Europe and the Wider World,
from the Napoleonic Era [ID] to the "War on Terror" [ID],
1800-2000

 

HST 103: WESTERN CIVILIZATION = 19TH & 20TH CENTURIES
Professor Alan Kimball <kimball@uoregon.edu> (M&W 12:00-1:30 in McKenzie 367)

Section Instructors <email addresses> (office hours) | Discussion Section times (CRNs) =
Beth Crawford <ecrawfor@uoregon.edu> (M&W 3:30-4:30 in McK 340H) |               Sections = 12:00 (32330) &  3:00 (32336)
Michael Furtado <mfurtado@uoregon.edu> (M&W 3:30-4:30; T 4-5 in McK 340Q)  | Sections =  2:00 (32333) &  3:00 (32335)
Austin Kaiser <akaiser@uoregon.edu> (M&W 1-2, U 12-1 in McK 340S)  |                Sections =  1:00 (32332) &  2:00 (32334)
David Orique <dorique@uoregon.edu> (M&W 3:30-5:00 in McK 340S)     |                 Sections = 12:00 (32329) &  1:00 (32331)

Here is a basic calendar of the term's work:

!! ap23: In class ---------- FIRST SUBMISSION OF JOURNAL (more about journal just below)
!! my07: In class ---------- MIDTERM EXAM IN JOURNAL, WITH READING NOTES & DRAFT ESSAYS #1 & #2
!! je12 at 3:15: In class -- FINAL EXAM IN JOURNAL, WITH READING NOTES & DRAFT ESSAYS #3 &#4

Exercise 1 =  Purchase two things in the UO Bookstore = (1) the course textbook, "The West in the World", and (2) a blue canvas lab book (9x7 inches; Stock # 43-571, JUST EXACTLY THIS ONE. The first thing I want you to do with your lab book (let’s call it the journal) is paste a white label securely to the outer upper right-hand corner of the front cover (a mailing label will do). Boldly inscribe your name there. Please leave the inside cover & the first 5-6 pages blank for keeping your own table of contents, a comprehensive, numbered list of materials consulted and course exercises completed, best simply in the order in which you do the work. It is your responsibility to guide the reader to each part of the journal. Leave the final two pages of the lab book blank for instructor's comments & grading. Separate from the journal, keep another notebook for lecture, course handouts, etc. The journal is where you keep a record of YOUR WORK, and the notebook is where you keep a record of LECTURES, DISCUSSIONS AND PHOTOCOPIED TEXTS.

Exercise 2 =  Locate this course on the following webpage [© Alan Kimball]:

    http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~kimball/courses.htm

These first two and ten further exercises are listed and explained on the course website.

ABOUT GRADES = You will be graded on lecture and discussion section attendance, participation (especially discussions, quizzes and other exercises in sections) through the whole term [about 40% of grade], reading notes in journal [10%] (plus draft essays #1 & #2 and midterm [20%], then draft essays #3 & #4 and final exam [30%]. Grades depend more on what you have learned than on what you haven't. Show your best work in everything you do. Also know that improvement will weigh heavily in final grade decisions.

Essays & exams are due at the time the class meets on the days specified. Late exercises are penalized one grade. Exercises AWOL 24 hours after due date are given a failing grade. Failure to complete any one of the essays or exams will result in a failing grade for the course. Unpenalized postponement of an exercise is possible only when documented illness or happenstance forces delay, or when arranged in writing beforehand. If you attend class regularly, keep good lecture notes, devote nine hours of your outside-of-class study-week to your reading & writing, & keep a good record in your journal, you may be sure that you are meeting course expectations.

 

A brief description of the course

This is a course in focused world history. And it is our history, here and now. I should explain "focused" and "here and now". The course is "focused" because it does not attempt to treat every significant episode in the whole of global history over the past two centuries. Yet it is still "world history" because it treats a large inventory of decisive global issues that have been caused by, or reflected within, that vague and vasty history of what is called "Western Civ". Usually university history courses are about the experience of "nation-states", that is, nameable sovereign geo-political units like Germany, Russia, Japan and USA. "Western Civ" is different, it's about more than one -- it's about more than several -- nation-states, more than Europe and/or North America. As a visiting research scholar at the Japanese National Slavic Research Center, I frequently heard Japanese professionals refer to their nation and contemporary culture as a part of "the West". At the same time, oddly, no one describes the influence of the English scientist Newton on the philosopher Voltaire [ID] as an example of "Westernization" of a French thinker. No one calls the ultra-fundamental influence of Christianity on Europe as "Easternization". We're dealing with a slippery, maybe even tricky, possibly deceptive notion here.

"Civ" is college-talk for "civilization", and that always implies something far beyond the border-bound nation-state. In this case the adjective is "Western". Borrowed from the compass, "the West", "Western", etc., are always capitalized, as if to grant ersatz substance to this obscure adjective. We see the obscure proper noun "West" and all of its derivatives used time and again in our print and electronic media. It's us, but it's also others. Beethoven represents "Western" music, but so do the Beatles when they played with Ravi Shankar. The USA Marshall Plan [ID] and the American general, then president, Eisenhower [ID], represent "Western" policy, but we are reluctant to grant that to the German dictator Hitler or French students on the streets of Paris [ID] in 1968. Is Chinese Marxism "Western"? Urban modernization and technological innovation are "Western", but are the English-inspired Opium Wars in China "Western"? It's global, but what is it? Let's find out together this term.

But there's more. The past two centuries in the history of "Western Civ" are our time. It might be silly to say that Napoleon [ID] is our "contemporary" (with us or among us right now). But we can call him a "modern" person, a representative phenomenon of the modern world. He invaded and occupied Egypt, in part to bring the glories of French Revolutionary, egalitarian/democratic progress to these supposedly "backward" Islamic folk. His armies later perished on the Eurasian steppes after he invaded Russia [ID]. He sold the whole mid-section of North America to the New World nation-state USA [ID]. Lewis and Clark explored this vast domain. Deerskin clothes and moccasins rotted off their bodies as they wintered over near the mouth of the Columbia River. You see here that the main events and trends of "Western Civ" since Napoleon's time lead right up to our own door steps, even here in Oregon, a distant periphery to the world's great metropols, and perhaps the authentic "West".

Here are some leading events and trends of the past two centuries = Industrial modernization threatened thorough eradication of traditional rural ways [EG#1] [EG#2]. Monarchical authority, and the whole body of aged social conventions (privileges and exemptions by birth, the rule of aristocracies and priesthoods) were widely replaced by representative governmental forms, but with uneven success [EG]. As powerfully centralized modern states came on the scene, even these had to pretend to be democratic [EG]. Mega-centers called "cities" erupted across the world's countryside. Modern industrialized economies, administrations, armies and authorities projected themselves over the face of the whole globe ("Imperialism") [EG]. Many sensed that Europe was brutalizing itself as well as its far flung victims [EG]. These same powers were projected inwards in two great and catastrophic wars, WW1 [ID] and WW2 [ID]. Totalitarian state authority came to near perfection under conditions of modern industrial technologies of control and managerial authoritarianism [EG]. Liberal innovations of the US and French Revolutions, so dominant in the 19th century, came under withering assault from extreme rightist and extreme leftist trends of the 20th century [EG]. Even before the attack from extreme flanks, the failure of liberal "Western" regimes to meet the needs of a wholly new social formation, wage-labor [EG], gave rise to social democracy and welfare statism. The Enlightenment posed a shocking challenge to ancient theological and mythological ways of thinking, then came the rise of science [EG] and the power of empiricism [ID] and rationalism [ID]. Intellectual counter attacks were quick to arise in romantic and irrationalist movements [ID#1] [ID#2], along with fundamentalist religious revivals [EG]. "Western Civ" seemed to turn against itself, aided and abetted by resilient non-European spiritual trends. Then, in the 20th century, science seemed to pull the rug out from under dominant "positivist" ways of looking at the world [EG]. Positivism [ID] lost scientific confidence in itself.

 

ACADEMIC CALENDAR

First Week
DIMENSIONS OF "Western Civ"

General Readings =
Throughout the term, readings should be completed by Tuesday morning of the week indicated,
so take up each week's reading on Wednesday of the preceding week and complete it before your Discussion Section meets =
For example, General Readings for the 2nd Week [ID] should be started this Wednesday and completed by next Tuesday
Between now and Wednesday, to get started, give 2-3 hours to the following =
S&SW from xxxviii (Roman numeral for 38) to p.501, "Global Context" (ca. 5 pp. in all)
If you have not studied the French Revolution or the era of Napoleon, skim in 30 minutes S&SW,ch.16
(S&SW = our code for the textbook, Dennis Sherman and Joyce Salisbury, The West in the World)
Take this opportunity to become familiar with the general structure of the book =
 its narrative text, its maps, its primary documents, and its illustrations, from intro through index

Exercises =
Complete course exercise one, exercise two and exercise three

Discussion Sections =
Introduction to discussion sections and course as whole
Discuss exercise two, concentrating on "Ways of Seeing History"
Discuss how to understand and use the Student's Annotated Chronology and Systematic Bibliography
Website syllabus will hereafter list multiple readings which
individual discussion sections will tailor to their own needs

Lectures =

What is meant by "Western" and what is meant by "Civ",
as seen in the three biggest dimensions of history =

1. Our own historical point of view =

a. Meaning of "history" [TXT] &
b. Varieties of historical experience in recent centuries [ID]
c. "Dozen categories" of human groups [ID]
d. Perceived Interests [ID]
c. The notion of "Civil Society" [ID]

2. Time (chronology)

Take a look at this fabulous "World Clock"

3. Space (geography of imperialist and industrial power)

Consider this map of global projection of European power after 1492

Compare it with the S&SW northern hemispheric projection of Cold War geography =
S&SW map.25.3 (northern hemisphere projection of Cold War)

Here is a northern-hemispheric projection of ice and snow coverage [MAP]

Current geographic dimensions of "Europe" as "The West" =
S&SW map.26.5 (European Union)
S&SW map.26.2 (USSR dissolved)


EXERCISE 1 =

Purchase two things in the UO Bookstore =

(1) the course textbook -- Dennis Sherman and Joyce Salisbury, The West in the World -- and

(2) a blue canvas lab book (9x7 inches; Stock # 43-571, JUST EXACTLY THIS ONE. The first thing I want you to do with your lab book (let’s call it the journal) is paste a white label securely to the outer upper right-hand corner of the front cover (a mailing label will do). Boldly inscribe your name there. Please leave the inside cover & the first 5-6 pages blank for keeping your own table of contents, a comprehensive, numbered list of readings, website materials, and course exercises completed. It is best to make table-of-contents entries simply in the order in which you do the work. It is your responsibility to guide the reader to each part of the journal. Leave the final two pages of the lab book blank for instructor's comments and grading.

Here is a suggestive page on reading in an academic setting. Readings are found in the textbook (ID just above), in the course website [ID] and, occasionally, in the library [ID]. Consult with me or your Discussion Section Instructor if you have questions about the journal, but also cultivate your own instincts about what will best present a record of your reading and help you most when you write your four draft essays [ID] and take your midterm exam [ID] and final exam [ID]. ALL THESE EXERCISES WILL BE COMPLETED IN YOUR JOURNAL. Cultivate your own instincts, and then trust them.

In the journal you will keep notes on all of your reading or viewing (if an appropriate historical movie). Here is a page of suggestions about how to use the journal.

Separate from the journal, keep another notebook for lecture, course handouts, etc.

The journal is where you keep a record of YOUR WORK, and the notebook is where you keep a record of THE WORK OF OTHERS (lectures, photocopies and printouts of readings).

Here is a specific example of that distinction = A hand-drawn map or personal notes and labels written by you on a blank "outline map" would be your work, and appropriate for the journal. A photocopy of a pre-labeled map would be the work of others, appropriate for filing with your lecture notebook or elsewhere.

 

EXERCISE 2 =

The course website.  In the first days of the term, read through descriptions of all 12 exercises here, including hyperlinks ["hops"] to auxiliary explanatory pages.

Elementary website techniques may be known to you, but, if not,
you need here at the beginning to become familiar with the following two =

This second exercise helps you get a feel for the larger shape of course requirements. It seems a lot when considered all together, but remember the old proverb = "inch by inch, life's a cinch; mile by mile, life's a trial".

Read "Ways of Seeing History" (which links to three "sub-essays" = "Taxonomy", "Interests", and "Dozen Categories").  This is a "philosophical" discussion of the technical peculiarities involved in this course.

Most of the technical peculiarities you will meet in this course are connected with what I call the

Student's Annotated Chronology and Systematic Bibliography [SAC] © Alan Kimball. 

Follow this hypertext link and read the explanation of how to use SAC =

 Student's Annotated Chronology and Systematic Bibliography

You may print any part of the electronic material I provide this class & place it in your lecture notebook. Do not put in your journal photocopied or printed text out of SAC or any other printed or web source. Your own notes on  internet and library materials, however, should by all means be in your journal.

Class attendance is essential for the successful completion of this course. The course does not "happen" on the internet or even in the library. It happens when you bring the internet and library materials into contact with lectures and, most of all, your discussion section. These materials allow you to expand and refine that most important historical arena = Your own mind.

A note on the use of laptop computers during lectures (your little portable spellers) = You may want to follow lectures and even to take notes on lectures with your laptop. Fine, by all means, do so. But use of laptops during lectures must be confined to the front rows of the auditorium. If you plan to use a laptop during lectures, please find your way to the front desks. Those not using laptops might have to find desks a couple of rows back from the front. Nothing seriously wrong about being a back-bencher, but I would like to encourage everyone to find seats as near the front as possible, all this in the interest of what family journalists called "togetherness" in the US 1950s.

 

EXERCISE 3 =

You may then hop directly to the time period of our course.

We deal with the 19th and 20th centuries. "The historian's nineteenth century" runs from the Napoleonic era of the French Revolution (1799:+), and the peace settlements that followed (1814:1815), up to the outbreak of World War One (1914). That was a long and productive century. "The historian's twentieth century" runs from the outbreak of WW1 up to the collapse of the Soviet Union (1992). This was a short and remarkably destructive century, and some are inclined to extend it to that moment universally called "Nine-eleven". Notice the underlining and color-coding of opening date (terminus a quo) and final date (terminus ad quem) above. These provide hypertext link to SAC entries. These dates represent something like event bookends for our two-century "Western Civ" adventure.

Seven SAC pages cover our period:

Check them out. Give no more than an hour to this initial, overarching chronological introduction. At first concentrate on the yellow-highlighted entries at the top of each of the following SAC pages in order to establish a general sense of chronology, the main periods or peak events in the epoch covered on that page =

SAC 1796 to 1854
SAC 1855 to 1903
SAC 1904 to 1917
SAC 1917 to 1920
SAC 1921 to 1945
SAC 1946 to 1982
SAC 1982 to "now"

As we get ourselves launched, the course CALENDAR will provide weekly guides to SAC, along with other readings.

 

Second Week
Industrial Revolutions (first and second)

General Readings =
S&SW,ch.17
S&SW,ch.21 to p.657 (to the section on "Science...")

Exercises =
Complete exercise four and exercise five

 

Discussion Sections =
Individual reading and discussion plans
will be decided by each Discussion Leader
selected from the following =

When you read S&SW:sct.17, for example,  it means the textbook section with primary documents embedded in chapter 17
sct.17.1 = Ure
sct.17.2 = factory discipline [SAC. Here is a reminder of the definition of SAC entry]
sct.17.3 = workers' living conditions
sct.19.3 = Russian serf reaction to emancipation (p.612) [SAC]
sct.21.1 = John Stuart Mill on women [SAC]
sct.21.3 = household conditions

*--SAC readings =
Adam Smith [hop to the SAC entry]. You could browse Wealth...)
Three contemporary views on the life of wage laborers (I suggest they might best be read in reverse order) [TXT]
Friedrich List [SAC] and "central thesis" of his National System... [TXT]
Samuel Smiles [SAC], chapter two of Self Help... [TXT]
Max Weber [SAC] and ch. 5 of Protestant Ethic... [TXT]
Hippolyte Taine travel account of visit to industrial London [TXT]
Ammeline Pankhurst [SAC]. Take 4-5 hops on the LOOP devoted to women [LOOP defined]. How does feminism relate to industrial modernization?
Virginia Woolf [SAC] and her most famous essay, Room...,  chapter 2 [TXT] or chapter 6 [TXT]
Simone de Beauvoir [SAC] and Introduction and section on "Master-Slave" in her Second... [TXT]

 

Lectures =
Industrial Modernization

 

EXCERCISE 4 =

Tour UO collections.

Make yourself familiar with the location and main function of these five locations =

(1) KNIGHT LIBRARY reserve book room [RBR]
Access any course reserve book room list.
You might want to print the list for this course, sorted BY AUTHOR.
Films (movies) of use to the historian, and housed in RBR

Let me introduce you to ten good anthologies of primary documents, frequently cited in SAC and useful auxiliary readings in Discussion Sections and sources for draft essays  =
BNE = SAC [EG]
CCS = SAC [EG]
CWC = SAC [EG]
DPH = SAC [EG]
Eye = SAC [EG]
P20 = SAC [EG]
PWT2 = SAC [EG]
RWP = SAC [EG]
SPE1
SWH

(2) THE UO MAP LIBRARY or MAP ROOM [MAP]
Website

Here you will find several globes. Look at the Ural mountains at the border between European Russia and Siberia (a part of Russia for nearly 300 years). Locate the north-south tending Ural Mts. That is the altogether artificial line dividing Europe from Asia. Lift the globe and position the southwestern Siberian city Novosibirsk in the center of your field of vision. Notice how much of the world land mass is located in the hemisphere before your eyes. Check the exact opposite hemisphere.

Using your fingers as a compass stretching over the oval surface of your globe, measure some of the following distances appropriate to the course:

1. The train trip which became possible after 1903 when the Trans-Siberian Railroad was completed, from Vladivostok (just across the Sea of Japan from the Japanese main island) to Brest-Litovsk (on the current border with Poland), and then across northern Europe to a sea-crossing over to England. Use your thumb and little finger to create a compass. Transpose these distances with one finger on Eugene OR and the other in an easterly direction, then in a westerly direction. Where does the second finger of your bio-compass touch?

2.  Trace the 1942-1945 campaign of the Soviet Red Army against the Nazi Wehrmacht, from Stalingrad [Volgograd] on the lower Volga River to the Elbe River in Germany. Use your bio-compass to compare that eastern front stretch to the distance on the western Allied front, from the Atlantic beachhead at Normandy, France, to the same Elbe River

3. Do the same for the distances among and between these European cities: (1) Moscow, (2) Berlin, (3) Paris, and (4) London

 

(3) KNIGHT REFERENCE DIVISION [REF]
The range of European and world historical reference =

REF D11 ....| Chronologies of world history
with excellent indexes, especially the following=

Chronology of the Modern World, 1763-1992
Chronology of World History 4 vols

REF D21 ....| Encyclopedias of world history

REF D419... to D1051....| Encyclopedias and dictionaries of 20th-c. Europe
REF D510... = about World War One
REF D740... = about World War Two
Encyclopedia of the Holocaust (4v)
Dictionary of European History and Politics since 1945
Dictionary of Literary Biography, v.242, on "Twentieth-c. European cultural theorists"

What about Wikipedia?

The internet encyclopedia Wikipedia is a handy reference work always available when you are working "on-line". Here, as everywhere, but especially here, be cautious about what you find. Never cite Wikipedia in your journal, on any topic, without comparing the Wikipedia account with the textbook and/or SAC.

 

(4) KNIGHT stacks

Take five-ten minutes to browse a Knight Library shelf range that contains publications relating to the history of one large territorial nation-state pertinent to our course and of special interest to you (cf. exercise 7). I do want you to get a visual sense of just how big our topic is, as seen in our fine but not really huge library. But you need not be overwhelmed. In fact, I would like to help you relax a bit about this miniature, five-ten minute physical imitation of "research". If you had to ponder these shelves at length, searching here and in the library catalogue for titles that might help you as a researcher (perhaps later for a seminar paper or senior thesis, etc.), you could do it.

If you were to take the next step as historian, after taking courses like ours and completing your BA or BS degree, you would need reading fluency in English and two to four foreign languages, one of them at the highest possible level of competence. Serious or advanced "making" of modern European history [ID] is not possible without knowledge of at least four languages = English, French, German and Russian.

Here are some "national" ranges =

DA... (England and peoples of the British Isles)
DB... (Austria)
DC... (France)
DD... (Germany)
DH... and DJ... (Lowlands=Belgium, Netherlands)
DK... (Russia)
DL... (Scandinavia=Norway, Sweden, Finland)
DP... (Spain)
DQ... (Switzerland)
DR... (Balkans:Serbia,Croatia, Bulgaria, etc.)
DS... (Asia--Central..., Near East)
DT... (Africa)
DU... (Austria and Pacific islands)
DX... (Romani [Gypsies])

 

Final Obligatory Library-Tour Exercise =
(5) Lawrence Hall Architecture and Allied Arts Library

Browse the ranges ND190... through ND196.... Concentrate on ND195... and ND196.... Select a beautiful and informative book on the shelves within this range, a book which suggests to you something about the relationship between the arts and the broader European historical experience in the 20th century. Look it over for an hour and note your impressions.

 

[6] Optional trip to the Law Library [ID]

Why not also go to the UO Law Library? You could find the anthology Readings in World Politics (either the first edition of the second edition) and read the 1932 exchange of letters between the great physicist Albert Einstein and the founder of modern psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, on the reasons for war [SAC]

 

[7] Optional trip to the Honors College Library [ID]

Two anthologies of translated primary documents on modern history are found in the HC Library =

P20 = Perry, et al., Sources of Twentieth-Century Europe
PWT2 = Perry, et al., Sources of the Western Tradition (2nd ed.)

Both of these publications have a good selection of brief primary documents relating to the public reaction to the outbreak of WW1 [SAC] and, ten years later, the rise of Fascism and the German Nazi Party [SAC]

 

EXERCISE 5 =

Draft essay #1.

Read this page with suggestions about how to write short draft essays in the journal [TXT], especially the final three parts of that page [TXT]

Here is my suggestion about draft essay #1 = Select your topic from among the topics dealt with in your Discussion Section meetings in the first five weeks, up to midterm exam. Let weekly Discussion Section meetings, lecture topics, textbook index, SAC [ID], and other course materials guide your choice. Talk it up with your Discussion Section Instructor, with fellow students, and with me. Discussion Section Instructors may wish to define this draft essay in very different ways, better to fit the particular emphasis within the discussion section.

Here is my recommendation for the titles of draft essays #1 = "The Historical Meaning and Significance of [fill in name of the primary document(s) of your choice]".  But be sure to coordinate your choice with what your particular Discussion Section is doing.

In other words, discuss how your specific document(s) illuminate some of the general trends of the history we are studying, as you find these trends described in the textbook, SAC. lectures and Discussion Section.

Avoid duplication of effort as you make choices of topics in any of the several exercises. Putting that in a positive way, you want to show breadth of learning. Before you make final decisions, give some preliminary thought to what you might decide to do in draft essay #2 [ID] and the final two draft essays, #3 and #4 [ID]

Make sure your journal table of contents clearly guides you and your reader to these and other sections of your journal.

As you navigate SAC and other websites, you might want to remind yourself about some of the tricks associated with the FIND function.

 

 

 

Third Week
Birth of Modern Politics

General Readings =
 S&SW,ch.18
S&SW,ch.19 (to p.603 "The Fight for National Unity")
S&SW,ch.20 (to p.626 ""Emigration)

Exercises =
Exercise 6 is due next week
You should be started, but by no means very far into, exercise 7 and exercise 8

Discussion Sections =

S&SW, sct.18.1 = de Maistre [SAC] Conservative or reactionary?
S&SW, sct.18.2 = 1848 decree [SAC] Liberal or radical?
S&SW, sct.18.3 = Carl Schurz [SAC] Radical or liberal?
S&SW, sct.19.1 = Garibaldi [SAC] Liberal or nationalist?
S&SW, sct.19.2 = Bismarck [6-hop LOOP] Pure "Realpolitik" [politics of actuality, no doctrine]?

Some other SAC readings =
John Locke
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jeremy Bentham
Edmund Burke [little LOOP]
Clemens von Metternich [little LOOP]
Charles Fourier
Saint-Simon
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels & Communist Manifesto section "Bourgeois and Proletarians" [TXT]
John Stuart Mill [little LOOP],
Eduard Bernstein
Jean Juarès [little LOOP]
Lenin and Luxemburg [GO week six]

Lectures =
 Three phases of European revolution

 

 

EXERCISE 6 =

Be ready to submit the JOURNAL [ID] with reading notes and essay #1 [ID] on the second day of class next week

This is an early "no-fault" evaluation. See handout syllabus for date

 

 

 

EXERCISE 7 =

NATIONAL HISTORY
Preparing for Draft Essay #3

Exercise 7 asks you to select one European sovereign nation-state (e.g., England, France, Germany, etc.) and concentrate on its historical experience in your weekly readings through the term. Here you make a choice for focused reading on a particular national area and its experience as it related to the broader trans-national history of the big concept "Western Civ".

You can see from our weekly topics what the main themes are = industrialization, rise of modern politics, imperialism, war, revolution, rise of "managerial" statism, Cold War, modern world views, and "New World Order". Choose one European nation and ask yourself how these themes were expressed in the nation of your choice and look for answers in your textbook (use the good index), and other reference tools identified in the page on writing draft essays [TXT]

For the first few weeks, just keep a running record of what you learn about your nation's experience. Then, toward the end of the term, you will write draft essay #3 about the most important features of the historical experience of the nation you have chosen.

In this exercise you are given the opportunity as the quarter progresses to become something of a fledgling specialist on the main features of the nation you choose, and then at the end to summarize the main things you learned about it.

 

EXERCISE 8 =

IMPERIALISM
Preparing for Draft Essay #4

Exercise eight asks you to select one non-European people of the global eastern hemisphere who have been colonized, imperialized and/or liberated from European dominion in our period. Learn the main outline of their historical experience of imperialism over the time period covered this term. Here is a link to a brief definition of "imperialism" to aid you in your decision.

Toward the end of the term, you will write draft essay #4 about the most important features of the historical experience of the non-European people you have chosen.

In this exercise you are given the opportunity to become something of a fledgling specialist on what it was like to have been "imperialized" by a European state or by "The West". And you will probably chose a people who eventually experienced breaking free from imperialist domination.

Here are a few suggestions to help you with your choice (some with hypertext links to SAC LOOPS [ID] or good starting points for a FIND search [ID]). You will notice that some of the areas suggested below are European peoples who were "imperialized" by other European people. You will also notice that some might well be considered not solely victims of imperialism but also on occasion imperialist victimizers (e.g., Japan, China and Ottoman Empire) =

 

 

Fourth Week
 Imperialism (up to World War One)
 Here is a definition of "imperialism"

General Readings =
S&SW,ch.19 (from p.603 to end)
S&SW,ch.20 (from p.626 to end)

Exercises =
Start thinking hard about exercise nine
Prepare for exercise ten

Discussion Sections =

S&SW,sct.20.1 = German Emperor Wilhelm II
 S&SW, sct.20.2 = English imperialist Lugard
S&SW, sct.20.3 = English racial theorist Karl Pearson [SAC LOOP on "racism"]

ADDITIONAL SAC READINGS =
Cecil Rhodes
Jules Ferry
Albert Beveridge
Joseph Conrad

 

Lectures =
Modern European or "Western" Imperialism

 

 

EXERCISE 9 =

Research and draft essay #2.

You have already drafted essay #1 [ID]. And you have launched yourself on two topics that will become draft essays #3 and #4 toward the end of the term, as described in exercises 7 & 8 [ID].

Now you should take up the actual writing of draft essay #2 and complete it in your journal prior to the midterm exam [ID].

Here is my suggestion about draft essay #2 =  Select your topic from among the topics dealt with in your Discussion Section meetings since the first submission of the journal [ID]. Let weekly Discussion Section meetings, lecture topics, textbook index, SAC, and other course materials guide your choice. Talk it up  with your Discussion Section Instructor, with fellow students, and with me. Discussion Section Instructors may wish to define draft essay #2 in very different ways, better to fit the particular emphasis within the discussion section.

Here is my recommendation for the titles of draft essay #2 = "The Historical Meaning and Significance of [fill in name of the primary document(s) of your choice]".

In other words, describe how your specific document(s) illuminate some of the general trends of the history we are studying.

 

 

 

Fifth Week
 Modern Industrial "Total War"
(WW1 and WW2)

General Readings =
S&SW,ch.22 (to p.692, "Russian Rev.")
S&SW,ch.24 (to p.747 "Peace and the Legacy of War")

Exercises =
Complete exercise nine

Discussion Sections =
S&SW,sct.22.1 = Burtsev supports war
               sct.22.2  poetry of Brooke, Owen & Sassoon,
sct.22.3 Keynes on Versailles [SAC]
sct.24.2 = Women work in wartime factories
sct.24.3 = Kamikaze pilots describes his mission in a letter

ADDITIONAL SAC READINGS =
Durnovo
WW1 ["battlefield" LOOP]
Wilson vs. Lenin [LOOP]
WW2 ["battlefield" LOOP]

Lectures =
Modern Total War

Some consequences of modern total war
*--Only one industrialized nation survived, as such
*--Disintegration of European imperialist/colonial grip (SIXTH WEEK)
*--Rise of militarist/statist systems (SEVENTH WEEK)

 

 

Sixth Week
Russia and the "Unnamed Revolution"
On the modern definitions of "war" and "revolution"

General Readings =
S&SW,ch.22 (from p.692 "Russian Rev." to end of ch.)

Exercises =
Complete exercise 10 on the last day of class this week
 Starting thinking about exercise 11

Discussion Sections
SAC READINGS =
Lenin, "What's to Be Done?"
Rosa Luxemburg
Lenin on Imperialism
Comintern
Mustafa Kemal

Lectures =
The European Revolution, third (global) phase

 

EXERCISE 10 =

TAKE A MIDTERM EXAM  IN JOURNAL [ID]

The exam date is indicated in the handout syllabus. The exam is in class and will cover all material in the syllabus up to the time of the exam. Exam form and study guide

Complete the exam and submit the journal to your Discussion Section Instructor.
At this time the journal should contain the midterm exam, as well as on-going reading notes [ID], draft essay #1 [ID] and draft essay #2 [ID]

 

 

EXERCISE 11 =

Research and draft essays #3 and #4 after midterm exam and before the final exam [ID]

You will have been preparing for these final two draft essays since the third week when you began exercises 7 & 8 [ID]

 

 

 

Seventh Week
Statism and the Assault on Liberal Democracy
(between the two world wars)
Here is a definition of "statism"

General Readings =
S&SW,ch.23

Exercises =
Keep in mind your exercise seven and exercise eight
Continue thinking about exercise eleven

Discussion Sections =
S&SW,sct.23.1 = 1923:Hitler speech
sct.23.2 = Lev Kopelev remembers collectivization of Soviet agriculture [SAC LOOP]
sct.23.3 = Goebbels anti-Jewish propaganda
sct.24.1 = André Lettich on Nazi crematoriums [SAC]

ADDITIONAL SAC READINGS =
Elie Halévy
George Orwell
Milovan Djilas
Hanna Arendt
Mussolini and Fascism
Hitler and Nazism
Stalin and "Stalinism"

Lectures =
Statism: The Rise of Total Government

 

 

Eighth Week
Cold War

General Readings =
 S&SW,ch.24 (p.747 "Peace and the Legacy of War" to end of ch.)
S&SW,ch.25 (to p.773 "A Sense of Relativity")
S&SW,ch.26 (to p.800 "Nationalism Unleashed")

Exercises =
Keep in mind your exercise seven and exercise eight
Continue thinking about exercise eleven

Discussion Sections =
S&SW,sct.25.1 = Toynbee on nuclear weapons [SAC],
sct.25.2 = Servan-Schreiber warns about USA [SAC],
sct.25.3 = Tariq Ali on global revolution and dissent [SAC 1 hop, but intersects big LOOP on "dissent"]

ADDITIONAL SAC READINGS =
Nikolai Novikov
George F. Kennan
Hans J. Morgenthau
Mao

*--Wartime agreements =
Lend-Lease Act
Atlantic Charter
"Big Three"
Casablanca
"Four power declaration"
Teheran
Cairo
Yalta
Potsdam

Lectures =
Cold War

 

Ninth Week
The "Western" Mind (World View)

General Readings =
S&SW,ch.21 (from p.657 "Science..." to end of ch.)
S&SW,ch.25 (p.773 "A Sense of Relativity" to end of ch.)
Don't forget your tour of Architecture and Allied Arts Library

Exercises =
Start to wrap up exercises exercise seven and exercise eight
Don't get behind on exercise eleven

Discussion Sections =
S&SW, sct.21.2 = Walter Bagehot on Social Darwinism [SAC]

ADDITIONAL SAC READINGS =
Darwin
Freud [LOOP]
Dostoevsky
Nietzsche
Weber [LOOP]
Sartre

Just for the fun of it, have a look at
"new words" that entered the English vocabulary
in the 19th and early 20th centuries

Lectures =
The Modern "Western" World View

 

 

Tenth Week
A New World Order?

General Readings =
S&SW,ch.26 (from p.800 "Nationalism..." to end of book)

Exercises =
Start to wrap up exercise seven and exercise eight
Complete exercise eleven
Prepare for exercise twelve

Discussion Sections =
S&SW, sct.26.1 = Hobsbaum on new nationalism,
sct.26.2 = Computers and "global civil society",
sct.26.3 = theologian Thomas Berry on environmentalism

ADDITIONAL SAC READINGS =

Lectures =
New World (Dis?)Order

 

 

 

EXERCISE 12 DURING FINALS WEEK =

TAKE FINAL EXAM IN JOURNAL [ID]

 Exam form and study guide
Check date on the handout syllabus

Complete the final exam in the regular class room and submit the journal to your Discussion Section Instructor with all reading notes and draft essays complete.

You may submit a self-addressed and stamped envelope of proper dimension to me at the end, and I will mail your journal to you after grades are submitted. Or email me sometime next term that you wish to pick up your journal. I will reply telling you where and when you may do that. I may be slow responding in the summer, but I will keep the journals through the coming fall term. Good luck to all.