Transportation
Short Teaching Module: Examining Early Genoese Voyages through Maps
The medieval Genoese ranged from China to the Atlantic, and their experience in navigation, the sugar industry, and the slave trade were the elemental foundation of Iberian colonial expansion.
Catalan Map of the World, c.1450
Dated to the mid-fifteenth century, this Catalan world map is over a meter in diameter on a sheet of vellum (high-quality parchment made of calfskin). Unlike many other surviving charts, this was not meant for practical navigation, though it was based on such nautical charts.
Primer: Borderlands History
Borderlands history studies the making and crossing of borders. While the term “borderlands” has no fixed definition, it can refer to spaces of encounter between different peoples and political entities.
Heading of east portal Tunnel No. 8
In the late nineteenth century, multiple transcontinental railroads were built across the United States and Canada. These were Pacific projects twice over: Each railroad aimed to open new routes for global trade with Asia, and each depended heavily on Asian laborers for their construction.
Marshall Islands stick chart
Across millennia, Pacific people voyaged out to sea and settled the ocean’s thousands islands and atolls, linking new discoveries back to existing territories.
Short Teaching Module: History of the Pacific Ocean
Scholars of Pacific history explore how people build lives dependent on the ocean, how maritime connections create communities, and how humans and the environment shape each other.
Short Teaching Module: Using Ships as Guides for Transnational Adventures through World History
Ships travel across oceans and in doing so connect people in disparate places across the globe. In this essay, Brandon Tachco explains how a focus on ships as a theme can add much to the study of world history.
Chinese Junk, early 18th century
Junks encompass a range of different ships that were essential for maritime trade in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Indian Ocean for centuries. Original junks built in China were likely inspired by the design of ships visiting Chinese ports from Austronesia and Southeast Asian archipelagos.
A Naval Encounter between Dutch and Spanish Warships
Spanish galleons were large ships specifically built to carry a huge amount of cargo across the vast distances of the Spanish maritime empire. The Manila Galleon Trade is a common topic in world history courses and represents the first truly global trade in world history.