Open Yale Courses
HIST 202: European Civilization, 1648-1945
Mirrored from oyc.yale.edu · CC-BY-NC-SA-3.0 · John Merriman Charles Seymour Professor of History
Mirrored from: oyc.yale.edu · Yale University · History
Instructor: John Merriman Charles Seymour Professor of History · License: CC-BY-NC-SA-3.0
About this course
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.
Course details
Course Structure
This Yale College course, taught on campus twice per week for 50 minutes, was recorded for Open Yale Courses in Fall 2008.
Texts
Browning, Christopher. Ordinary Men . New York: Harper Perennial, 1998.
Merriman, John. A History of Modern Europe: From the Renaissance to the Present. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004.
Orwell, George. Homage to Catalonia . New York: Harvest Books, 1980.
Smith, Helmut. The Butcher's Tale . New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2003.
Winter, Jay. Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Zola, Emile. Germinal. London: Penguin Books, 2004.
Requirements
There will be weekly discussion sections, a midterm examination, several superb films, a final examination, and a short (6-8 pages), fun paper.
Grading
Grades will be determined by equally weighing the midterm, final and paper grades.
Syllabus
1 section · 24 lectures · links open at oyc.yale.edu.
Course sessions
- 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