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Second Examination

This examination is comprehensive. You are responsible for all of the readings, lectures, and discussions, with an emphasis on the material since the first examination. In your review of the material since the first examination, you may wish to give particular attention to the following points:

  1. The people and events important in the extension of Castilian and Portuguese territorial control in the Americas.
  2. The people and events important in the development of Portuguese activities along the west and east coasts of Africa and in the Indian Ocean basin and beyond.
  3. The types of officials and institutions through which the Crowns of Castile and Portugual exercised authority in their dominions.
  4. The impact of the assumption by the Habsburg dynasty of the Iberian, Western Mediterranean, and Italian domains of the Trastámara dynasty.
  5. The impact on the world's various regions of the increasing interconnection of the biota of the Americas with that of Afroeurasia.
  6. The nature of military institutions and practices in the world's various regions and the impact of these on the economic, political, and cultural networks established by the Castilians and Portuguese.
  7. The nature of slavery in the world's various regions in the period 1400-1700.
  8. The nature of the labor systems used to develop Castilian and Portuguese control over the exploitation of American resources.
  9. The impact of Church institutions and the regular and secular clergy on the social and cultural environments of the territories of the Aviz, Trastámara, and Habsburg dynasties.
  10. The nature of politics in the monarchical regimes of the Americas and Afroeurasia.
  11. Philip D. Curtin and Sidney W. Mintz have argued in important books that the development of the American plantation system was an important foundation for the growth of modern "capitalism," despite the use of slave labor. What do you think of this claims? [Curtin. The Rise and Fall of the Plantation Complex: Essays in Atlantic History (Cambridge University Press, 1990); Mintz. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History (Viking Penguin, 1985).]

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J. B. Owens
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Revised:  25 October 1999


URL:  http://www.isu.edu/~owenjack/spemp/reading.19.html