All courses numbered 500 and above are graduate courses.
Undergraduates need to submit a course permit to enroll.
HIST 620 Europe, 1890 - 1945
Taught as schedule allows (consult the Course Directory)
This seminar will allow graduate students to take up those broad themes and issues without which the narrative of events in a period cannot be understood. It will also serve as a preliminary reading course for those facing their comprehensive examinations in modern European history. The course will look in depth at the changes in ideas before the First World War such as the crisis of Marxism, the rise of modern, non-representational art and the rejection of liberal rationality, the long-term economic cycles of activity and their relationship to politics, the mechanized murder which the First World War introduced and its consequences, the impossibility of peace in 1919, the emergence of Bolshevism and Stalinism, Fascism and National Socialism, the inter-war economic crises, the failure of international diplomacy and the origins of the Second World War, the Nazi state at war, the genocidal project, the Eastern Front and "unconditional surrender." Each student will offer a presentation on one of the themes but no major written paper will be required.
