European History Since 1800

Module Code: HICL049S5

Tutor: Lucy Riall, Jessica Reinisch, Orlando Figes

This course offers an outline history of Europe from 1800 to the present. It concentrates on political developments, set in the context of economic, social and cultural change. The focus is on France, Italy, Germany, Russia, Spain and East-Central and South-East Europe Subjects covered include the legacy of the French Revolution, agrarian society and industrialization, the Restoration of 1815, the 1848 Revolutions, the unification of Germany and Italy, socialism and labour movements, feminism and women's emancipation, imperialism, the First World War, the Russian Revolution, Hitler and Stalin, the Spanish Civil War, World War II and the "Final Solution", the reconstruction and division of Europe after 1945, and the Revolutions of 1989 in Central and Eastern Europe. The course emphasises comparisons between different states and nations as well as focusing on the internal development of each of the major countries and the relations between them. No knowledge of foreign languages is required.

Preliminary reading:

Robert Gildea Barricades and Borders. Europe 1800-1914 (1987)

John M. Roberts Europe 1800-1945 (1989)

E.J. Hobsbawm The Age of Revolution 1789-1848 (1962); The Age of Capital 1848-1875 (1975);

The Age of Empire 1875-1914 (1987)

Age of Extremes. The Short Twentieth Century 1914-1989 (1994)

Walter Laqueur Europe in our Time: A History 1945-1992 (1992)

Paul Kennedy The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (1988)

Jonathan Sperber The European Revolutions 1848-1851 (1994)

Sidney Pollard Peaceful Conquest: The Industrialization of Europe (1981)

M.S. Anderson The Ascendancy of Europe (1985)

Z.A.B. Zeman The Making and Breaking of Communist Europe (1991)