"The Money Market" Article
The London Evening Standard reported in 1881 that one transaction from the Sursuq (Sursock) and Debbas families caused the French stock market to decline. The Levantine companies had accumulated significant capital from silk and futures trading throughout the mid-nineteenth century. By the late-nineteenth century the Beirut-based family companies wielded so much economic, political, and social... Read More »
A History of the World in 100 Objects
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. The manila galleons, specifically, could reach over 160ft in length. Interestingly, due to a number of environmental,... Read More »
Al-Idrisi's World Map
The Nuzhat al-mushtāq fī ikhtirāq al-āfāq, most commonly known in the West as the Tabula Rogeriana ("The Book of Roger" in Latin), is a manuscript created by the Arab geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi that contains a highly detailed, partial-world map and extensive descriptions of the seven climate zones represented on the map. Depicting the Eurasian continent and North Africa, Al-... Read More »
Analyzing Maps
The map is one of the oldest forms of nonverbal communication. Humans were probably drawing maps before they were writing texts. Mapmaking may even predate formal language. As far as historians and geographers can determine, every culture in every part of the world uses and makes maps. This deep lineage reflects the descriptive usefulness of a map—a map is one of the best proofs that a “... Read More »
Analyzing Maps
The modules in Methods present case studies that demonstrate how scholars interpret different kinds of historical evidence in world history. In the video historian Gerald Danzer analyzes maps of the world. In the primary sources menu below, you can examine two world maps two maps of the world. The first, a Mercator projection, probably seems familiar to you because Mercator maps are among the... Read More »
Analyzing Music
Everywhere you go, there it is.
Even when we are not listening, music is around us. It blares from radios and headphones, kicks off sporting events, energizes crowds at demonstrations, and intrudes on our shopping experiences. Just now, a tune tinkling from a passing ice-cream truck interrupted the writing of these words. The commercial marketing of recorded music has been a fact of... Read More »
Analyzing Newspapers
A newspaper is a publication intended for a broad audience that appears regularly, often daily, and claims to contain factual accounts of recent events. Usually newspapers are published with the intention of making a profit. Frequently, their factual content is accompanied by advertisements and nonfactual material intended as entertainment. Journalists often boast that they write “the rough... Read More »
Australian Periodical Publications Project, 1840–1845
Balclutha
Balclutha was built in 1886 on the River Clyde near Glasgow, Scotland, for Robert McMillan, a Glaswegian shipbuilder who occasionally owned ships as a side-business. Balclutha was first built to capitalize on the then booming wheat trade around Cape Horn with California, but in 1899, Balclutha was sold to a group of three San Francisco companies to be used in the... Read More »