World History and World Cultures
Course Curriculum Map
Social Studies Department
Mercer Island High School
Topics of Study












Early Man and Early Civilizations
Ancient Greece
Ancient Roman Republic and Empire
World Religions
The Middle-Ages
Renaissance and Reformation
The Scientific Revolution and the Age of Exploration
Enlightenment and Revolution
Industrialization and the New Modern World
Nationalism, Imperialism, Militarism, and Alliances
World War I and the Russian Revolution
World War II and the Holocaust
Early Man and Early Civilizations
Central Focus/Essential Questions: How did the Agricultural Revolution fundamentally
change life for human beings? What have been the advantages and disadvantages of that shift?
How did the Agricultural Revolution lead to Civilization? How can civilization be defined?
What comparisons can be made between various early civilizations, both eastern and western?
Themes:
Culture
Cultural Relativism
Civilization
Civilized and Uncivilized
Religion
Early Government
Social Stratification
Gender Inequality
Possible Topics:
Hunting and Gathering
Agricultural Revolution
Geography—the River Valley
Development of writing
Hammurabi’s Code
Egypt
China
India
Mesopotamia/Ancient Middle East
Confucianism
Daoism
Legalism
Reading Assignments:
Textbook: World History: Connections to Today, Ellis and Esler: Chapters 1-4
Possible Secondary Source Selections:
Hunting and Gathering and the Emergence of Agriculture (reading)
Of Headhunters and Soldiers, Rosaldo
Ilongot Headhunting, Olivariez
Cultural Relativism and Universal Human Rights, Fleur-Lobban
Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond (selections)
Mummification (National Geographic)
A Thoroughly Modern Process (Archeology Magazine)
Foot-binding (article)
Civil Service Exams in China (article)
Possible Primary Source Document Selections:
Hammurabi’s Code
Gilgamesh
Possible Media Resource Selections:
The God’s Must Be Crazy (motion
picture)
Lascaux Cave website
Evolution (Walter Cronkite)
Mesopotamia (time life)
Secrets of the Pharos (National
Geographic)
Ancient China (Time Life)
Pyramids (PBS)
Ancient Greece
Central Focus/Essential Questions: Why is Ancient Greece widely regarded as the Cradle of
Western Civilization? What have been Greece’s greatest legacies?
Themes:
Art and Architecture—the search for the perfect form
Greek Geography and the Polis
Philosophy
From Monarchy to Democracy, governmental evolution
Free Speech
Greek Myth
Possible Topics:
Socrates
Plato
Aristotle
The Parthenon
Oedipus Rex
Homer
Iliad
Odyssey
The Polis
Athens vs. Sparta
Peloponnesian War
Trojan War
Reading Assignments:
Textbook: World History: Connections to Today, Ellis and Esler: Chapter 5
Possible Secondary Source Selections:
The Polis, Kitto
When Free Speech Was First Condemned, Stone
Greek vs. Greek
The Socratic Method
The Peloponnesian War
Possible Primary Source Document Selections:
Oedipus Rex (selections)
The Iliad (selections)
The Odyssey (selections)
Pericles Funeral Oration
Allegory of the Cave, Plato
The Death of Socrates, Plato
Possible Media Resource Selections:
Crucible of Civilization (PBS)
Greek Thought (The Western Tradition)
Ancient Roman Republic and Empire
Central Focus/Essential Questions: What various factors led to the transformation of Rome
from a Republic to an Empire? What were the various factors that led to the decline and fall of
Roman Empire? To what extent can these factors be applied to other empires, past and present?
What was the nature of Roman Rule?
Themes:
Roman Culture and Values
Roman compared to the United
States
Republican government
Roman Achievements
Possible Topics:
Gladiatorial Contests
“Bread and Circuses”
Julius Caesar
Roman Law
Roman Cities and Infrastructure
Pax Romana
Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire
Punic Wars
Roman Trade and Economy
Rise of Christianity
Reading Assignments:
Textbook: World History: Connections to Today, Ellis and Esler: Chapter 6
Possible Secondary Source Selections:
Gladiatorial Contests and Roman Culture
Law in the Roman Empire
Possible Primary Source Document Selections:
Of Romulus and Remus: How Rome First Came to be Built
Of Horatius: How He Kept the Bridge
Lucius (Titus) Quinctius Cincinnatus
The Aeneid, Virgil
The Assassination of Julius Caesar, Plutarch
Possible Media Resource Selections:
Gladiator (motion picture)
Roman City (PBS)
The Decline of the Roman Emipre (Western Tradition)
The Fall of the Roman Emipre (Western Tradition)
World Religions
Central Focus/Essential Questions: What are the similarities and differences of the various
religions that emerge in the ancient and early medieval world, both in terms of doctrine and their
historical development? How have the various faiths interacted in the past and today? What
effect has religion had on social, political, and economic developments?
Themes:
The role of ideas and beliefs in shaping people’s approach to the world
Possible Topics:
Hebrew civilizations/Judaism
Rise of Christianity
Rise of Islam
Rise of Hinduism
Rise of Buddhism
Basic tenets of the various faiths
Reading Assignments:
Textbook: World History: Connections to Today, Ellis and Esler: Chapters 2, 3, 4. 6, 11
(selections)
Secondary Source Selections:
Sunni and Shi’a, David Kremer
Primary Source Document Selections:
Selections from various original religious texts (Bible, Koran, etc.)
Media Resource Selections:
Empire of Faith (PBS)
Hajj (Nightline)
Pillars of Faith (Kramer)
Western Tradition (Eugene Weber)
The Middle Ages
Central Focus/Essential Questions: To what extent was the middle-ages a period of
backwardness and lack of human progress, or was it a period of technological germination and
subtle but important changes?
Themes:
Rise of Europe and the West
Rise of the Christian Church in filling the void of the Roman Empire
Rise of the Germanic Kingdoms in filling the void of the Roman Empire
Possible Topics:
Feudalism
“The Age of Faith”
Crusades
Cathedrals
The Black Death
High Middle-Ages
Rise of the Islamic Empires
Agricultural Changes
Manor System
Revival of Towns and Trade
Peasant Revolt
Magna Carta
Hundred Years War
Islamic/Christian Cultural Diffusion
Reading Assignments:
Textbook: World History: Connections to Today, Ellis and Esler: Chapters 8-9
Secondary Source Selections:
The Crusades, Harold Lamb (selections)
A World Lit Only By Fire, William Manchester (selections)
Technology and Invention in the Middle-Ages, Gies and Gies (selections)
The Black Death, Mark Damen
Material Civilization: Crisis and Recovery, Peters
The Manor System
Rise of Towns and Trade
Primary Source Document Selections:
Town Charter of Lorris
Magna Carta
Canterbury Tales (Chaucer)
Media Resource Selections:
The Crusades (History Channel)
History’s Turning Points: The Black
Death
Cathedral, David Macaulay (PBS)
Castle, David Macaulay (PBS)
The Western Tradition
Renaissance and Reformation
Central Focus/Essential Questions: What changes in the high and late middle-ages brought
about a transition to Renaissance? Why did the Reformation happen when and where it did?
Was the Renaissance simply a rebirth of classical ideas, or does it represent an entirely new way
of looking at the world? Taken together, should the Renaissance and the Reformation be
considered the start of the “modern world?” Does the Reformation represent a liberalizing event
of the old medieval hierarchies, or was it a conservative reaction to religious institutions that had
strayed from their biblical roots? Why did the Reformation happen where it did?
Themes:
Clash of science and religion
Possible Topics:
Art (themes/style/techniques)
Humanism
Reformation and Counter
Reformation
Theology and Theologians
Italian vs. Northern Renaissance
Political Theory of the Renaissance
(esp. Machiavelli)
Renaissance Man (concept of)
The Printing Press
Reading Assignments:
Textbook: World History: Connections to Today, Ellis and Esler: Chapter 14,15
Secondary Source Selections:
The Reformation: A Historical Essay
The Breakdown of Medieval Civilization
Renaissance Humanism (from the dictionary of the history of ideas)
The Logic of Indulgences, Richard Hooker
Primary Source Document Selections:
“The Prince”(Machiavelli)
Mirandola “On the dignity of Man”
Renaissance Artwork (various)
Petrarch (various)
Media Resource Selections:
Sister Wendy (The Age of Genius)
The Day the Universe Changed (Edmund Burke)
Martin Luther
A&E Biography: Michelangelo
The Catholic Reformation (The Christians)
The Sword and the Cross (The Christians)
The Western Tradition
Scientific Revolution and The Age of Exploration
Central Focus/Essential Questions: Why did new ideas about heaven and earth challenge the
Catholic Church? How did the changes in thinking associated with the Renaissance pave the
way for advances in science and navigation? What were the various motivations for European
exploration? What were the various impacts of European exploration?
Themes:
Culture Clash
Possible Topics:
Heliocentism
Scientific Revolution
Age of Exploration
Scientific Method
European colonization
Mercantilism
Spice Trade
Slave Trade
Reading Assignments:
Textbook: World History: Connections to Today, Ellis and Esler: Chapters 14, 15, 16
Secondary Source Selections:
An Age of Discovery and Expansion, Spielvogel
Columbus (Howard Zinn)
“Memory of Fire” (Eduardo Galeano)
“Collision at Cajamarca”(Guns, Germs, & Steel) Diamond
“Yali’s Question” (Guns, Germs, and Steel) Diamond
Primary Source Document Selections:
Don Quixote (Cervantes)
Letter from the 1st Voyage (de las Casas)
Journal of Columbus
Media Resource Selections:
The Mission
Guns, Germs, and Steel (PBS)
The Western Tradition
“The Columbian Exchange” (Seeds of Change)
Enlightenment and Revolutions
Central Focus/Essential Questions: What new ideas did Enlightenment thinkers bring to the
perennial question of “who should rule?” How have the Enlightenment ideas secularism,
Progress, and Reason influenced the modern world? Why do many scholars argue that the
modern world starts with the Enlightenment? How did Enlightenment philosophical thought
about government affect real world governments? How did it influence the construction of
government in America?
Themes:
Possible Topics:
Secularism
Progress
Reason
Limited Monarchy
Absolutism
The Guillotine
Rein of Terror
Hobbes
Locke
Montesquieu
Diderot
The Encyclopedia
Voltaire
Rousseau
Natural Rights
The General Will
The Candide
Napoleon
Reading Assignments:
Textbook: World History: Connections to Today, Ellis and Esler: Chapters 17,18,19
Secondary Source Selections:
An Age of Enlightenment, Spielvogel
Newspaper articles about progress, secularism, and reason in the modern world
Primary Source Document Selections:
Candide, Voltaire
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Gibbon
Selections from various Enlightenment philosophers, including Locke, Hobbes,
Rousseau, Montesquieu, Diderot, Voltaire, and others
Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen
Media Resource Selections:
The Western Tradition
Baroque Music (selections)
Industrialization and the New Modern World
Central Focus/Essential Questions: How did the Industrial Revolution change patterns of
living for different groups of people? What were the positive and negative results of the
Industrial Revolution? What were the important cultural and social responses to the industrial
revolution?
Themes:
Changing patterns of living and economic processes
Possible Topics:
Luddism/Luddites
Factory Work
Mine Work
Environmental Impact
Romantic Movement
Proto-Industrialization (The puttingout system)
Bessemer Process
Economies of Scale
The Market Revolution
Frankenstein
Critics: Malthus, Marx, J.S. Mill
Mechanization
Reading Assignments:
Textbook: World History: Connections to Today, Ellis and Esler: Chapter 20, 22
Secondary Source Selections:
A Luddism for Today, Sale
Various newspaper and journal articles addressing the concept of a 2nd industrial
revolution
Primary Source Document Selections:
The Chimney Sweeper, Blake
Testimony Gathered By The Ashley Mines Commission
Frankenstein, Shelly (selections)
Rules for Workers in the Factory of Benck
Media Resource Selections:
Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein (motion picture)
Industrial rev video from the library (BBC)
The Western Tradition
Nationalism, Imperialism, Militarism, Alliances and World War I
Central Focus/Essential Questions: How did Imperialism in the late 19th Century differ from
the colonialism of the 16th and 17th centuries? What immediate and long term effects did
Imperialism have on the non-western world? How did nationalism, imperialism, militarism, and
alliances lead to World War I? How did Industrialization change the nature of warfare by 1914?
Themes:
Nationalism
Imperialism
Alliances
Balance of Power
Militarism
Possible Topics:
White Man’s Burden
Religious Humanitarianism
Social Darwinism
Isolationism
Partition of Africa, Middle-east
Trench warfare
Total war
Machine gun
Submarine
Airplane
Eastern vs. Western Front
Treaty of Versailles
Wilson’s 14 points
Reading Assignments:
Textbook: World History: Connections to Today, Ellis and Esler: Chapters 23, 25, 27
Secondary Source Selections:
To Shoot an Elephant, Orwell
The Origins of World War I, Sheffield
The Western Front and the Birth of Total War, Badsey
Primary Source Document Selections:
All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque
The White Man’s Burden, Kipling
The German Fatherland, Arndt
Patrie, Voltaire
Wilson’s 14 Points
Poetry of Wilfred Owen (various selections)
Media Resource Selections:
All Quiet on the Western Front
The Great War (PBS)
The Western Tradition
WWII and the Holocaust
Central Focus/Essential Questions: What factors led to the rise of Hitler and the spread of
fascism? How did the Treaty of Versailles contribute to the outbreak of WWII? How and why
did the Holocaust happen? How did new technologies contribute to the deadliness of WWII?
Themes:
Scape-goating
Genocide
Fascism
Appeasement
Anti-Semitism
Modern Warfare
Possible Topics:
Hitler
German apathy?
Mussolini
Leninism
Stalinism
Night of Broken Glass
Holocaust
Concentration Camps
Munich (appeasement)
Atomic Bomb
War in the Pacific
European Theater
Weimer Republic
Pearl Harbor
Propaganda
Treaty of Paris
Air Power/Bombing
Nuremberg Trials
After effects: cold war and decolonization
Axis vs. Allies
Reading Assignments:
Textbook: World History: Connections to Today, Ellis and Esler: Chapters 30, 31
Secondary Source Selections:
The acquiescence of the German People, Haskew
Primary Source Document Selections:
Various propaganda selections
Anti-Jewish Laws in Germany (selections)
Possible Media Resource Selections:
Triumph of the Will
Auschwitz
Life is Beautiful
Au Revoir Les Enfants
Schindler’s List
The Pianists
The Western Tradition