Course aims:

Introduce the students to the diverse issues of pre-modern and modern eras.
Understanding the complexity of the phenomenon of modernization (politics, economy, society, and thinking).
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Course Entry Requirements:

History of Historiography; Introduction to Medieval History.

Course contents:

The debates on modernity. Anthropological, religious, political, economic and cultural perspectives. The genesis of the modern world in the sixteenth century (I). Economy and society. The European policy of the Emperor Charles V. The genesis of the modern world in the sixteenth century (II). The new economic conjuncture. Philip II and the Spanish preponderance. The seventeenth century, a century of absolutism (I). Economy, society and governance in Western Europe. The Thirty Years War. The seventeenth century, a century of absolutism (II). The governance system of absolutism. Europe during the French hegemony. The eighteenth century and the end of the Old Regime (I). Transformation of society. “The agricultural revolution” and the industrial revolution. The Seven Years War. The eighteenth century and the end of the Old Regime (II). The governance practice and the enlightened reformation project. The governance system of enlightened absolutism. The Polish crisis. The age of revolutions (I). The war of independence of English colonies from America. The French revolution and its European impact. The age of revolutions (II). France, from Consulate to Empire. Napoleon – rising and decline. The Peace Congress from Vienna. The age of liberal revolutions (1815-1850) (I). The ideologies and the European political system. The revolutionary movements. The age of liberal revolutions (1815-1850) (II). The triumph of liberalism in Great Britain. France during the Restoration and the July Monarchy. Central Europe between two revolutions. The Crimean War. Reaction and nationalism in Europe (1850-1870). Building a nation in Italy and Germany. The War of Secession. The accumulation of tensions (1870-1914). France and Britain. German Empire, Italy, Austria-Hungary and Russia. From the delicate balance to crisis: political, military and diplomatic relations. The First World War (1914-1918). From 1914 to 1916. The crises of 1917. The end of war and the Peace Conference.

Teaching methods:

Lecture, conversation, exemplification.

Learning outcomes:

Retrieval of written sources on the historical past; Establishing historical facts on the basis of historical sources and outside of these; Concrete production of new historical knowledge on the basis of deeper insights within the study of an epoch and/or of a medium complexity historical subject.

Learning outcomes verification and assessment criteria:

Oral exam – 50%; VP – 25%; Oral presentation – 25%.

Recommended reading:

Beales, Derek, Enlightenment and Reform in Eighteenth-Century Europe, I. B. Tauris, 2005.
Encyclopædia of the Age of Political Revolutions and the New Ideologies, 1760-1815. Edited by - Gregory Fremont-Barnes, Vol. I-II, Greenwood Press, 2007.
Encyclopedia of Catholicism. Edited by Frank K. Flinn, Facts on File, 2007.
Ferguson, Niall, Civilization: The West and the Rest, Penguin Books, 2011.
Kennedy, Paul, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, Random House, 1987.