History 303
EUROPE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY AND SINCE
Prof. John McCole
Spring Term 2008
Lecture: McKenzie 240A | Tuesdays/Thursdays 2:00-3:20
office: McKenzie 303 / 346-5906
mccole@uoregon.edu
my office hours:
GTF: Andrew King
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course is a survey of the splendors and horrors of Europe’s history during the past century, from 1914 to the present. It was often a century of terrors: it brought two devastating world wars; fierce ideological and political conflict between liberal democracy, fascism, and communism; and genocide and “ethnic cleansing.” In the process, Europeans’ relations with the rest of the world changed dramatically. The European nations began the century as the world’s dominant imperial powers; in the Cold War, two halves of Europe were integrated into blocs dominated by “outside” powers, the USA and USSR. In our time, Europeans are struggling to redefine their identities and their place in the world. Yet the twentieth century was also a time of exciting social transformation and cultural innovation in Europe. We will examine the major social, political, and cultural movements that have vied to define and control Europe during this entire period. We will give full attention to the second half of the century, including recent and contemporary events.
COURSE POLICIES
Course requirements
•midterm exam (20% of course grade) on Thursday, May 3, in class;
•final exam (30%) on Thursday, June 14, 1:00-3:00 p.m.
•two papers, 4-5 pages each (25% + 25%).
The papers will be based on readings we are doing for the course. Topics and instructions will be distributed in advance. You will have a choice of topics. Due dates: paper #1 on Tuesday, April 29, and paper #2 on Tuesday, June 3.
I suggest that you consider submitting your papers before the due date.
Policy on late work and taking exams
Please understand that these policies are in the interest of fairness to your fellow students.
1. Papers submitted late will be penalized. (But it is always worth submitting work even if it is late.)
2. Makeup exams can be given only in case of a certified medical or personal emergency.
3. Early final exams will not be given under any circumstances. Please make your plans for the end of the term accordingly.
Academic Honesty
All work that you submit for this course, including papers and exams, must be your own, and it must have been produced for this course. Please be sure that you are familiar with the University’s policies regarding academic honesty.
READINGS
Required and available for purchase at the University Bookstore:
•Bonnie Smith, Europe in the Contemporary World, 1900 to the Present (ECW)
•George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier
•Timothy Garton Ash, The Magic Lantern: The Revolution of ’89 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin and Prague
Readings on reserve at Knight Library:
1. Hard copy
note: Smith, ECW, is not available on reserve. The library does not purchase textbooks.
•Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own
•George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier
•Timothy Garton Ash, The Magic Lantern: The Revolution of ’89 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin and Prague
•Václav Havel, “The Power of the Powerless,” in Havel, Living in Truth;
•Jane Kramer, “The Invandrare,“ in Kramer, Unsettling Europe.
2. Electronic reserves
•Václav Havel, “The Power of the Powerless,” in Havel, Living in Truth;
•Jane Kramer, “The Invandrare,“ in Kramer, Unsettling Europe.
Online readings
note: click on these links to navigate directly to the readings
•Mussolini, The Doctrine of Fascism
•Woolf, A Room of One’s Own
•Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier
•United Nations Resolution 260, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
•Ian Buruma, “Letter from Amsterdam: Final Cut,” The New Yorker (January 3, 2005)
COURSE SCHEDULE
I. In Darkest Europe: The Thirty Years’ Crisis, 1914-1945
Week 1: Under the Volcano: Europe Enters the Twentieth Century (April 1, 3)
1 Introduction to the Course | The Shape of Imperial Europe
2 Imperial Europe: Challengers and Disruptive Forces
reading:
•Smith, Europe in the Contemporary World (ECW), Chapters 1, 2
•documents in ECW:
2.4 Pankhurst, My Story (1914)
2.5 Marinetti, Manifesto of Futurism (1909)
2.6 Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1911)
Week 2: World War I and the Postwar Revolutions, Left and Right (April 8, 10)
1 Total War and Its Consequences
2 Revolutions, Left and Right: The Russian Revolution and Fascist Italy
reading:
•Smith, Europe in the Contemporary World, Chapter 3 and Chapter 4, 218-221
•documents in ECW:
3.4 Lenin, April Theses (1917)
•Mussolini, The Doctrine of Fascism (online)
Week 3: Modernity and Democracies: The Twenties (April 15, 17)
1 Hopeful, Divided, and Demoralized Democracies
2 The Modernist Social and Cultural Revolution / FILM: Fritz Lang, “Metropolis” (1927)
reading:
•Smith, Europe in the Contemporary World, Chapter 4
•documents in ECW:
4.1 Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, 1925-1926
Picture Essay, “Building the Future”
•Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, selections (online)
•I suggest a visit to the website of the Bauhaus Archive:
http://www.bauhaus.de/english/bauhaus1919/index.htm
Week 4: Crises of the Thirties (April 22, 24)
1 The Crisis of Capitalism: The Great Depression
2 Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union
reading:
•Smith, Europe in the Contemporary World, Chapter 5
•George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier: part I, chapters I-VII, and part II, chapter I
•strongly suggested: Picture Essay, “The Machine, the Military, and the Masses” in ECW
Week 5: The Catastrophes (April 29, May 1)
1 World War, Occupation, Carnage, and Genocide
2 Thursday, May 1: Midterm Exam
reading:
•Smith, Europe in the Contemporary World, Chapter 6
•documents in ECW:
6.2 V.S. Kostrovitskaia, Diary, January 1942 and April 1943
6.3 Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Weczler, Auschwitz Observed: Reports of Two Escaped Eyewitnesses, 1944
•United Nations Resolution 260 A (III), Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 1948 (online)
II. Europe Divided: The Postwar Order, 1945-1968
Week 6: Europe’s New Place in the World (May 6, 8)
1 From Hot War to Cold War: Europe Divided and Diminished
2 The Politics of Prosperity: Postwar Consensus in Western Europe
reading:
•Smith, Europe in the Contemporary World, Chapter 7
•documents in ECW:
7.1 Nikolai Novikov, Report to the Foreign Minister Molotov (1946)
7.2 Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (1949)
5.1 Alva Myrdal, Nation and Family: The Swedish Experiment (1941)
Week 7: New Realities, West and East (May 13, 15)
1 Post-Stalinism: Life in the People’s Democracies and the USSR
2 The End of European Empires and the New Realities of Migration
reading:
•Smith, Europe in the Contemporary World, Chapter 8 and Chapter 9, 498-523
•Jane Kramer, “The Invandrare,” in Kramer, Unsettling Europe
•documents in ECW:
9.3 Franz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (1961)
•strongly suggested: Picture Essay, “The Changing Face of Europe”
Week 8: The Sixties (May 20, 22)
1 SIXTIES FILM FESTIVAL (in class): selections from The Battle of Algiers (Pontecorvo, 1966); One, Two, Three (Wilder, 1961); Blowup (Antonioni, 1966); and Yellow Submarine (Dunning, 1968)
2 1968: Paris and Prague
reading:
•Smith, Europe in the Contemporary World, Chapter 10, 554-580
•Václav Havel, “The Power of the Powerless,” pp. 36-72, 84-122, in Havel, Living in Truth (RESERVE and ERESERVE)
•strongly suggested: Picture Essay, “Politics in the Streets”
III. Toward Europe Today, 1968-Present
Week 9: The Postwar Order in Crisis (May 27, 29)
1 The Social Contract in Crisis? Western Europe in the 1970s and 1980s
2 “1989”: The Collapse of Communism and the Transformation of Eastern Europe
reading:
•Smith, Europe in the Contemporary World, Chapter 10, 580-590, and Chapter 11, 618-640
•documents in ECW:
11.1 Margaret Thatcher, Speeches to the Conservative Party Congress, 1981 and 1988
11.2 Mikhail Gorbachev, Speech to the Communist Party Congress, January 1987
•begin Timothy Garton Ash, The Magic Lantern: The Revolution of ‘89: “Witness and History,” “Warsaw: the First Election,” “Berlin: Wall’s End,” “The Year of Truth”
Week 10: A New Europe—But What Kind? (June 3, 5)
1 Europe Splits? Europe Unites? Developments in the 1990s
2 Europe in the World in the Early Twenty-First Century
reading:
•Smith, Europe in the Contemporary World, Chapter 11, 640-652, and Chapter 12
•finish Garton Ash, The Magic Lantern
•Ian Buruma, “Letter from Amsterdam: Final Cut” (The New Yorker, January 3, 2005)
FINAL EXAM:
1:00-3:00 Wednesday, June 11 in McKenzie 240A