HIST 435/535: REVOLUTIONARY-NAPOLEONIC EUROPE
Prof. Ian F. McNeely – University of Oregon – Fall 2007
Meeting times: TR 10:00-11:20 in 260 CON
Email: imcneely@uoregon.edu
Phone: 541-346-4791
Office hours: T 9:00-10:00, R 2:00-3:00 in 319 MCK
Web: http://www.uoregon.edu/~imcneely
Course description
This course surveys the transition from the Old Regime to the Modern Age in Europe, 1789-1815. While the French Revolution and Napoleon’s rise and fall occupy center stage, we also devote considerable attention to Britain, Germany, Spain, and Russia as well as to Europe’s relation to the world as a whole.
Our focus throughout is on the culture of politics. Many of the practices of modern democracy, nationalism, imperialism, and authoritarianism took root in this epoch, as did the modes of resistance to these ideologies. Experiments in political culture during this era still provide many of the building blocks of political life today.
Through such experiments, the non-elite masses began, often for the first time, to participate in the electoral process, to learn in schoolrooms, to serve in mass armies, and to travel abroad or overseas. But as this course will argue, it was the restructuring of the European elite that made these changes possible.
Note: Students enrolled in HIST 535 are required to complete all the “extra” readings and turn in a substantially longer paper. Depending on enrollment and student interest, there may be additional readings and/or meetings with the instructor. The specific character of this supplementary work is negotiated at the beginning of the term.
Undergraduates are only expected to do the “extra” readings for the week their essays are due. Essays should explain how the extra readings deepen, extend, and complicate the lectures. A signup sheet will be circulated for these papers during the first week of class; choices should be regarded as binding.
At UO Bookstore
The Portable Edmund Burke, ed. Isaac Kramnick ($18)
R.R. Palmer, Twelve Who Ruled ($27)
Joseph de Maistre, Considerations on France ($25)
Germaine de Staël, Ten Years’ Exile ($13)
E-reserve
J.G. Fichte, Addresses to the German Nation (nos. 4, 8, and 9)
On reserve
Michael Walzer, Regicide and Revolution: Speeches at the Trial of Louis XVI
All the required readings, plus all the books for extra readings, are on two-hour reserve at Knight library. I’ve also placed this book there for your reference:
Owen Connelly, The French Revolution and Napoleonic Era
SCHEDULE
* = class session dedicated to discussion of readings
(9/25) Two revolutions: 1776 and 1789
(9/27) *Writing constitutions
(10/4) *The unwritten constitution
(10/9) From monarchy to republic in France, 1791-93
(10/11) *The trial of Louis XVI
(10/16) *Jacobins, virtue, and the Terror, 1793-94
(10/18) *War for the masses
(10/23) Ireland and British India, 1795-1805
(10/25) *Conservatism and Empire
(10/30) *Counter-revolution and violence
(11/1) Napoleon’s military career, 1795-1804
(11/6) German defeat and its aftermath, 1803-12
(11/8) *The birth of national education
(11/13) *Bonapartism vs. liberalism
(11/15) Napoleon’s political system, 1804-12
(11/20) The Continental System and the Peninsular War, 1806-13
(11/22) THANKSGIVING
(11/27) Guest presentation on Goya by Prof. Andrew Schulz
(11/29) *From Moscow to Waterloo, 1812-15
(12/7) FINAL EXAM (8:00-10:00)
ASSIGNMENT FOR WINTER VACATION: READ WAR AND PEACE