HIST 215: Modern European History

Transcription

1 Prof. Brian Cowan Winter 2010 Lectures: MWF Office: Leacock 636 Room: Burnside Hall 1B45 HIST 215: Modern European History Office Hours: W 1-3pm European states and civilizations shaped the modern world. This course examines the rise and collapse of European world hegemony from the seventeenth century to the present day. Particular attention will be paid to the experience of modern revolutions, the development of inter-state rivalries and unions, and the role of Europeans in the modern experiences of genocide and total war. Instructor: Prof. Brian Cowan, Leacock 636: Please use WebCT for course questions TAs: Greg Bouchard, Rhonda Kronyk and James Wallace, ( via WebCT). You will be assigned a TA to correspond with your conference. TA office hours: TBA (see Minerva and WebCT); TA room: Leacock 632 History Student Association advisors can also be seen in Leacock 629 TEXTS: All of these books are required reading for the course. You may purchase them at the McGill bookstore or find them on reserve in the McLennan Library. Voltaire, Candide and Other Stories, Roger Pearson, ed., (Oxford, 1998). You may also choose to read Candide in the original French. Timothy Snyder, The Red Prince: The Secret Lives of a Habsburg Archduke, (New York, 2008). Coursepack: additional readings, mostly primary source materials. Some, but not all, readings (in bold in this outline) are available online through the library or on the internet. You can print them yourself, or read them electronically. John Merriman, A History of Modern Europe, Third Edition: From the Renaissance to the Present (New York, 2010). Recommended for background knowledge. W. K. Storey and T. Jones, Writing History: A Guide for Canadian Students, (Oxford, 2008). This book will answer most of your questions about how to write an historical essay. McGill University values academic integrity. Therefore all students must understand the meaning and consequences of cheating, plagiarism and other academic offences under the Code of Student Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures (see for more information). L'université McGill attache une haute importance à l'honnêteté académique. Il incombe par conséquent à tous les étudiants de comprendre ce que l'on entend par tricherie, plagiat et autres infractions académiques, ainsi que les conséquences que peuvent avoir de telles actions, selon le Code de conduite de l'étudiant et des procédures disciplinaires (pour de plus amples reseignements, veuillez consulter le site

2 2 CONFERENCES: You must sign up for a Friday conference on Minerva, where you will find information about the room and time of the conference meeting. There will be 8 conference sections meeting on nine selected Fridays at and Conference enrolment for each section is capped; if your first choice is full, you must enrol in a section which has open enrolment. EVALUATION SYSTEM 20% PARTICIPATION: Regular attendence at lectures, films and conferences is expected. Friday conferences will be assigned at the beginning of the term. You should be prepared to discuss the assigned readings during your conference time. One oral presentation will be assigned at the first conference meeting. 10% MAP QUIZ: In class, on Monday, 8 March. You will be tested on your knowledge of the historical geography of Europe, c % ESSAY 1: DUE in class on Friday, 12 February. 5 pages (double-spaced) or c words Use your readings from Voltaire, the Treatise of the Three Impostors, Kant, and/or Tocqueville as the basis for an essay which answers this question: Did Enlightenment thinking provoke the French Revolution? You may also refer to the other readings assigned as well as the course lectures. 20% ESSAY 2: DUE in class on Friday, 9 April. 5 pages (double-spaced) or c words. This essay should provide a critical review of Tim Snyder, The Red Prince. Use the book to answer this question: What impact, if any, did the Habsburg empire have on twentieth-century Europe? This paper will not be returned to students without a self-addressed stamped envelope for postage. 30% FINAL EXAM: [Date will be set by the Faculty of Arts: April] You will be asked to identify the historical significance of six key terms and to identify and discuss passages (gobbets) from six sources we have read. Final exams will not be returned to students without a self-addressed stamped envelope for postage. All written work should conform to the Chicago Manual of Style: Due dates for all course requirements are not negotiable. All coursework must be printed and submitted before the due date. No coursework may be submitted as a computer file or by . Late work or electronic submissions may be refused and marked as an F. Course information will be posted online via mycourses WebCT Vista. It is your responsibility to check this site regularly for important announcements. In accord with McGill University s Charter of Students Rights, students in this course have the right to submit in English or in French any written work that is to be graded. In the event of extraordinary circumstances beyond the instructor s or the university s control, the content and/or evaluation scheme in this course is subject to change.

3 3 1. The Old Regimes of Europe I [4-8 Jan.] M: Introduction to Modern Europe W: Western Christendom Divided: Protestants and Catholics F: The Other Europeans: Eastern Orthodoxy, Judaism and Islam -- Reading: Elliot, A Europe of Composite Monarchies (24 pp); Davies, The Islamic Strand in European History and The Jewish Strand in European History (35 pp) Context: Merriman, pp (30 pp.) 2. The Old Regimes of Europe II [11-15 Jan.] M: Malthus s World: European Demography ( ) W: Lords and Peasants: The Social Order of the Old Regimes F: European Polities: Old Regime Empires, Republics and Monarchies -- Reading: Darnton, Peasants Tell Tales (60 pp.); Campbell Orr, Dynasticism and the World of the Court (15 pp.) and Luebke, Participatory Politics (15 pp.) Context: Merriman, pp , (75 pp.) -- Sign up for conference assignments [you must be registered for a conference] 3. Wars of Dynastic Succession and the First European Revolutions [18-22 Jan.] M: The Revolutions of Northern Europe ( ) [Rhonda Kronyk] W: The Last Wars of Succession and the First World Wars ( ) [Marie- Hélène Côté] F: Conference 1 [sign up for presentations] -- Reading: Voltaire, Candide (100pp.) Context: Merriman, pp (45 pp.) 4. Enlightenment [25-29 Jan.] M: Ecrasez-l infâme: The Spirits of Enlightenment W: Civil Society and The Public Sphere [Greg Bouchard] F: Conference 2 -- Reading: Treatise of the Three Imposters, (20pp.); Kant, What is Enlightenment? (5 pp.); Jacob, The Enlightenment Critique of Christianity (18pp.); Habermas, The Public Sphere, (7 pp.); Cowan, Civilizing Society (40 pp.) Context: Merriman, pp (35 pp.) 5. Aux Armes, Etc.: Revolutionary Europe [1-5 Feb.] M: European Revolutions and Counter-Revolutions ( )

4 4 W: Nasty, Brutish and Short: Napoleon I and Europe ( ) F: Conference 3 -- Reading: Tocqueville, The Old Regime and the French Revolution (65pp) Context: Merriman, pp (80 pp.) 6. Liberalism [8-12 Feb.] M: General Course Review Session: How to Write a History Essay W: Liberalism and Nineteenth-Century Governmentality F: Conference 4: ESSAY 1 DUE IN CONFERENCE -- Reading: Bentham, Panopticon Papers (10 pp.); Evans, The Bailiff s Magic Rod (40 pp.) Context: Merriman, pp (40 pp.) 7. Socialism [15-19 Feb.] M: The Great Divergence: European Industrialisation and Proletarianization W: Karl Marx, Socialism and the Crisis of Liberalism F: Conference 5 -- Reading: Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto (30 pp) Context: Merriman, pp , , (130 pp.) 8. Study Week: No Classes [22-26 Feb.] 9. Nationalism & the Persistence of the Old Regimes [1-5 March] M: New Nationalisms and the Reconstruction of the Old Regimes ( ) W: The Persistence of the Old Regimes in Late Nineteenth-Century Europe F: Conference 6: -- Reading: Kafka, For a Small Literature (3pp.); Berlin, The Bent Twig (20 pp.) Context: Merriman, pp (130 pp.) 10. Modernism [8-12 March] M: MAP QUIZ: In class during lecture hour: Be sure to bring a pen or pencil W: Sex and Psyche in the Age of Freud [James Wallace] F: Conference 7 -- Reading: Freud, Dora (65 pp); Benjamin, Work of Art (16 pp) Context: Merriman, pp (40 pp.)

5 5 11. The Destruction of the Old Regimes [15-19 Mar.] M: The Great War and the Collapse of the Old Regimes ( ) W: Fascism, Communism and the Totalitarian Moment ( ) [Judith Szapor] F: From Pogram to Ethnic Cleansing: The Genocidal Impulse in Modernizing Europe -- Reading: Snyder, Holocaust: The Ignored Reality (8pp.) Context: Merriman, pp (185 pp.) 12. Total War [22-26 Mar.] M: Film -- Screening [ST BIO S3/3, ]: Sergei Eisenstein, dir., Battleship Potemkin, (1925), 74 min. W: Film -- Screening [ST BIO S3/3, ]: Leni Riefenstahl, dir., Triumph of the Will (1935), 110 min. F: Total War ( ) -- Reading: Mazower, Violence and the State in the Twentieth Century (20 pp.); begin reading Snyder, Red Prince -- Context: Merriman, pp (50 pp.) 13. Communist Europe and Its Collapse [29 Mar. 2 Apr.] M: Post-War and Cold War Europe ( ) W: The Last Modern Revolutions? The Fall of the Soviet Empire Th: Conference 8 -- Reading: Snyder, Red Prince -- Context: Merriman, pp (120 pp.) F: Good Friday, 2 Apr. [No Conference] 14. European Union & Euro-Scepticism [5-9 Apr.] M: Easter Monday, 5 Apr. [No Lecture] W: Making the European Union ( ) F: Conference 9: ESSAY 2 DUE IN CONFERENCE -- Reading: Habermas, Why Europe Needs A Constitution (20pp.); Judt, Postwar, chs , (100 pp.)

6 6 15. A Post-Modern Europe? [12-14 Apr.] M: Review for, and discussion of, the final exam W: Dead Gods: Post-Modernist Europe F: No Conference [Exam Period] -- Reading: Judt, From the House of the Dead (9pp.); Buruma, Final Cut (8pp); Shorto, No Babies? (13pp.) Context: Merriman, pp (20 pp.) FINAL EXAM: April 2010: Exact date to be set by the Faculty of Arts REFERENCE WORKS: You may find it helpful to refer to some standard and recent reference works on modern European history. Some of these readings are assigned readings. These are available through the McGill library system and must be accessed through a Virtual Private Network with a McGill ID. Blackwell Reference Online ( has several volumes of companions that are relevant to the content of this course. They include: A Companion to the Reformation World Edited by: R. Po-Chia Hsia A Companion to Eighteenth-Century Europe Edited by: Peter H. Wilson A Companion to Nineteenth-Century Europe Edited by: Stefan Berger A Companion to Europe Edited by: Gordon Martel A Companion to Europe since 1945 Edited by: Klaus Larres Also useful are the Cambridge Histories Online: ( This database includes series such as: the New Cambridge Modern History; the Cambridge Economic History of Europe; the Cambridge History of Christianity; the Cambridge History of Science; and the Cambridge Histories of Political Thought. Many volumes in the Short Oxford History of Europe, edited by Tim Blanning, cover the modern era.

7 7 FURTHER READINGS The required readings for this course provide only the first steps towards a satisfactory understanding of modern European history. There is no substitute for extensive and sustained reading on the topic if you ever hope to understand it properly. For further guidance, I recommend the following surveys. Norman Davies, Europe: A History, (Pimlico, 1997). A provocative, idiosyncratic study of European history. Theodore K. Rabb, Struggle for Stability in Early Modern Europe, (Oxford, 1976): A synthetic essay on some major themes in seventeenth-century European history. Tim Blanning, The Pursuit of Glory: Europe , (Penguin/Viking, 2007): Survey of European history from the age of Louis XIV to the fall of Napoleon I. Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere : An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgois Society, T. Burger, trans., (Cambridge, Mass., 1989). A massively important philosophical history of the modern age. Christopher Alan Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, : Global Connections and Comparisons, (Blackwell, 2004). World history in the age of European hegemony. Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution ; The Age of Capital: ; The Age of Empire: ; and The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, , (Vintage, several editions). A pioneering four volume attempt to write European history as world history in the long nineteenth and short twentieth centuries. Hannu Salmi, Nineteenth-Century Europe: A Cultural History, (Polity, 2008). Focuses on nationalism, industrialization, and artistic expression from a Finnish perspective. Arno Mayer, The Persistence of the Old Regime: Europe to the Great War, (Pantheon, 1981). A provocative neo-marxist account of nineteenth-century Europe. Peter Gay, Schnitzler s Century: The Making of Middle Class Culture , (Norton, 2001). Nineteenth-century Europe in neo-freudian perspective. Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe s Twentieth Century, (Random House, 1999). Attempts to synthesise the experiences of eastern and western Europe with fascism and communism. Bernard Wasserstein, Barbarism and Civilization: A History of Europe in Our Time, (Oxford, 2007). An ambitious survey of twentieth-century European history. Geert Mak, In Europe: Travels Through The Twentieth Century, (New York, 2007). European history as travelogue by a Dutch journalist; better than Frommer s. Tony Judt, PostWar: A History of Europe Since 1945, (Penguin, 2005). Excellent contemporary history.

8 8 HIST Modern European History Library Electronic Readings NOTE: McGill s library subscribes, at great cost, to many of the best and comprehensive databases of scholarly journals and reference sources available in electronic format. The following course readings can be accessed free of charge through the McGill library catalogue: In order to look up and access these articles, you must familiarize yourself with how to search and locate them. You will need to access the catalogue through a McGill IP address, either through a campus connection or a Virtual Public Network. Please consult a librarian if you need help. Some of these readings are freely available on the internet. Complete URLs have been provided, but you can probably locate them through a search engine. 1. J. H. Elliot, A Europe of Composite Monarchies Past & Present (1): Clarissa Campbell Orr, Dynasticism and the World of the Court, in A Companion to Eighteenth-Century Europe, Peter H. Wilson, ed., (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, Blackwell Reference Online). chunk_g David M. Luebke, Participatory Politics, in A Companion to Eighteenth- Century Europe, Peter H. Wilson, ed., (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, Blackwell Reference Online). chunk_g Imanuel Kant, What is Enlightenment? (1784) from 5. Margaret Jacob, The Enlightenment Critique of Christianity in The Cambridge History of Christianity, Volume 7, Enlightenment, Reawakening and Revolution , (Cambridge, 2006), ebook from Cambridge Histories online. 6. Jürgen Habermas, The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article (1964), New German Critique no. 3 (1974): Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), from Marx/Engels Selected Works, Volume One, Progress Publishers, Moscow, USSR, 1969, pp , checked and corrected against the English Edition of 1888, by Andy Blunden, 2004): 8. Isaiah Berlin, The Bent Twig: A Note on Nationalism Foreign Affairs, 51 (1972):

9 9 9. Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in an Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1935): From: Julian Scaff s translation; transcribed: by Andy Blunden 1998; proofed and corrected Feb. 2005: Timothy Snyder, Holocaust: The Ignored Reality, New York Review of Books 56:12 (16 July 2009): Mark Mazower, Violence and the State in the Twentieth Century American Historical Review 107 (2002): Jürgen Habermas, Why Europe Needs A Constitution New Left Review 11 (2001): Tony Judt, From The House of the Dead: On Modern European Memory New York Review of Books 52:15, (6 Oct. 2005): Ian Buruma, Final Cut, The New Yorker, 3 January 2006: Russell Shorto, No Babies? New York Times 29 June 2008:

10 10 HIST Modern European History Prof. Brian Cowan Coursepack Readings 1. Norman Davies, The Islamic Strand in European History and The Jewish Strand in European History, both in Europe East and West: A Collection of Essays on European History (London, 2006), c. 35pp. 2. Robert Darnton, Peasants Tell Tales: The Meaning of Mother Goose in The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History, (New York, 1984), 9-72, Treatise of the Three Imposters, (1719) in The Enlightenment: A Brief History with Documents, Margaret C. Jacob, ed., (Boston and New York, 2001), Brian Cowan, Civilizing Society, in The Social Life of Coffee: The Emergence of the British Coffeehouse, (New Haven, 2005), 79-88, Alexis de Tocqueville, The Old Regime and the Revolution, Alan Kahan, trans., (Chicago, 1998), books one and three, , Jeremy Bentham, Panopticon Papers, in University of Chicago Readings in Western Civilization, Volume 8: Nineteenth-Century Europe: Liberalism and its Critics, Jan Goldstein and John Boyer, eds., (Chicago, 1987), Richard J. Evans, The Bailiff s Magic Rod in Tales From the German Underworld, (New Haven, 1998), , Franz Kafka, For a Small Literature (diary entry for 25 December 1911) in Mark Anderson, ed., Reading Kafka: Prague, Politics and the Find de Siècle, (New York, 1989), Sigmund Freud, Dora in Peter Gay, The Freud Reader (New York, 1995), Tony Judt, The Old Europe and the New, in Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, (London, 2005),