or plagiarism should occur, the student will be given a failing grade for
that assignment, and if it happens a second time, it will result in a referral to the
Student Concerns Committee.
________________________________________________________________
REQUIRED TEXTBOOKS
Schivelbusch, Wolfgang, Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices,
Stimulants and Intoxicants, Vintage Books, 1993
ISBN-10: 067974438X
ISBN-13: 978-0679744382
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Electronic reserve chapters and articles
John Thornton, “The Birth of the Atlantic World” in Thomas Benjamin, ed., The
Atlantic World in the Age of Empire, Houghton Mifflin: New York, 2001, pp. 18-28
”A Leaf from Leif: Columbus Might Have Been a Viking Disciple” U.S. News
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/doubleissue/mysteries/columbus.htm
“First American in Europe was native woman kidnapped by Vikings and hauled
back to Iceland 1,000 years ago” Mail Online, October 12, 2011
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1330484/First-American-EuropeNative-woman-kidnapped-Vikings-1000-years-ago.html#ixzz1aXIRNmOZ
Timothy Foote, “Where Columbus Was Coming From” Smithsonian December
1991, pp. 28-41
“A Handful of Adventurers: The Myth of ‘Exceptional’ Men” in Matthew Restall’s
Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest, Oxford University Press, 2003, pp. 1-26
“Yali’s People” in Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fate of Human
Societies, pp. 295-321
“Ecological Imperialism: The Overseas Migration of Western Europeans as a
Biological Phenomenon” in Alfred Crosby’s Germs, Seeds and Animals: Studies
in Ecological History, M.E. Sharpe: New York, 1994, pp.28-44
“Inventing Tropicality” in David Arnold’s The Problem of Nature: Environment,
Culture and European Expansion, Blackwell: London, 1996, pp. 141-168
Paul Bohannan and Philip Curtin, “The African SlaveTrade” in Lynn Nelson’s The
Human Perspective:Readings in World Civilization, Volume II: The Modern World
through the 20th Century, Wadsworth Publishing, 1996, pp. 20-31.
Judith Carney, “Out of Africa: Colonial Rice History in the Black Atlantic” Colonial
Botany Science, Commerce, and Politics in the Early Modern World, Londa
Schiebinger and Claudia Swan, Eds., University of Pennsylvania Press:
Philadelphia, 2005
11
“Animals” in Alfred Crosby’s Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of
Europe, 900-1900, pp. 171-194
“Transoceanic Exchanges, 1500-1700” in William McNeill’s Plagues and
Peoples, Anchor Books: New York, 1977, pp. 199- 234
“The Early History of Syphilis: A Reappraisal” in Alfred Crosby’s The Columbian
Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492, Greenwood: New
York, 1992, pp. 123-163
“The Drug Connection” in Jack Weatherford’s How the Indians of America
Transformed the World, Ballantine Books: New York, 1998, pp. 197-216
“The Culinary Revolution” in Jack Weatherford’s How the Indians of America
Transformed the World, Ballantine Books: NY, 1998, pp. 99-115
Section 1. Race: Definitions and Problems Steven, Holmes “You're Smart If You
Know What Race You Are” and Robert Boyd, “Color's Only Skin Deep:
More Scientists Rejecting Race Concept, Saying It's a Social Idea with No
Biological Reality” in Kevin Reilly, ed. Racism: A Global Reader, M.E. Sharpe,
2002
John Geipel, “Brazil’s African Legacy” Article 6 in Annual Editions: Western
Civilization, Vol II, 11th ed
Sydney Mintz, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History,
Penguin: New York, 1986, Chapter 1.
Stuart B. Schwartz, “Introduction,” Tropical Babylons: Sugar and the Making of
the Atlantic World, 1450-1680. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
2004.
“On the Shoulders of Giants” in Gavin Menzies’ 1421: The Year the Chinese
Discovered America, pp. 375-408
“Spanish Interbreeding” and “Migration of Peoples” in Marvin Lunenfeld’s 1492:
Discovery, Invasion, Encounter, Heath: New York, 1991, pp. 321-334
Gilbert, Erik, Chapter 5: "Making Connections: How Much Have Things
Changed?” in Trading Tastes: Commodity and Cultural Exchange to 1750, pp.
140–151.
Norton, Marcy, “Tasting Empire: Chocolate and the European Internalization of
Mesoamerican Aesthetics” in The American Historical Review 111 [3], 660-691.
12