Europe in the Modern World (201-2-20)

Instructors

Holly E. D. Swenson
Holly Swenson is a historian of modern Britain and the British empire, with particular interests in media and business history. She studies how the business of making and selling British entertainment, media, and art shaped both political economy and identity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Meeting Info

Kresge Cent. Hall 2-380 Kaplan: Mon, Wed 12:30PM - 1:50PM

Overview of class

What can porcelain, board games, speeches, poetry, and rock anthems tell us about European history, and the history of Europe in the world? In this course, we explore modern European history from roughly the mid-eighteenth century to the present with a variety of materials while following three general themes of emphasis: modern economic growth and global business networks, the changing role and nature of the state, and the rise of the nation (with its associated ideas of who belongs and who does not). This course reveals how European history did not happen in an isolated bubble from the rest of the world—instead, European development was contingent on trade, conquest, exchange, colonialism, and collaboration with Asia, North America, Australasia, South America, and Africa. We start with the Industrial Revolution, and then follow the other key themes of modern European history, such as political revolution and representational government, empire, the growth of the middle class, the rise of the centralized state, the formation of the nation, internationalism, welfarism, and neoliberalism.

Learning Objectives

• To understand the sequence of events in Modern European history and the causal relationships between them
• To understand Europe's interrelationship with other parts of the world
• To explain how concepts such as race, class, and nation change over time
• To evaluate how past and present understandings of these concepts relate to each other
• To formulate original arguments about historical events, people, and themes using primary source materials

Evaluation Method

Attendance and Section Participation: 20% Timeline Quizzes, Weeks 4 and 8: 10% (5% each) Podcast Analysis Paper: 15% Midterm: 25% Final Exam: 30%

Class Notes

History Major Concentration(s): European
History Minor Concentration(s): Europe

Class Attributes

Historical Studies Foundational Discipline
Historical Studies Distro Area
Global Perspectives on Power, Justice, and Equity

Associated Classes

DIS - Locy Hall 305: Thurs 2:00PM - 2:50PM

DIS - Locy Hall 305: Thurs 3:00PM - 3:50PM

DIS - Locy Hall 305: Thurs 1:00PM - 1:50PM