HIST 80020 Literature Survey in European History Wednesday 2:00-4:00 PM
Distinguished Professor Eric D. Weitz [email protected] office hours: Wednesday 4:00-5:30 PM and by appointment
Course Description HIST 80020 provides students with an introduction to the major themes and historiographical debates regarding modern European history. Geographically we will range from the Eurasian steppe and eastern Anatolia to the Atlantic Ocean. Topically we will also range widely, from diplomatic and international to gender and social history and everything in between. We will also study Europe in its global context. By the end of the semester students should have achieved a solid grasp of the literature on European history, which will provide the basis for their qualifying exams, teaching, and dissertations. Students will write a book review and a substantial historiographical paper on a topic of their choice. The course is open only to students in the Ph.D. Program in History.
Course Structure For every week I have selected two major works, some fairly old, others more recent. I don't expect you to read every word, especially when the books are quite long (as some are). One of the skills every historian has to learn is how to read for themes, arguments, and methods in particular works, as well as some of the factual detail. So that will be your main task throughout the course. In addition, for every week I want each of you to find two other important works on the topic, either books or journal articles. That way the class will build a collective bibliography on major themes in European history. Your selections should be posted on Blackboard by Monday 12:00 noon of the week of the class. Please be prepared to talk about your selections in class. If you wish to read more widely, in the selections your classmates have chosen, by all means go ahead, but there is no mandate to do so. Each week one of you will introduce the readings on the syllabus as well as your two selections. In no longer than fifteen minutes, you should lay out the major themes of the readings and the historiographical debates. Your comments should most certainly include your views on the topic and readings. The essential question you should be thinking about as you prepare your remarks is: "So what?" What meanings do the readings have for our understanding of the past?
Course Requirements Each week, please post on Blackboard comments and questions on the readings. These do not have to be long -- a short paragraph or two suffices. Questions, whether about factual events or historiography, are definitely appropriate. Please submit these posts by 12:00 noon on the day of class. A critical book review of any of the assigned or selected books is due on March 11th. A final historiographical paper on a topic of your choice is due at the end of the semester. Please consult with me on the topic. As you can see from the syllabus, I am asking you to submit along the way an initial bibliography for your paper and then a more developed and annotated bibliography.
Themes
1/29 History E. H. Carr, What Is History? (Vintage, 1961) Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt, and Margaret Jacob, Telling the Truth About History (Norton, 1994)
2/5 Enlightenment Jonathan Israel, A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Origins of Modern Democracy (Princeton University Press, 2010) Margaret Jacob, The Secular Enlightenment (Princeton University Press, 2019)
2/12 No class -- Lincoln's Birthday
2/19 French Revolution Lynn Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution (University of California Press, 1984) François Furet, Interpreting the French Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 1983)
2/26 Industrial Revolution Phyllis Deane, The First Industrial Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 1965) Jan de Vries, The Industrious Revolution: Consumer Behavior and the Household Economy 1650-Present (Cambridge University Press, 2008). Final Paper topic and initial bibliography due
3/4 Social Protest E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (V. Gollancz, 1963) Barbara Taylor, Eve and the New Jerusalem: Socialism and Feminism in the Nineteenth Century (Pantheon, 1983)
3/11 Europe and the World C.A. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 1780-1914: Global Connections and Comparisons (Blackwell, 2004) Jürgen Osterhammel, The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century (Princeton University Press, 2014) Book review due
3/18 Formations of the Nation-State John Breuilly, Nationalism and the State (Manchester University Press, 1982) John Connelly, From Peoples into Nations: A History of Eastern Europe (Princeton University Press, 2020)
3/25 Imperialism and Colonialism Anne McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Conquest (Routledge, 1995) Stig Förster, Wolfgang J. Mommsen, and Ronald Robinson, eds., Bismarck, Europe, and Africa: The Berlin Africa Conference 1884-1885 and the Onset of Partition (Oxford University Press, 1988) OR Ronald Robinson and John Gallagher with Alice Denny, Africa and the Victorians: The Climax of Imperialism in the Dark Continent (St. Martin's Press, 1961)
4/1 World War I Christopher Clark, The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 (Allen Lane, 2014) Jörn Leonhard, Pandora's Box: A History of the First World War (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2018)
4/7 (Tuesday) The Paris Peace Settlement Manfred F. Boemeke, Gerald D. Feldman, and Elisabeth Glaser, eds., The Treaty of Versailles: A Reassessment after 75 Years (Cambridge University Press, 1998) Eric D. Weitz, “From the Vienna to the Paris System: International Politics and the Entangled Histories of Human Rights, Forced Deportations, and Civilizing Missions,” American Historical Review 113:5 (2008): 1313-43
4/8-4/16 Spring break
4/22 Bolshevism and Stalinism Richard Pipes, The Russian Revolution (Knopf, 1990) Yuri Slezkine, The House of Government: A Saga of the Russian Revolution (Princeton University Press, 2017) Thesis statement and annotated bibliography due
4/29 Fascism Victoria De Grazia, How Fascism Ruled Women: Italy, 1922-1945 (University of California Press, 1992). Robert Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism (Knopf, 2004)
5/6 Nazi Germany and the Holocaust Ian Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015) Note: Please use this edition, the most recent one Christopher R. Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (HarperCollins, 1992)
5/13 Postwar Hanna Schissler, ed., The Miracle Years: A Cultural History of West Germany, 1949-1968 (Princeton University Press, 2001) Konrad Jarausch, Out of Ashes: A New History of Europe in the Twentieth Century (Princeton University Press, 2015)
5/20 Final papers due as Word documents and email attachments by 12:00 noon.