Modern European History

This course introduces students to key themes in the social, political, and cultural history of Europe from the French Revolution to the twenty first century. We will ask how and why Europe came to dominate the world in the nineteenth century and why it lost that dominance in the twentieth. Why did Europe give birth both to models of democracy and social equality but also to dictatorship and terror? Why has Europe been such a laboratory for nationalism and does the emergence of the European Union signal the end of this epoch?