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Course Title
: INTRODUCTION TO EUROPEAN HISTORY
Course Code
: HST114
Recommended Study Year
: Year 1
No. of Credits/Term
: 3
Mode of Tuition
: Sectional
Class Contact Hours
: 3 hours per week
Category in Major Prog.
: Required Elective
Prerequisites
: None
Co-requisites
: None
Exclusions
: None
Exemption Requirement(s)
Brief Course Description
: None
: This course is an introduction to the history of Europe
from the earliest times to the present.
Aims
: The objective of the course is to help students understand
the historical formation of Europe, and its later impact on
world history.
Learning Outcomes
: a) acquire a sound understanding of the historical
development and diversity of Europe;
b) develop an understanding of Europe as a “borrowing
culture” that benefited from the culture, ideas and
technology of non-European societies.
c) develop a critical understanding of the specific
characteristics of Europe - geographical, social and
cultural - that helped generate the “European miracle”,
giving it global hegemony by the mid-9th century;
d) acquire an understanding of the factors underlying
Europe’s relative decline in the twentieth century.
Indicative Content
: I.
II.
Introduction
A. What is Europe?
B. The significance of pluralism (Jared Diamond
and Paul Kennedy)
The First Europeans
A. Surviving the Ice Age: Paleolithic Europe
B. The Neolithic Revolution in Europe
Discussion: Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel
Readings: Coffin and Stacey, Chapter 1: The Origins of
Western Civilizations; J.R. McNeill, “The World
According to Jared Diamond”, The History Teacher, Vol.
34, No. 2,
http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ht/34.2/mcneil
l.html
III.
The Classical Mediterranean World: Ancient Greece
and Rome
A. Overview
B. Sparta and Athens
C. Greek Culture and Philosophy
D. Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic
Kingdoms
E. The Roman Republic and Empire
F. The Rise of Christianity
Reading: Coffin and Stacey, Chapter 3: The Greek
Experiment, Chapter 4: The Expansion of Greece, Chapter
5: Roman Civilization, Chapter 6: Christianity and the
Transformation of the Roman World
IV.
Europe, 500-1500 C.E.
A. Byzantine Civilisation
B. Medieval Eastern Europe and Russia
C. Charlemagne and the Reawakening of Europe
D. Political Order and Feudal System in Western
Europe
E. The Formation of Christian Europe
F. Trade and Cultural Interactions
G. Medieval Societies
H. From Romanesque to Gothic
I. The Growth of States in Medieval Europe
J. Medieval Europe and Islam: The Crusades
K. England: The Magna Carta and Parliament
L. The Black Death
Reading: Coffin and Stacey, Chapter 7: Rome's Three
Heirs: The Byzantine, Islamic, and Early Medieval
Worlds; Chapter 8: The Expansion of Europe: Economy,
Society, and Politics in the High Middle Ages, 1000–1300;
Chapter 9: The High Middle Ages: Religious and
Intellectual Developments, 1000–1300; Chapter 10: The
Later Middle Ages, 1300–1500
V.
Renaissance and Reformation
A. Humanism
B. From Giotto to Machiavelli: Cultural and
Intellectual Developments in Italy
C. The Northern Renaissance
D. The emergence of the nation state
E. The Reformation in Europe
F. Wars of Religion
Reading: Coffin and Stacey, Chapter 12: The Civilization
of the Renaissance, 1350–1550;
Chapter 13:
Reformations of Religion; Chapter 14: Religious Wars and
State Building, 1540–1660
VI.
Europe Expands: The Age of Exploration
A. The Ottoman Threat
B. The End of Europe’s Mediterranean Focus
C. The Creation of an Atlantic World
D. Europe in Asia
Reading: Coffin and Stacey, Chapter 11: Commerce,
Conquest, and Colonization, 1300–1600
VII. The Scientific Revolution
A. The Copernican Revolution
B. The Scientific Method
C. Science and the Church
Reading: Coffin and Stacey, Chapter 16: The Scientific
Revolution
VIII The Enlightenment
A. The Ancients vs. the Moderns
B. Lockean Psychology
C. An Age of Reason
D. The Party of Humanity
E. The Enlightenment and China
Reading: Coffin and Stacey, Chapter 17: The
Enlightenment
IX Towards a new European Order
A. Absolutist Europe
B. The French Revolution
C. Napoleon’s New European Order
D. Metternich and the Congress of Vienna
E. Liberalism and Nationalism
F. German and Italian Unification; Poland and
Russia; Greece and the Balkans
Reading: Coffin and Stacey, Chapter 15: Absolutism and
Empire, 1540–1660; Chapter 18: The French Revolution;
Chapter 20: From Restoration to Revolution, 1815–1848;
Chapter 21: What is a Nation? Territories, States, and
Citizens, 1848–1871
X. The Industrial Revolution and the Age of Imperialism
A. The Industrial Revolution in Europe
B. The Nature and Causes of Imperialism
C. Ideological Justifications for Imperialism
D. The Second Industrial Revolution and the Crisis
of Modernity
Discussion: Immanuel Wallerstein, World Systems Theory
Readings: Paul Halsall, “Modern History Sourcebook:
Summary of Wallerstein on World System Theory”,
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/wallerstein.html;
Coffin and Stacey, Chapter 19: Industrial Revolution and
Nineteenth-Century Society; Chapter 22: Imperialism and
Colonialism, 1870–1914; Chapter 23: Modern Industry
and Mass Politics, 1870–1914
XI Europe, 1914-1945
A. The First World War
B. The Russian Revolution
C. The Redrawing of the maps
D. The Great Depression in Europe
E. The rise of dictators and the “crisis of
liberalism”
F. The Second World War
Discussion: Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great
Powers
Readings: Dr. David Smith, “Paul Kennedy’s The Rise and
Fall of the Great Powers – A Summary”, class handout;
Coffin and Stacey, Chapter 24: The First World War;
Chapter 25: Turmoil between the Wars; Chapter 26: The
Second World War
XII Conclusion: The End of European Hegemony
A. Europe and the Cold War
B. The end of European empires
C. Multicultural Europe
D. The path to European Unity
Reading: Coffin and Stacey, Chapter 27: The Cold War
World: Global Politics, Economic Recovery, and Cultural
Change; Chapter 28: Red Flags and Velvet Revolutions:
The End of the Cold War, 1960-1990; Chapter 29: A
World without Walls: Globalization and the West
Teaching Method
: Lectures, supplemented by readings, are designed to
provide students with a big picture of the human
experience. .
Measurement of Learning
Outcomes
: a) Successfully gaining minimum passing grades in the
examination and individual assignment;
b) Showing evidence of research;
c) participation in class discussions and/or actively
raising and answers questions in class.
Assessment
: Students are expected to keep up with all assignments, and
come prepared for each lecture. Two exams and one
essay/book review are required.
Class Attendance and Participation: 10%
Midterm: 25%
Course Paper (essay or book review): 35%
Final Examination 30%
Required Reading:
Coffin, Coffin, Judith G.; and Robert C. Stacey, Western Civilizations: Brief Edition: 2
Volumes in One. New York & London: W. W. Norton, & Co., 2006
Supplementary Readings:
Anderson, Bonnie S. and Judith P. Zinsser, A History of their Own: Women in Europe from
Prehistory to the Present. 2 vols. Rev. ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Boxer, Marilyn J. and Jean H. Quataert, Connecting Spheres: European Women in a
Globalizing World, 1500 to the Present. 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2000.
Crosby, Alfred, Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900,
New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
Curtin, Philip D. The World and the West: the European Challenge and the Overseas
Response in the Age of Empire, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Diamond, Jared, Guns, Germs and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies, New York, W. W.
Norton & Company, c. 1997.
Kennedy, Paul M. The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economy Change and Military
Conflict from 1500 to 2000, New York: Random House 1987.
Landes, David S., Revolution in Time: Clocks and the Making of the Modern World, Revised
ed., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000.
Landes, David S., The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial
Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1969.
Marks, Robert B., The Origins of the Modern World: A Global and Ecological Narrative
from the Fifteenth to the Twenty-First Century. 2nd ed, Lanham, MD: Rowman and
Littlefield, 2007.
McNeill, William, The Pursuit of Power: Technology Armed Force and Society Since A.D.
1000, Reprint edition, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.
McNeill, William, The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community, Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1992.
Roberts, J. M., The Penguin History of Europe, London: Penguin, 1997
Stearns, Peter, The Industrial Revolution in World History, Boulder: Westview Press, 1993.
Stearns, Peter, Life and Society in the West: the Modern Centuries, San Diego: Harcourt
Brace Jovanovich, 1988.