An introductory survey of world history since 1500, with special emphasis paid to the non-western world. The course familiarizes students with the political, social, economic, and cultural structures of world societies. It also delineates how and why these different societies reacted to the broad transnational changes of the period, including the emergence of Enlightenment ideas, cross-cultural contacts, the Industrial Revolution, the first and second waves of European colonialism, the emergence of Communism, de-colonization, and globalization.