AP World History Course Outline

The primary intent of the AP World History course is to teach the history of the world from a truly global stance rather than from the dominant perspective of Western civilization. This approach, therefore, places emphasis on worldwide historical processes and connections among the whole gamut of human societies. In order to achieve a comprehensive understanding of these events, students need both factual knowledge and the ability to critically assess such information. This course helps them on both fronts, teaching the historical facts in the context of how progressive changes–environmental, social, scientific, and political–influenced the various societies they touched, as well as how these groups interacted with each other. Students are exposed to many primary sources in an effort to show them how historical analysis works and how they can proceed to make their own informed interpretations of world events, both past, and present. Significantly, the course is organized by five defining time periods, not by geographical areas. This concept of “periodization” is a vehicle that facilitates seeing both the continuities and changes over time that form the framework for understanding world history.