Europe in the Making 1450-1800 (HI113)
- a survey of early modern history, c. 1450 to 1800
- first-year, 30 CATs
- core module for single-honours History students
- optional for joint-honours, visiting, and part-time students
- one-hour lecture and one-hour seminar per week, per student
- taught through these webpages (not Moodle)
- convened by Dr. Michael Bycroft
Module overview
Europe in the Making (ETM) is a survey module for the period from roughly 1450 to 1800. We cover major events in British, European, and world history during this period. The module ranges from the Reformation to the Enlightenment, the witch craze to the gin craze, the printing press to the steam engine, the Incan empire to the transatlantic slave trade.
This is not just an introduction to historical events but also to historical thinking. We experiment with new approaches to historical research, such as global history, environmental history, and the history of sexuality. We also work on fundamental intellectual skills, such as analysing a journal article, unlocking a primary source, and engaging with a scholarly debate.
ETM is designed to be taken alongside department's core module on modern history, Making of the Modern World (MMW). The module is useful background for optional modules on both modern and early modern history. It draws on the department's extensive expertise on early modern history, which is based in the Early Modern and Eighteenth-Century Centre.
Explanation of image
The image on this page illustrates the entanglement of British, European and world history, which is one theme of this module.
The image is an artist's impression of gold mining in early Central America. It shows four enslaved people mining gold, watched by a Spanish overseer.
This is from the Drake Manuscript, a set of paintings and descriptions made in the late sixteenth century and bound into a volume in the eighteenth century.
The scene of the image is Panama, where the Cueva people had been mining gold for hundreds of years before the Spanish arrived. The descriptions are in French, the miners are of African heritage, and the manuscript is associated with the English explorer Sir Francis Drake.
Citation of primary source:
Histoire Naturelle des Indes (c. 1586), Morgan Library and Museum (New York), MA 3900, f. 100r, https://www.themorgan.org/collection/Histoire-Naturelle-des-Indes/98, accessed Sep. 11, 2026