Term 1:

Assessed Essay: All students will submit a 2500-3000 word essay.

Deadline: Tuesday 13th November 2018 (Week 7)

Essay Titles:

1. To what extent is it feasible to write a global history of the ancient world?

- P K Crossley 2008 What is Global History?

- P. Frankopan 2015 The Silk Roads: a new history of the world

- B K Gills and W R Thompson (eds) 2008 Globalisation and Global History

- M Berg (ed) 2013 Writing the History of the Global: Challenges for the 21st century

- D Woolf 2011 A Global History of History

- P. Duara, V. Murthy and A. Sartori (eds) A Companion to Global Historical Thought

- J Benley (ed) 2011 The Oxford Handbook of World History

- M. Scott 2016 Ancient Worlds

- C. Benjamin 2018 Empires of Ancient Eurasiia: the First Silk Roads Era 100 BCE-250CE.

2. How did the Greeks and Romans perceive societies existing outside of the Mediterranean?

- H. Jin Kim 2009 Ethnicity and Foreigners in Ancient Greece and China

- V. Karageorghis (ed.) 2002 The Greeks Beyond the Aegean: from Marseilles to Bactria

- J. Boardman 2015 The Greeks in Asia

- A. M. Eckstein 2008 Rome Enters the Greek East: From Anarchy to Hierarchy in the Hellenistic Mediterranean 230-170 BC

- G. Parker 2008 The Making of Roman India

- G. Young 2001 Rome’s Eastern Trade, International Commerce and Imperial Policy, 2001

- J H Bentley 2000 Old World Encounters: Cross-Cultural Contacts and Exchanges in Pre-Modern times.

3. Is it fair to say that the Chinese were forced into engagement with the wider ancient world?

- B. Watson 1961 Records of the Grand Historian Sima Qian (vols 1-3 - look particularly at chapters on the Nomads.

- J. Roberts 1999 A History of China

- F. Michael 1986 China through the Ages

- N. Di Cosmo 2002 Ancient China and its enemies: the rise of nomadic power in East Asian history

- T. J. Barfield 1989 The Perilous Frontier: Nomadic Empires and China 221 BC to AD 1757

- M. Edward Lewis 2007 The Early Chinese Empires Qin and Han

- R. Amitai and M. Biran (eds) 2015 Nomads as agents of cultural change : the Mongols and their Eurasian predecessors

- X. Liu 1994 Ancient India and Ancient China: trade and religious exchanges;

4. 'For those living in ancient central Asia and India, global engagement was a way of life' Discuss

- C. Beckwith 2009 Empires of the Silk Road: a history of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present

- W. W. Tarn 1966 The Greeks in Bactria and India;
- G. M. Cohen 2013 The Hellenistic Settlements in the East from Armenia and Mesopotamia to Bactria and India;
- I. Habib and V. Jha 2004 Mauryan India;

- P. Golden 2011 Central Asia in World History

- B. Stein 1998 A History of India

Term 2:

There is a choice of assessment options for students. Students will be asked to indicate which option of assessment they intend to take in Term 1 week 10.

Final Deadline for all assessment options: Tuesday 18th February (Week 7)

Option A: An assessed essay (2500-3000 words) from a selection of 4 essay titles (as in term 1).

1. To what extent is comparative global history a useful form of study of antiquity?

- G Lloyd 2002. The Ambitions of Curiosity: Understanding the World in Ancient Greece and China. Cambridge:
- G. Lloyd and N. Sivin 2002 The Way and the Word: Science and Medicine in Early China and Greece
- G. Lloyd 2004. Ancient Worlds, Modern Reflections: Philosophical Perspectives on Greek and Chinese Science and Culture

- F. Mutschler & A Mittag (eds) 2008 Conceiving the empire: Rome and China compared

- S. Shankman and S. Durrant (eds.) 2002 Early China/ Ancient Greece: Thinking through comparisons

- W. Scheidel (ed.) 2009 Rome and China: Comparative Perspectives on Ancient World Empires

- J. R . Tanner 2009 'Ancient Greece, Early China: Sino-Hellenistic studies and comparative approaches to the Classical world Journal of Hellenistic Studies 129: 89-109.

- I. Morris and W. Scheidel (eds) 2009 The Dynamics of State Empires state power from Assyria to Byzantium

- W. Scheidel (ed.) 2015 State power in Ancient China and Rome

2. 'War is the most important force in creating global connections in antiquity' Discuss.

- A. M. Eckstein 2006 Mediterranean Anarchy, Interstate War and the Rise of Rome

- C. Beckwith 2009 Empires of the Silk Road: a history of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present

- F. Holt 1999 Thundering Zeus: the making of Hellenistic Bactria

- N. Di Cosmo 2002 Ancient China and its enemies: the rise of nomadic power in East Asian history

- P. de Souza 2004 The Ancient World at War

- X. Liu 1988 Ancient India and China: Trade and Religious exchanges AD1-600

- T. J. Barfield 1989 The Perilous Frontier: Nomadic Empires and China 221 BC to AD 1757

- M. Scott 2016 Ancient Worlds

3. In what ways were the ideas that spread more important than the goods that were traded along the ancient Silk Roads?

- D. Anthony 2007 The horse, the wheel and language: a history of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present

- K. Czeglédy 1983 From East to West: the age of Nomadic Migrations in Eurasia

- X. Liu 1994 Ancient India and Ancient China: trade and religious exchanges

- Cimino, R. (ed.) 1994 Ancient Rome and India: Commercial and Cultural Contacts between the Roman world and India

- Liu, X. 1996 Silk and Religion

- J H Bentley 2000 Old World Encounters: Cross-Cultural Contacts and Exchanges in Pre-Modern times

- R. Folk 1999 Religions of the Silk Road: overland trade and Cultural exchanges from Antiquity to the 15th century

- Tomber, R. 2008. Indo-Roman trade: from pots to pepper

- B. Wang & T. Sen (eds) 2011 India and China: interactions through Buddhism and Diplomacy

- E. Zürcher 1959 The Buddhist Conquest of China: the spread and adaptation of Buddhism in Early Medieval China

- M. Scott 2016 Ancient Worlds

4. Did ancient global connectivity decrease or increase cultural diversity?

- A. M. Eckstein 2008 Rome Enters the Greek East: From Anarchy to Hierarchy in the Hellenistic Mediterranean 230-170 BC

- S. Whitefield 1999 Life along the Silk Road

- V. Hansen 2012 The Silk Road: A New History

- X. Liu 2010 The Silk Road in World History

- A. Khazanov and A Wink (eds) 2001 Nomads in the Sedentary World

- Franck, I. and D. Brownstone 1986 The Silk Road: A History

- L. Boulois 2005 The Silk Road: Monks, Warriors, Merchants

- P. Frankopan 2015 The Silk Roads

- M. Scott 2016 Ancient Worlds

Option B: An essay based on your own research question developed from use of Oiko.world portal.

Students must submit planned essay titles to the module convenor + 250 essay plan through Tabula by Wednesday 16th January Term 2 week 12. The final essay will be 2500-3000 words long. The assessment criteria for this essay will be different to the traditional essay. See the Assessment page for details.

Failure to submit the 250 word plan by the deadline, and to obtain the approval of the module convenor for the essay title, will mean that students will be required to revert to option A for Term 2 assessment.

Option C: Creation of digital entries for Oiko.world + Reflective Essay

Students must do the following:

- Express interest in Pathway C assessement by Term 1 (week 10) and log on to the Oiko.world portal to register (how to do this will be demonstrated in class).

- Attend the Term 2 (week 11) digital training session (Tuesday 8th January 11am-1pm in H0.60)

- Submit a 250 word plan via Tabula outlining your choice of digital entries + narrative chain by Wednesday 16th January (Term 2 Week 12).

Failure to complete each of these steps by the deadline, and to obtain the approval of the module convenor for the choice of entries + narrative chain, will mean that students will be required to revert to option A for Term 2 assessment.

- Complete the following:

• C1: Digital Entries + Narrative Chain:
  • Create 3 Digital Entries on Oiko.world, each with complete database information, primary and secondary sources and a 500 word description.
  • Link these 3 digital entries into a 'Narrative Chain', and complete a 200 word narrative chain description.

• C2: Reflective Essay:
  • Write a 1000 word reflective essay, reflecting on the choices you made, situating them within their historical context, and analysing the impact your entries have had on the wider picture of connectivity represented within Oiko.world.

- Submit your work in the following way:

• Create a PDF transcript of your digital entries + narrative chain in Oiko.world (how to do this will be demonstrated in digital training session).
• Combine your PDF + Word doc reflective essay into a single PDF (how to do this will be demonstrated in digital training session).
• Submit your combined PDF via Tabula.

Your assessment will be judged on the quality of data entries (50% of mark) and of the reflective essay (50% of mark).

Both the digital entries + narrative chain (C1) and the reflective essay (C2) will be assesed according to new assessment criteria. See the Assessment page for details.

Following the distribution of marks for this assessment, students will be offered the opportunity to return to their data entries + narrative chain to improve them, and if approved by the module convenor, these entries will then be published permanently within the Oiko.world database.