HISTORY OF MODERN EUROPE I

COURSE DESCRIPTION

History 215 is offered as an introduction to the most significant trends in European history from the late Medieval era to the French Revolution. It is not meant to be a comprehensive survey in which you are taught "all you need to know" but is designed to highlight several important issues loosely organized within a chronological framework. We will be dealing with broad themes: the growth of commercial capitalism; the rise of the nation state; the impact of such intellectual movements as the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment; the expansion of European power, commerce, and culture to the Americas, Asia, and Africa. But we will also try to bring history back down to the personal level. How did people create meaning in their own lives? How did they shape their world, and how, in turn, were they shaped by events, by social structure, and by other people? We will approach such questions through a mixture of lecture presentation, class discussion, reading, student research, slide shows, and video.

By the end of this course you should be able to:

    1. Explain the emergence of the early modern state system.

    2. Assess the changing role of religion in early modern society.

    3. Describe the positions of men and women in early modern society.

    4. Analyze the structure of society in the early modern period.

    5. Analyze the strength of the principal status groups at various times during the early modern period.

    6. Explain the impact intellectual developments had on early modern society.

    7. Trace the economic history of early modern Europe.

    8. Describe the similarities and differences between eastern and western Europe between 1450 and 1800.

    9. Account for the French Revolution.