FOUN1101 - Overview of Units 1-3

A pleasant welcome to you all for this Semester 1, 2010/2011 By now you all should have a fair idea of the first three units. Basically they are intended for you to have some main ideas in your head. Let me state them... 1. History as a discipline is a subjective undertaking. We need to understand this point very carefully as we often think that what we read or were taught about the past is the "truth". This is not always the case. 2. Historians use a definite methodology in order to limit (not eliminate) subjectivity issues. While it is true that we cannot ever totally eliminate our subjectivity we can learn to control it or make it transparent through our use of established academic methodologies. From your readings please note that in the late nineteenth century a time of great European imperialism (especially scramble for Africa) the discipline of History relied almost exclusively on written sources and societies without written records were seen as having no history. Relate this to concepts of civilization. Note the uses and abuses of History and how Europeans were seeking to justify their imperialist campaigns 3. Civilizations vary throughout the world and therefore cannot be compared. This is a very important issue as we often think that our civilization is the "best" or the "worst". This was the attitude of the Europeans who came into the region at the end of the fifteenth century. As a result of their inability to accept other cultures the native people (Neo-Indians) were marginalized and killed. We must take heed and not repeat this type of negative attitude. 4. To attempt to compare civilizations is wrong as this can only be done by using (consciously or not) the standard of one civilization. 5. There is no such thing, in reality, as an uncivilized group or 'savage' people. 6. Pay attention to the reader from UWI regarding the Early European civilization As time progresses we will advance other issues but, if you have understood these issues to this point then you are on top of the Course so far!!! 7. Note these articles from the UWI readings:
1) Arthur Marwick, History: Essential Knowledge about the past, Chapter 2, The New Nature of History: Knowledge, Evidence, Language. Hampshire: Palgrave, 2001 (pages 22-50).

2) L.S. Stavrianos, First Eurasian Civilizations, 3500-1000 BCE, Chapter 3 in The

World to 1500: A Global History (7th Edition) New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1999 (pages 43-63). 3) Aleric Josephs, Indigenous Societies of the Circum-Caribbean and South America in, the Caribbean, the Atlantic World and Global Transformation, eds. Jenny Jemmott, Aleric Josephs and Kathleen Monteith. Mona: Social History Project, 2010 (pages 3-20). 4) L.S. Stavrianos, West European Expansion: Iberian Phase, 1500 -1600, Chapter 24 in The World Since 1500: A Global History, (7th Edition) New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1995 (pages 365-382). 5) L.S. Stavrianos, West European Expansion: Dutch, French, British Pha se, 1600-1763, Chapter 24 in The World Since 1500: A Global History, (7th Edition) New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1995 (pages 383-395).