How did some of the most precious substances known to man throughout human history end up as unremarkable everyday goods sitting on a grocery shelf? How did "drug foods" such as coffee and tobacco drive both European imperialism and the social life of Asian empires ? What does Cod have to do with the American revolution? This class will answer these questions and others by using commodities as a lens to examine global interactions over 10 centuries of human history. We will study the history of goods such as codfish in the North Atlantic, silk in Central Asia, sugar, tobacco, cotton, and slaves in the Caribbean, spices from the Indian Ocean and bananas from Central America. As a result, we will also study the history of greed, acquisition, exploration, invention, wealth, poverty, the rise and fall of nations, and all forms of exchange: the exchange of cultures, ideas, goods and germs.

HTS 3065 is for the full summer session and meets Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10:05 - 11:55.