History 7002 Fall 2019
Graduate Colloquium on Twentieth Century Europe
Wednesdays, 5:30-8:10 p.m. Instructor: Dr. Richard Byers Barnes Hall 311 [email protected] Tel: History Office, 867-2841 Office Hours: MW 10-11:30, W 9:30-12. 4-5 or by appointment
Overview Twentieth Century European history is a story of power struggles, violence and division. From empires, to nation-states, to federal unions, Europe’s many peoples struggled to achieve consensus and stability during a tumultuous and violent period of their history. This colloquium is designed to introduce MA in History students to both canonical and new readings in the scholarship of twentieth century European history.
Other Requirements Attendance – Attendance is mandatory. You are expected to attend every class session.
Assessment - (1) One 12-20 page paper on a historiographical topic related to twentieth century European history agreed upon between student and instructor, due by WEDNESDAY December 4, worth 20% of your final grade.
(2) Ten Weekly 2-page typed summaries, or precis of your individually-chosen reading for that week, due the week of class discussion for that work, each worth 5% of your final grade. These should include a full Turabian citation of the work, a summary of the author’s main arguments, types of evidence used, and an overall assessment or judgment concerning the work’s scholarly contribution to knowledge concerning twentieth century Europe. Precis should not exceed 500 words in length. These summaries will be distributed electronically to your colleagues in the class as a means of expanding their scholarly knowledge within this field.
For help with writing a precis, see the following sites: https://writingcenter.tamu.edu/Students/Writing-Speaking-Guides/Alphabetical-List-of- Guides/Academic-Writing/Precis https://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Precis
(3) Participation in weekly class discussions, worth 30% of your final grade.
All papers are expected to be typed, with no spelling or grammar errors, and all citations should be correct. For citation guidelines, see the standards outlined in Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses and Dissertations. For assistance in paper construction, see the section entitled “Writing Good History Papers” on the HAP Department website. This class will be demanding, and my standards and expectations are high. Policies (1) Students must obtain the required books from either library or other sources by classtime. (2) Late papers will incur a penalty of one letter grade for every day they are late. NO EXCEPTIONS OR EXCUSES 1 SCHEDULE OF CLASSES AND READINGS
Recommended General Readings/Texts to help with basic foundational knowledge: I strongly recommend you read several of these throughout the first few weeks of class. Norman Davies, Europe: A History Ian Kershaw, To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949 and The Global Age: Europe 1950-2017 Robert Paxton, Europe in the Twentieth Century Tony Judt, Postwar: Europe Since 1945 Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth Century Dagmar Herzog, Sexuality in Europe: A Twentieth Century History Lonnie Johnson, Central Europe: Enemies, Neighbors, Friends (2011 edition) and also read Professor Anna Cienciala’s excellent lecture notes from her HIS 557 course at Kansas University at http://web.ku.edu/~eceurope/hist557/index.htm.
First Class - Introduction and Welcome, Distribution of Reading Assignments
Week One - REQUIRED READING, Stephen Kern, The Culture of Time and Space, 1880-1918 Other Reading Choices for Week One - V.G.Kiernan, The Lords of Human Kind (1995 edition) - George Mosse, Toward the Final Solution: A History of European Racism - Rogers Brubaker, Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany - Robert Wohl, The Generation of 1914 - Norman Stone, Europe Transformed 1878-1919 (1999 edition)
Week Two - REQUIRED READING, John Morrow, The Great War: An Imperial History Other Reading Choices for Week Two - Roger Chickering, Imperial Germany and the Great War, 1914-1918 (2nd edition) - Leonard Smith, et. al., France and the Great War, 1914-1918 - Michael Reynolds, Shattering Empires: The Clash and Collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires, 1908-1918 - Jay Winter and Jean-Louis Robert, Capital Cities at War: Paris, London, Berlin 1914-1919 -Arthur Marwick, The Deluge: British Society and the First World War
Week Three - REQUIRED READING, Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution, 1917-1932 Other Reading Choices for Week Three - Norman Davies, White Eagle, Red Star: The Polish-Soviet War, 1919-1920 - Ivan Bunin, Cursed Days - Peter Kenez, The Birth of the Propaganda State: Soviet Methods of Mass Mobilization, 1917- 1929 - W. Bruce Lincoln, Red Victory: A History of the Russian Civil War - Victor Serge, Memoirs of a Revolutionary (2002 or newer edition)
2 Week Four - REQUIRED READING, Stephen Lee, European Dictatorships, 1918-1945 (3RD Edition) Other Reading Choices for Week Four - Zeev Sternhell, Neither Right nor Left: Fascist Ideology in France - Adrian Lyttelton, The Seizure of Power: Fascism in Italy 1919-1929 (2004 edition) - Richard Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich - Joseph Rothschild, East Central Europe Between the Wars (Ebook thru UNG Library) - Richard Overy, The Twilight Years: the Paradox of Britain Between the Wars
Week Five- REQUIRED READING, Susan Pedersen, Family, Dependence, and the Origins of the Welfare State: Britain and France, 1914-1945 Other Reading Choices for Week Five - Richard Overy, The Inter-War Crisis, 1919-1939 (2010 edition) - Sheila Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times - Patricia Clavin, The Great Depression in Europe, 1929-1939 - Antony Beevor, The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939 - Eugen Weber, The Hollow Years: France in the 1930s
Other Recommended Readings - Piers Brendon, The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s
Week Six - REQUIRED READING, Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin Other Reading Choices for Week Six - Anonymous, A Woman in Berlin - Janusz Bardach, Man is Wolf to Man - Richard Overy, The Bombers and the Bombed: Allied Air War over Europe, 1940-1945 - Götz Aly, Hitler’s Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State - Mark Mazower, Hitler’s Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe
Other Recommended Readings - Gregor De Rezzori, Memoirs of An Anti-Semite
Week Seven – REQUIRED READING – Keith Lowe, Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War Two Other Reading Choices for Week Seven - Istvan Deak, Europe on Trial: The Story of Collaboration, Resistance, and Retribution During World War II - R.M. Douglas, Orderly and Humane: The expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War - Anne Applebaum, Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-1956 - Andre Gerolymatos, Red Acropolis, Black Terror: The Greek Civil War and the Origins of Soviet- American Rivalry, 1943-1949 - Jan Gross, Fear: Antisemitism in Poland after Auschwitz
Other Recommended Readings - Norman Naimark, Fires of Hatred - Modris Eksteins, Walking Since Daybreak
3 Week Eight – REQUIRED READING, Michael J. Hogan, The Marshall Plan: America, Britain, and the Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1947-1952 Other Reading Choices for Week Eight - Richard Kuisel, Seducing the French: The Dilemma of Americanization - Reinhard Wagnleitner, Coca-Colonization and the Cold War - Alexander Stephan, Americanization and Anti-Americanism: the German encounter with American Culture after 1945 - Adrian Horn, Juke Box Britain: Americanization and Youth Culture, 1945-1960 - Scrivano, Paul, “Signs of Americanization in Italian Domestic Life.” Journal of Contemporary History 40 (2005): pp. 317-340, and David Forgacs, “Americanization: The Italian Case, 1938- 1954,” within P.H.Mellen and D.J. Roper (eds.), Americanization and the Transformation of World Cultures, pp. 81-96.
**LAST DAY TO WITHDRAW WITHOUT PENALTY FRIDAY October 11**
Week Nine - REQUIRED READING, Martin Thomas, Bob Moore, and L.J. Butler, Crises of Empire: Decolonization and Europe’s Imperial states, 1918-1975 Other Reading Choices for Week Ten - Anthony Clayton, The Wars of French Decolonization - David Anderson, Histories of the Hanged: the dirty war in Kenya and the end of empire - Alastair Horne, A Savage War of Peace: Algeria, 1954-1962 - Norrie Macqueen, The Decolonization of Portuguese Africa - R.F. Holland, Emergencies and Disorder in the European Empires After 1945
Other Recommended Readings - Martin Shipway, Decolonization and its impact: a comparative approach to the end of the colonial empires - Peter Hennessy, The Secret State: Whitehall and the Cold War - Anthony Gorst and Louis Johnman, The Suez Crisis
Week Ten - REQUIRED READING, Dagmar Herzog, Sex after Fascism: Memory and Morality in Twentieth Century Germany Other Reading Choices for Week Eleven - Gildea, James, and Warring (eds.), Europe’s 1968: Voices of Revolt - Martin Klimke and Jurgen Scharloth, 1968 in Europe: a History of Protest and Activism, 1956- 1977 - Mark Gilbert, Cold War Europe: the Politics of a Contested Continent - Kieran Williams, The Prague Spring and Its Aftermath: Czechoslovak Politics, 1968-1970 - Karrin Hanshew, Terror and Democracy in West Germany
4 Week Eleven – REQUIRED READING, Victor Sebestyen, Revolution 1989: the Fall of the Soviet Empire Other Reading Choices for Week Twelve - Timothy Garton Ash, 1989! - Gale Stokes, The Walls Came Tumbling Down: Collapse and Rebirth in Eastern Europe - Padraic Kenny, A Carnival of Revolution: Central Europe, 1989 - Peter Siani-Davies, The Romanian Revolution of December 1989 - Constantine Pleshakov, There is No Freedom without Bread
Week Twelve- REQUIRED READING, Svetlana Alexievich, Second-Hand Time: The Last of the Soviets, An Oral History Other Reading Choices for Week Thirteen - Slavenka Drakulic, A Guided Tour through the Museum of Communism - Witold Slablowski, Dancing Bears: True Stories of People Nostalgic for Life Under Tyranny - Marci Shore, The Taste of Ashes: The Afterlife of Totalitarianism in Eastern Europe - Maria Todorova, et. al., Post-Communist Nostalgia - Eric Langenbacher, et. al., Dynamics of Memory and Identity in Contemporary Europe
Week Thirteen –REQUIRED READING, Mark Gilbert, European Integration: A Concise History Other Reading Choices for Week Fourteen - Padraic Kenny, The Burdens of Freedom: Eastern Europe Since 1989 - Julius Friend, Unequal Partners: French-German Relations, 1989-2000 - Micheal Baun, An Imperfect Union: the Maastricht Treaty and the new politics of European Integration - Jeffrey Checkel et. al., European Identity - Robert Harmsen, et. al., Euroscepticism: party politics, national identity, and European Integration (Ebook thru UNG Library)
Week Fourteen - FALL BREAK – ENJOY!
Week Fifteen – Final Discussion/Open Forum on Europe’s Twentieth Century: An Enduring Era?
ALL PRECES AND FINAL PAPERS DUE BY LAST DAY OF CLASS WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 4
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