Course for international guest/part time students

Faculty

Faculty of Social Sciences

Organization

TÁTK Department of Cultural Anthropology

Code

EKAN118.1

Title

Anthropology of America

Usual semester

Autumn

Published semester

2026/27/1

ECTS

3

Language

en

Learning outcomes

Overview Risking an overstatement, one might argue that the “discovery” of America and the subsequent Colombian Exchange remarkably determined the course of history. The consequences of the Colombian Exchange included the unprecedented demographic stability in Europe as the result of newly introduced crops and the formulation of stable European empires and nation-states, combined with the influx of precious metals, new opportunities for global trading led to the development of venture capitalism and colonialism as we know it today. This went hand in hand with the Atlantic slave trade and the demographic and economic destabilization of Africa. Most importantly, the Colombian Exchange is responsible for the destruction of at least 90% of the indigenous population of the American continent. It is not at all hard to see why and how the almost accidental success of an Italian-born sailor laid the foundations for the world we live in today. Under the pressure of such historical significance, it is easy to forget that these events both destroyed and created America. That societies and cultures survived and adopted, new ones were born. The post-Columbian history of the continent is not the sole property of the European colonizers, and Indigenous communities and nations were not and are not ignorant victims of history. During this semester, we will aim to understand better the “assumptions” and “myths” that create America.

Course content

Topics Pre-Columbian history and prehistory: The peopling of the Americas and the formulation of stratified societies and an interlinked Pan-American system of Trade The European Discovery: The myth of a fast conquest, the modes of colonization. South American nations: Development, revolutions, independence. North America - Indian Wars and the making of modernity

Bibliography

Core literature: Hamalainen, Pekka 2019 Lakota America: A New History of Indigenous Power (The Lamar Series in Western History). Yale University Press Mann, Charles C. 2011 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. Random House

Programmes of the course