[HIST W3970] Global Inequality

This course has no focus. Prof McKeown is nice and passionate, but you will emerge no hardly more about history than when youcame in. it is sort of about colonialism, sort of about the world bank, sort of about trade, sort of about ideologies. sort of about everything and about nothing you can sink you teeth into. youll leave with both fewer questions, and fewer answers

Excellent course readings, fascinating syllabus. McKeown is young and too eager to let his students--the lame, halt, young and pierced all--fumble for the words to describe what they think they're learning. Teaches in the post-modern style, opening discourse to multiple answers, which is a fine way of thinking but a problematic way to teach. better to do some old-fashioned pedagogy, lay the material on us and then set aside time to discuss. Very friendly guy, though, and I still have to recommend the class because the material is interesting in 17 different ways.

I actually really enjoyed this class, if only because the readings were so fascinating and the paper topics, if strange, really ended up making me think about the subjects at hand. I'm glad the class had such a historical and cultural rather than contemporary focus, because there is no way global inequality can be explained without talking about history and culture. History majors looking to fulfill requirements may find the class frustrating, but those truly interested in global poverty and its roots should not miss this class.

The first day that i went to class, i thought this class would be about globalization, and would explain to me why we see such disequalities in peoples wealth across the world. This course focuses tremendously on the 19th century and what happened during colonization, and explores concepts such as 'what is civilization?', not exactly as contemporary as i thought it would be. Don't be fooled by what the syllabus says. The workload does not seem like that much, considering it is totally optional to go to class (at least a third of the class never showed up) and there are no tests. However the essay questions make no sense and have nothing to do with what he talks about in class, so you get fustrated when you actually make the effort to go to class. This class is not really fun, and i think can be greatly improved if there was atleast some organization and structure to the course outline.