E. J. Wakefield was 19 years of age when he sailed from England, in 1839, on the New Zealand Company vessel, Tory, as secretary to his uncle, Colonel William Wakefield. Wakefield was to oversee the foundation of a Company settlement in the Cook Strait region, where the country's capital city, Wellington, is now located. Land purchases from tribal owners were a priority for the colonizing... Read More »

The modules in Methods present case studies that demonstrate how scholars interpret different kinds of historical evidence in world history. In the video below, historian Tom Ewing analyzes John Ledyard’s journal of his travels along the North American coast in the late 18th century. Ledyard, born a British subject, became an American citizen after Independence. He traveled with the British... Read More »

Xuanzang ( or Hiuen Tsiang) was a Chinese monk ( 602-664) who went to India to study Buddhism. After he went back to China, he told his 17-year journey to his disciple, Bianji, who edited and wrote it in Chinese and published it with a title: da tang xi yu ji (the meaning of the title is the records regarding the western area of the Great Tang dynasty). It remains a very valuable resource to... Read More »