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Geography

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Teaching

Short Teaching Module: Borderland Migration and Communities in Twentieth-Century West Africa

Cross-border mobility has created borderland cultures and led to the development of vibrant communities that in some cases have stretched across several states.

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Source

Map and Population Table for British Gambia, 1915-1918

Many people in West Africa fled across colonial boundaries to avoid military conscription in the late 19th and early 20th century. For example, during World War I, tens of thousands of people left the French colony of Senegal for neighboring British Gambia and Portuguese Guinea-Bissau.

2 Prints of a Sole Amerindian in a Canoe
Teaching

Long Teaching Module: Caribbean Seafaring in the Archaic Age (2000-400 BC)

There have been many different approaches to studying seafaring in the past. We can look at the evidence of voyages in books written by prominent explorers or follow the maps maintained by successful prominent trading companies.

Table with cells containing different values. Description in annotation.
Source

Least Cost Pathway Analysis Showing Movement Across a Landscape

These side by side charts show the basics of how least cost pathway analysis works in action. A geographic surface, landscape or seascape, is broken into standard size squares (or cells).

Image of the Mahabodhi Temple: a stepped pyramid with round dome-shaped structure (stupa) on top
Methods

Analyzing Travel Records

In a way, all historical thinking and all historical writing deal with travel accounts.

Map of Asia showing the lands Marco Polo traveled to.
Source

Marco Polo’s Travels

Macro Polo lived from 1254 to 1324. He spent twenty-four years journeying through the Asian continent and left behind an impressive amount of documentation including travelogues of his adventures.

Page from al-Biruni's writing. Description in annotation.
Source

Travel writing of al-Biruni, 11th century Persian scholar

This image is taken from a page of al-Biruni work called Chronology of an Ancient Nations. al-Biruni was a native of Iran. He was a prolific Persian scholar. While he published works in a wide variety of subjects, the majority of those works were on the subject of astronomy.

Shipping Company Route Map from 1889
Source

Shipping Company Route Map from 1889

This route-map of the Messageries Maritimes shipping company displays the main routes connecting metropolitan France to its empire in the Indo-Pacific. While the map dates to 1889, these routes retained their basic structure through the 1950s.

A blue, circular icon with an image of a document in the center. Underneath are the words "view document"
Source

Mandate for Palestine

The Mandate for Palestine was a legal document that established the United Kingdom as a Mandatory in charge of Palestine and Tran

Large spreadsheet documenting each foreign vessel that arrived in the port of Zanzibar which kept track of things such as the origin, size, and cargo of each visiting ship.
Source

List of Foreign Arrivals in the Port of Zanzibar from the 16th September 1832 to 26th May 1835

This is an ostensibly mundane document that contains a tremendous amount of information for interpreting the global dynamics of this period of history, all while peering out into the world from the tiny island of Zanzibar.