Week 2: The Lessons of Sociobiology

 

Sociobiology

“K” Species

Altruism

Tool Making

Moralistic Punishment

Memes

Tribes

Pleistocene

 

Week 3: The First Great Transformation

 

Hunter-Gathering

Agriculture

Nomadism

Neolithic

Continuity

Discontinuity

Solar Energy

Holocene

Epidemic Disease

 

Week 4: Agriculture and Environmental Change

 

Swidden Agriculture

Declensionism

Malaria

Erosion

Fertilizer

Silt

Salinization

Climate Change

Solar Forcing

NAO

 

Week 5: Agriculture and Civilization

 

Civilization

Storable Surplus

Divine Kingship

Macroparasites

Class

Specialization

Writing

Inequality

 

 

Week 6: Discovery and Divergence

 

Technology

Secondary Products Revolution

Milk

Manure

Chariots

Indo-Europeans

Nomadic Pastoralists

Iron Working

Bantu

 

 

Week 7: Cultural Assimilation and Diffusion

 

Cultural diffusion

Cultural Assimilation

Buddhism

Taoism

Chan Buddhism

Christianity

Christmas

 

Week 8: Centralization and Decentralization

 

Centralization

Hydraulic States

Decentralization

Bureaucrats

Confucianism

Grand Canal

Mandate of Heaven

Eunuchs

 

Week 9: Globalization 1.0

 

Globalization

Song Dynasty

Islamization

Sugar

Silk Road

Medieval Warm Period

Moldboard plow

Crusades

 

Week 10: Gunpowder Empires

 

Gunpowder

Pastoralists

Rifles

Cannons

Gunpowder Empires

Mughals

Ottomans

Janissaries

 

Week 11: Globalization 2.0

 

Prester John

Spices

Compass

Slave Plantation

Amerindians

Old World Diseases

Mercantilism

Slavery

Atlantic Economy

New World Supercrops

 

Week 12: The Second Great Transformation

 

Capitalism

Division of Labor

Marxism

Fossil Fuels

Tenements

Cholera

The Anthropocene

 

Week 13:  The Era of European Domination

 

Rifled Muskets

The Maxim Gun

Quinine

Captive Markets

Imperialism

Third World

Monocropping

IMF/World Bank

Mauritius

 

Week 14:  The Cold War and Globalization 3.0

 

The World Wars

Cold War

Nuclear Weapons

Internet

Outsourcing

Soil Mining

Virtual Water

Haber-Bosch Process