Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

A survey of European history emphasizing the French Revolution, and Napoleonic Europe and first Industrial Revolution, liberalism and its opponents, agrarian conservatism, liberalism and conservatism, the Revolutions of 1848, the struggles for political unification, the second Industrial Revolution and the origins of the First World War. Breadth-Humanities.

COURSE DETAILS:

The Long Nineteenth Century in Europe

Historian Eric Hobsbawm defined Europe’s “long nineteenth century” as beginning with the French Revolution in 1789 and ending with the start of the First World War in 1914. This period features the rise and fall of Napoleon; the industrial revolutions; the birth of modern nationalism and the rise of the bourgeoisie as a social and political force; the unification of both Italy and Germany; the emergence of Britain as the unquestioned world power; the “liberal” revolutions of 1848; the growth of racism and antisemitism as political influences; the rise of socialism and its more violent sibling, communism; the competition for overseas colonies via imperialist conquest; the decline of several significant empires, including the Russian and Habsburg empires; the establishment of the alliance system; significant advances in medicine, technology, and urban planning; and the outbreak of a war unlike any that had been fought before on European soil.

This course offers a closer examination of these momentous events and seeks to answer the following questions: of all the major ideologies that emerged during this period, which proved to be the most enduring? What was the relationship between political, social, economic, and cultural change? How did the nineteenth century contribute to the formation of our contemporary world, in Europe and beyond?

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Materials

REQUIRED READING: