This course offers a broad survey of modern European history, from the end of the Thirty Years' War to the aftermath of World War II. Along with the consideration of major events and figures such as the French Revolution and Napoleon, attention will be paid to the experience of ordinary people in times of upheaval and transition. The period will thus be viewed neither in terms of historical inevitability nor as a procession of great men, but rather through the lens of the complex interrelations between demographic change, political revolution, and cultural development. Textbook accounts will be accompanied by the study of exemplary works of art, literature, and cinema.
Introduction
Absolutism and the State
Dutch and British Exceptionalism
Peter the Great
The Enlightenment and the Public Sphere
Maximilien Robespierre and the French Revolution
Napoleon
Industrial Revolutions
Middle Classes
Popular Protest
Why no Revolution in 1848 in Britain
Nineteenth-Century Cities
Nationalism
Radicals
Imperialists and Boy Scouts
The Coming of the Great War
War in the Trenches
Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning (Guest Lecture by Jay Winters)
The Romanovs and the Russian Revolution
Successor States of Eastern Europe
Stalinism
Fascists
Collaboration and Resistance in World War II
The Collapse of Communism and Global Challenges