Themes in Late Modern History

This course for advanced first-year students is designed as an introduction to the study of Late Modern History. It is intended to provide an overview of key issues and themes of in late modern European and world history from the late eighteenth century onward. Following five key themes – i) International History, ii) Revolutions, iii) Society and Culture, iv) Science, Technology and Culture and v) Ideologies each theme aims at introducing these to students in a chronological order. Thus the chronological comparison of key developments, revolutions or societal development within each theme will enhance students’ analytical understanding of the late modern world.

List of Lecture Titles

Introduction
1. Introduction

I. International History
2. Between Old and New. War and Diplomacy from the French Revolution to the Congress of Vienna
3. A Long Road to 1914? Great Power Relations in the Age of Empire
4. The Eastern Question since 1774
5. The Inter-War Period.
6. Between detente and confrontation: The Cold War (1945-1989)
7. Integrating the World: UN, EU

II. Revolutions
8. 1776: The First Modern Revolution?
9. 1789: Political, Social or Cultural Revolution?
10. 1848/49: Back to the Future?
11. 1917: The Russian Revolution
12. 1979: Islamic or Iranian Revolution?
13. What changed? 1989 and the unfinished revolution

III. Society and Culture
14. The Nineteenth Century: a Bourgeois Age?
15. Creating states and citizens: The emergence of political culture   
16. Leisure and Consumption
17. The inter-war Great Depression: A Crisis of Global Capitalism
19. The Baby Boom and the ‘Me’ Generation

IV. Science, Technology and Society
20. The Industrial Revolution?
21. Trains, telegraphs and technological progress
22. Darwin and the sciences of progress
23. Taming the Atom
24. Politics of Environment: Ecological Crisis

V. Ideologies
25. Subversive Sighs? The Politics of Romanticism
26. Political Liberalism in the Nineteenth Century
27. Nationalism: From idea to polity
28. Socialism and Communism
29. Fascism
30. Race and Racism: A Century of Intolerance
31. Late Modern History and Modernity: Global Perspectives

I. International History
1. Between Old and New Regime. War and Diplomacy from the French Revolution to the Congress of Vienna
2. A Long Road to 1914? Great Power Relations in the Age of Empire
3. The Eastern Question since 1774
4. Cold War (1945-1989)

II: Revolutions
5. 1789: Political, Social or Cultural Revolution?
6. 1917: The Russian Revolution
7. Iran 1979

III: Society and Culture
8. The Nineteenth Century: a Bourgeois Age?
9. Inter-War Culture
10. The Baby Boomers and the ‘Me’ Generation

IV: Economy, Science and Technology
11. Railways and the Transformation of Space and Time
12. Taming the Atom

V: Ideologies
13. Romantic Nationalism
14. Fascism / National Socialism
15. Race

Hobsbawm, E., J., The Age of Revolution 1789-1848 (2007) (first 1962)
Hobsbawm, E. J., Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914-1991 (1995)
Judt, T., Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945 (2005)
Mazower, Mark, Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth Century (1999)