War and Revolution

Remember always to "refresh" this page upon each re-opening of it [16ja04]

War and Revolution:
Case Studies in the Origins of the Contemporary World

Professor Robert Berdahl
Professor Alan Kimball

Two historically paired phenomena, war and revolution, are together a central long-term historical force in the creation of the modern world. In some instances, revolution has led to war; in others, war has produced revolution. A series of case studies will examine the reciprocal relationship of war and revolution. We will study recurring themes in the context of war and revolution: how ideology and religion both give rise to conflicts that produce the modern state and how modern states have been challenged by revolts stemming from new ideologies; how militarism and the anticipation of war itself acts as a revolutionary force in society; how military defeat has often unleashed revolution; how mobilization for total war has produced a managerial revolution. The roots of the linkage of war and revolution lie in the Thirty Years War (1618-1648), with its religious conflict and subsequent creation of sovereign states. The course will carry forward the study of this linkage through the following three centuries into the “second thirty years war” (1914-1945) and beyond.

Table of Contents: The Syllabus day by day

EIGHT MAIN COURSE-RELATED EXERCISES AND BASIS OF GRADE

2016ja04 (MO): Introductory session at the top of the Academic Calendar [Exercises #1 & #2]

Key Concepts

2016ja05 (TU): Religious revolt [Exercise #3]

2016ja06 (WE): Ideology, revolution, and war | a. Enlightenment | b. USA Revolution

2016ja07 (TH): French Revolution and Napoleonic wars

2016ja10 (SU): World Wars, Militarism

2016ja11 (MO): Young Turks and War. [Exercise #4]

2016ja12 (TU): War and Genocide: World War One and the Armenian Genocide

2016ja13 (WE): WW1 and the Russian revolutions of 1917

2016ja14 (TH): German Revolution [Exercise #5]

2016ja14 (TH evening): Excursion to Yerevan, Armenia. [Exercise #6]

2016ja17 (SU): Chinese Revolution

2016ja18 (MO)-2016ja21 (TH): Student Reports| EG=

Russian Petrine transformation

Haiti

Napoleon III and the Paris Commune

Ireland early and late

Indonesia [hop to SAC]

India

Vietnam

Iran

Middle East [AfroAsia]

Algeria

Azerbaijan

Georgia

"Arab Spring" [EG=Egypt]

Mexico

Cuba

Ukraine

2016ja20 (WE): Exercise #7

2016ja21 (TH): Exercise #8

COURSE BIBLIOGRAPHY, coded and hypertext-linked with full bibliographical explications

EIGHT MAIN COURSE EXERCISES AND BASIS OF GRADE =

After a quick once-over study of this course syllabus [this webpage] and after discussion with Berdahl or Kimball, define a personal term-paper topic [ID] during the first week of class (by Thursday, ja07). See point 5 below for term-paper first-draft due-date. As you prepare your term paper, use primary sources as well as secondary sources. Consult this "model" or guide for the creation of a research report and follow the length suggestions there for a "précis or a short paper (1200 to 2500 words; 5-10 pages)".
Student presentations on daily topics and readings, defined and assigned as the term proceeds [ID]
Keep a Journal of your work, to be submitted to Berdahl or Kimball for first reading, Sunday of week two (ja10). Consult this webpage "How to Use the Journal" (throughout J-Term)
Fetch journal back and consult with professors Berdahl and Kimball at their office Monday of week two (ja11)
Draft of term paper, due at the time of excursion, Thursday of week two (ja14)
Class excursion: We plan a class excursion to Yerevan, Armenia, departing on Thursday evening (ja14) and returning late Saturday (ja16).
Final text of ca. 10-page term paper due Wednesday (ja20)
Journal final submission on Thursday (ja21)

TOPICS and ACADEMIC CALENDAR of CLASS SESSIONS

WEEK ONE =

*2016ja04 (MO): Introduction: Causal and consequential connections between war and revolution
[Exercises #1 & #2]

Required Reading

Additional Reading

*2016ja05 (TU): Religious revolt, war, and the war-time and revolutionary origins
of the modern state in the 16th & 17th centuries

Preliminary List of Key Concepts
We will work together through the term to build on and refine this list

Relationship of the past to the present in "the making of history" (NB! "long duration") [ID#1 (7paragraphs) | ID#2 ("historiography")]
War and revolution, differences and similarities [ID]
"Asymmetric warfare" [CF=Mearsheimer.TRAGEDY] and social/economic "disequilibrium" [CF=Halévy.WW1:4-7]
War and revolution as "primitive accumulation" [ID]
Imperialism [quickly traverse the long 18-hop LOOP on "Imperialism and Revolution", then ponder the meaning of "offensive neorealism" (ID) and world-system theory (ID) ]
"Political-Economy" [LOOP, with ID along the way]
Sovereignty in the "nation-state", international and domestic [ID origins]. "Nationalism" [ID "ism"] | LOOP on "chauvinism"]
Violence in the public sphere (military, police, self-defense, terror) | "Monopoly on violence" [ID#1 | ID#2 | EG#1 | EG#2]
Information in a widening public sphere: From official doctrinal monopoly on information in the public sphere to expansion of sources and access [EG#1=LOOP on early history of the university | EG#2 | EG#3=LOOP | EG#4 | EG#5 ]
Religion and violence; international and domestic peace [EG]
Modernization, secularism [LOOP on "secular"]
Civil Society [ID]
Oppression, abuse, hope, idea of progress and "rising expectations" [Brief statement of theory]
Subjects/citizens, lords & rulers/governors & office holders, representatives, egalitarianism, democracy
Freedom and security [ID contradiction], discipline, slavery [LOOP on "Slavery" up to 1859]

*2016ja06 (WE): Ideology, revolution, and war

a) Enlightenment

Required Reading

*:|John Locke, Two Treatises on Government [TXT]
*:|Adam Smith| F/SAC/1776/
*:|Marquis de Condorcet, On the Admission of Women to the Rights of Citizenship [E-TXT]
*:|-----------------------------, Outline of a Historical View of the Progress of the Human Mind, 10th Epoch [E-TXT]

Additional Reading

*:|>Palmer,R.R et. al., A History of the Modern World| chapter 7 (Scientific View) and chapter 8 (Enlightenment)| Photocopy|

b) American Revolutionary War and Revolutionary Constitution

Required Reading

Additional Reading

*:|>Palmer.AGE:185-282| Photocopy|
*:|>Wood,Gordon| “A Different Story of What Shaped America” [review of Sam Haselby, The Origins of American Religious Nationalism]| Photocopy|
*|>Blakely.R&A [E-TXT]
*:|>Kimball essay on the American Revolutionary "Federalist Papers" and their possible world-historical significance, especially for that last-gasp of political vitality in the history of the Soviet Union = Perestroika, 1985-1992 [TXT]

*2016ja07 (TH): French Revolution and Napoleonic wars

Required Reading

*:|>Aston.FREV:1-72; 145-167| Photocopy|

Additional Reading

*:|>Walzer.REGICIDE:1-89| Photocopy|
*:| SAC LOOP on war and French Revolution

WEEK TWO = WW1 and Revolution

*2016ja10 (SU): World Wars, Militarism and the transformation of state and society:
From 19th-century Germany to contemporary USA
Exercise #3 due

Required Reading

Additional Reading

*2016ja11 (MO): Young Turks, World War One, and
Revolution in the Ottoman Empire
Exercise #4 due

Required Reading

Additional Readings

*2016ja12 (TU): War and Genocide:
World War One and the Armenian Massacre

Required Reading

Additional Reading

*:|>Rogan.FALL: chapter 7| Photocopy|
*:|>Bartrop.GENOCIDE [E-TXT]
*:|>D&A:203-247|

*2016ja13 (WE): WW1 and its revolutions --
mobilization for "total war" [ID] | "managerial revolution" [ID] | total statism [ID]

WW1 and the Russian revolutions of 1917

Required Reading

Additional Reading

*--Movie: Elem Klimov, AGONIIA [Scenario TXT] [YouTube]
*:|>White.WW1c [E-TXT]
*:|>Camus,Albert Camus The Rebel [SAC]

*2016ja14 (TH): Germany: WW1 and Revolution
Exercise #5 due

Required Reading

Additional Reading

*--Movie: Leni Riefenstahl, TRIUMPH OF THE WILL [YouTube]

*2016ja14 (TH evening)-2016ja16 (SA evening): 2-day Excursion to Yerevan, Armenia

WEEK THREE = Post World War II Revolutions

*2016ja17 (SU): China and Anti-colonial, anti-imperialist struggle

Required Reading

*--SAC LOOP on "Comintern" for WW1 background to the Chinese Revolution
*:|>Snow.RED | Read only first three sections, then part 3, chapters 1 and 3 [03.1 and 03.2] = "Introduction by Dr John K Fairbank", "Preface to the Revised Edition", "125 Years of Chinese Revolution", "Soviet Strong Man" and "Basic Communist Policies"
*:|Lin Biao, “Build a People’s Army of a New Type” [E-TXT]
---------------, “Carry out the Strategy and Tactics of People’s War” [E-TXT]
*--Georgi Dimitrov and the Chinese Revolution [E-TXT]. Dimitrov was for years an important Comintern contact with Mao and Chinese revolutionary leaders, especially engaged in deliberations on the question of the relationship between the Communist-Party Revolutionary Army and the WW2 struggle in China with Japanese invaders. This reading combines primary documents with explanatory secondary texts

Additional Reading

*1949jy01: Mao Zedong on “The People’s Democratic Dictatorship”. Read roughly the first half through the paragraph that begins: “The people’s state protects the people….” (ca. 20 paragraphs) [E-TXT]

*2016ja18 (MO)-2016ja21 (TH): Some options and suggestions for =
(1) Student in-class Reports &
(2) Final Term Paper Topics

(1) In-class Reading reports, delivered from early in the term
through the session devoted to the Chinese Revolution
and concentrated on significant bibliographical assignments or suggestions:
Examples =

A key concept as reflected in one of our readings (for example, a key concept from our syllabus list [ID])
Religion and rebellion in the time of German Protestant rebellion
Religion and rebellion in the English Puritan Revolution
Burke.REFLECTIONS or other primary sources related to war and revolution through the term. Examples =
"What is the Third Estate?" |
Mournier (a topic for a French reader among us)
Many more listed in the daily syllabus of assigned or suggested readings

(2) Term Paper topics from (but not limited to) the following list
of revolutions not centrally featured in our syllabus =

*1600s early: Revolt of the Netherlands, 1568-1648

*--World History in Context [ E-TXT]
*--History Learning Site
*:|>Welling,George M. on late 18th-c Netherlands war & revolution, The United States Of America And The Netherlands [E-TXT excerpt]

*1688:1689; English Glorious Revolution

*--SAC/1687 and 1689, two entries in sequence
*--Wki

*1700:1725; Tsar Peter the Great, the Great Northern War and "revolution from above"

*--LOOP on "Petrine transformation (seven hops explore E.European examples of European "modernization", "revolution from on high" and the impact of international war on that process)

*1797:1804; Haiti in the Caribbean Sea| Anti-imperialist and anti-slavery revolt

*--SAC

*1830 and *1848: Two eras of significant European revolution without significant connection with war [EG#1 | EG#2]

NB! significant exceptions toward the end of the 1848 revolutionary period, after *1848je17

*1850s:Napoleon III: Revolution from above

*--SAC 1870jy

*1871: The Paris Commune

*--SAC 1871mr18+

Ireland in the 17th and again in the 19th century

*:|>Bartlett.IRELAND| chapters by >Olmeyer,Jane (re. 1603-1660) and *:|>Fitzpatrick,David (re. 1900-1922)
*--SAC LOOP on Ireland

India

SAC LOOP on "East India Company" and India]

Vietnam

SAC LOOP

Iranian Islamic Republic

SAC LOOP on "Khomeini"

"The Middle East" [SAC suggests term "AfroAsia" (ID) ]

Movie: THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS [YouTube]
*:|>Suny.TRANSCAUCASIA [re= Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia]
*:|>Ramadan.ISLAM [E-TXT]
*:|>Gelven.ARAB [E-TXT]
*--Egypt's economic woes since the "Arab Spring" [E-TXT]

Here is an excellent reading on additional examples of rural or peasant war and revolution in the 20th-century =
*:|>Wolf.PEASANT, re. Mexico and Cuba (among others). You might want to choose one of these chapters. Also consult this conversation with Wolf posted on the net [E-TXT | F/Institutions and networks/ there, and read down to footnote 10]

Does Ukraine in recent times fit any of the patterns of war and revolution that we have identified this J-Term? [SAC]

*2016ja18 (MO): Student Reports on individual Term Paper Topics | See just above

*2016ja19 (TU): Student Reports on individual Term Paper Topics

*2016ja20 (WE): Student Reports on individual Term Paper Topics|Exercise #7 due

*2016ja21 (TH): Student Reports on individual Term Paper Topics | Exercise #8 due | Last day of classes

COURSE BIBLIOGRAPHY (hypertext links to matrix bibliography with details) =

Primary Sources

Secondary Sources