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AP EUROPEAN HISTORY
Course Description
Advanced Placement European History is a college-level course designed to increase
student’s understanding and appreciation of the history of Europe from approximately
1450 to the present while preparing the student for the AP European History Exam. In
addition to understanding the main themes (political and diplomatic, intellectual and
cultural, social and economic) of modern European History, the student will also develop
the ability to analyze primary and secondary sources and the ability to effectively express
these analyses in writing. In order to develop effective analytical abilities, students will
be required to build a substantial factual foundation by learning, memorizing and
applying such information. Maps, statistical tables, and visual resources will be included
in the primary and secondary resources.
Tests
All tests will be modeled after the AP European History Exam with multiple choice and
free response questions (usually taken from previous College Board tests). Tests will be
both chapter and unit-based. Unit-based tests will include a document-based-question
(also usually taken from previous College Board tests) and as such will be taken over the
course of two class periods. There will be a semester exam and a comprehensive final
exam, which will take three class periods.
Methodology
The basic method of teaching will be lecture/discussion and the Socratic Method.
Lectures will be accompanied by Power Point slides and other visuals displayed on the
SMART Board. Other multimedia sources (movies, downloads, music, internet sites) will
be used enhance and enrich instruction. Student participation in class is required.
Student Expectations
In addition to reading, chapter assignments will include graphic organizers, terms/people,
free response questions (from previous AP exams and other sources), geography,
statistical analysis, DBQ’s (from previous AP exams and other sources), and take-home
multiple choice quizzes. Students will be required to analyze primary source readings that
are assigned for each chapter and to effectively compare and contrast different points-ofview in writing and orally. Students are encouraged to collaborate and form study groups
to foster discussion and to “lighten the load”. Students will be required to keep a portfolio
for this class.
Student Texts
Palmer, R.R., and Colton, Joel. A History of the Modern World. Ninth Edition. New
York: McGraw Hill 2002
Sherman, Dennis, ed. Western Civilization: Sources, Images and Interpretations.
Volumes I and II. Sixth Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004
Rand McNally Historical Atlas of the World. Skokie Ill. Rand McNally. 1997
Supplemental Resources
AP EUROPEAN HISTORY
Lembright, Robert L. ed., Annual Editions: Western Civilization Volume II, 1500 to
Present. Twelfth Edition. Guilford, CT. McGraw-Hill/Dushkin 2003
Mitchell, Joseph R., and Mitchell, Helen Buss. Taking Sides: World History Volume II.
Guilford CT. McGraw-Hill/Dushkin 2002
McKay, John P., A History of Western Society. Seventh Edition. Houghton Mifflin. 2003
Weber, Eugen., A Modern History of Europe. New York. W.W. Norton and Company.
1971
Conforti, Daniel A., Advanced Placement European History: A Practical Guide for
Teachers. DAC Educational Publications 2001
Unit I: 1450-1650
Text Reading
Palmer
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
The Rise of Europe (summer assignment)
The Upheaval in Christendom
Economic Renewal and Wars of Religion
Primary and Secondary Source Readings
Sherman
Boccaccio “The Decameron: The Plague in Florence”
“The Goodman of Paris: Instructions on Being a Good Wife”
“Attack on the Papacy: The Conciliar Movement”
Visual Sources p. 149
Oakley “The Crisis of the Late Middle Ages”
Meiss “The Black Death: A Socioeconomic Perspective”
Langer “A Psychological Perspective of the Black Death”
Petrarch “A Letter to Boccaccio: Literary Humanism”
Vergerio “On the Liberal Arts”
de Pisan “ The City of Ladies”
Machiavelli “The Prince”
Castiglione “The Book of the Courtier”
Visual Sources p. 164-166
Burckhardt “The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy”
Burke “The Myth of the Renaissance”
Nauert “Northern Sources of the Renaissance”
Luther “Justification by Faith”
Luther “Condemnation of Peasant Revolt’
Calvin “Institutes of the Christian Religion: Predestination”
“Constitution of the Society of Jesus”
Visual Sources p. 179-181
Cameron “What Was the Reformation?”
Elton “A Political Interpretation of the Reformation”
Olin “The Catholic Reformation”
AP EUROPEAN HISTORY
Ozment “The Legacy of the Reformation”
Boxer and Quataert “Women in the Reformation”
Fugger “Letter to Charles V: Finance and Politics”
Ogier “Civil War in France”
Kramer and Sprenger “The Hammer of Witches”
von Hornick “Austria Over All If She Will: Mercantilism”
Visual Sources p. 192-193, 205, 207
Reed “The Expansion of Europe”
Bush “The Effects of Expansion on the Non-European World”
Holborn “A Political Interpretation of the Thirty Years’ War”
Friedrich “A Religious Interpretation of the Thirty Years’ War”
Anderson “War and Peace in the Old Regime”
Aries “Centuries of Childhood”
Laslett “The World We Have Lost: The Early Modern Family
Monter “The Devil’s Handmaid: Women in the Age of Reformations”
Lecture/Discussion Topics
 The Middle Ages: Church, Feudalism and Intellectual Life
o The Role of the Church
o Scholasticism
o The Feudal System
o The Conciliar Movement
 The Renaissance: Italy
o Humanism
o Art
 The Northern Renaissance
o Differences and Similarities
 The New Monarchies
o Survey: The Consolidation of Power
o Foreign and Domestic Policy
 The Protestant Reformation
o Martin Luther
o Political Ramifications
o John Calvin
o The Reformation in England
 The Counter Reformation
o The Council of Trent
 Exploration
o Causes and Effects
 The Dutch Republic
 The Golden Age of Spain
o The Rise and Decline
o The Revolt of the Netherlands
 The Commercial Revolution
o Mercantilism
o Banking
AP EUROPEAN HISTORY
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The Wars of Religion
o The Thirty Years War
o The French Wars of Religion
 The Politiques
Social and Cultural Issues
o The Arts (outside of Italy)
o Women and Family
o Popular versus Elite culture
o SPRITE Chart (Social, Political/diplomatic, Religious, Intellectual,
Technological, and Economic)
Unit II 1650-1789
Text Reading
Palmer
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
The Establishment of West European Leadership
The Transformation of Eastern Europe
The Struggle for Wealth and Power
The Scientific Revolution
The Age of Enlightenment
Primary and Secondary Sources
Sherman
Frederick William “Monarchical Authority in Prussia”
Saint-Simon “Memoires: The Aristocracy Undermined”
Locke “Second Treatise of Civil Government: Legislative Power”
Frederick the Great “Political Testament”
Dafoe “The Complete English Tradesman”
Montagu “Letter to Lady R., 1716: Women and the Aristocracy”
“Women of the Third Estate”
Descartes “The Discourse on Method”
Galilei “Letter to Christina of Tuscany: Science and Scripture”
“The Papal Inquisition of 1633: Galileo Condemned”
Newton “Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy”
Kant “What is Enlightenment?”
d’Holbach “The System of Nature”
Diderot “Prospectus for the Encyclopedia of Arts and Sciences”
“The Philosophe”
Voltaire “Philosophical Dictionary: The English Model”
Wollstonecraft “A Vindication of the Rights of Women”
Rousseau “The Social Contract”
Visual Sources p. 20, 30-33, 46-47
Postan “Why Was Science Backward in the Middle Ages?”
Clark “Early Modern Europe: Motives for the Scientific Revolution”
Anderson and Zinsser “No Scientific Revolution for Women”
Roberts “The Ancien Regime: Ideals and Realities”
AP EUROPEAN HISTORY
Krieger “The Resurgent Aristocracy”
Blum “Lords and Peasants”
Wiesner “Women’s Work in Preindustrial Europe”
Crocker “The Age of Enlightenment”
Becker “The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth Century Philosophers”
Anderson and Zinsser “Women in the Salons”
Scott “The Problem of Enlightened Absolutism”
Lecture/Discussion Topics
 The Rise of the Nation-State
 Balance of Power
o Hapsburgs v. Bourbons
 Absolutism
 The Puritan Revolution
o Causes
o The Restoration
o The Glorious Revolution
 The France of Louis XIV
o Domestic Policy
o Foreign Affairs: Louis’ Wars
o Economic Problems
 Great Britain
o Rise of Parliament
o A New Industrial Order
o Conflict: Continent and Colonies
 France
o Problems with Absolute Monarchy
o Conflict: Continent and Colonies
 The Three Eastern Empires
o Centralization of Power
 Peter the Great
 The Rise of Prussia
 Problems of the Hapsburg Empire
o Problems of Serf Labor
 Economic characteristics of Eastern Europe
o Conflict
 The Scientific Revolution
o Causes
o People and Ideas
o Implications
 The Enlightenment
o Causes
o People and Ideas
 The Philosophes
 Political Theory
 Social Theory
AP EUROPEAN HISTORY
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 The Effect on Religion
Enlightened Despotism
o Characteristics
o Who were they?
o Theory versus Reality
Social and Cultural Issues
o Arts: Baroque
o Women and Family
o SPRITE Chart
Unit III 1789-1815
Text Readings
Palmer
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
The French Revolution
Napoleonic Europe
Primary and Secondary Readings
Sherman
Young “Travels in France: Signs of Revolution”
“The Cahiers: Discontents of the Third Estate”
Sieyes “What is the Third Estate?”
“The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen”
de Gouges “The Declaration of the Rights of Woman”
Robespierre “Speech to the National Convention –February 5, 1794: The
Terror Justified”
Joliclerc “A Soldier’s Letters to His Mother: Revolutionary Nationalism”
de Remusat “Memoirs: Napoleon’s Appeal”
Fouche “Memoirs: Napoleon’s Secret Police”
“Napoleon’s Diary”
Visual Sources p. 63-65, 75, 76
Lefebrvre “The Coming of the Revolution”
Sutherland “The Revolution of the Notables”
Graham “Loaves and Liberty: Women in the French Revolution”
Doyle “An Evaluation of the French Revolution”
Bergeron “France Under Napoleon: Napoleon as an Enlightened Despot”
Lyons “Napoleon Bonaparte and the Legacy of the French Revolution”
Smith “Women and the Napoleonic Code”
Holborn “The Congress of Vienna
Lecture/Discussion Topics
 The Old Regime
o Long Range Causes
 The Early Stages of the French Revolution
o Revolution in Paris
o Revolution in the Countryside
o Revolution in Politics
AP EUROPEAN HISTORY
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Foreign Reaction to the French Revolution
o Continental
o British
Later Stages of the French Revolution
o The Reign of Terror
o The Thermidorian Reaction
o The Directory
The Rise of Napoleon
o Domestic Affairs
o Foreign Affairs
The Fall of Napoleon
Consequences of the Revolution/Napoleon
The Congress of Vienna
o The Age of Metternich
Social and Cultural Issues
o Art: Neoclassicism
o Women and Family
o SPRITE Chart
Unit IV 1815-1850
Text Readings
Palmer
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Reaction Versus Progress
Revolution and the Reimposition of Order
Primary and Secondary Sources
Sherman
“Testimony for the Factory Act 1833: Working Conditions in England”
Disraeli “Sybil, or the Two Nations: Mining Towns”
Engels “The Condition of the Working Class in England”
Smiles “Self-Help: Middle-Class Attitudes”
Balzac “Father Goriot: Money and the Middle-Class”
Sandford “Woman in Her Social and Domestic Character”
Tristan “Women and the Working Class”
Metternich “Secret Memorandum to Tsar Alexander I, 1820: Conservative
Principles”
“The Carlsbad Decrees, 1819: Conservative Repression”
Bentham “English Liberalism”
“The First Chartist Petition: Demands for Change in England”
Annual Register, 1848 “An Eyewitness Account of the Revolutions of
1848 in Germany”
Wordsworth “The Tables Turned: The Glories of Nature”
Visual Sources p. 89-91, 104-107
Heilbroner “The Making of Economic Society: England, the First to
Industrialize”
Stearns and Chapman “Early Industrial Society: Progress or Decline?”
AP EUROPEAN HISTORY
Anderson “The Family and Industrialization in Western Europe”
Bramsted and Melluish “Western Liberalism”
Sperber “The Europeans Revolutions, 1848-1851”
Weiss “The Revolutions of 1848”
Lecture/Discussion Topics
 The Industrial Revolution
o Social effects
o Reform
 The “Isms”
o New Ideas
o Liberalism
o Romanticism
 Industrial Britain
o Political repercussions
o Economic considerations
 Discontent on the Continent
o Political
o Conditions of Working Class
o Nationalism
 Revolutions of 1830
 Revolutions of 1848
o France
o German States
o Austria
 Social and Cultural Issues
o Art: Romanticism, Realism
o Women and Family
o SPRITE Chart
Unit V 1850-1900
Text Readings
Palmer
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
The Consolidation of Large Nation-States
European Civilization 1871-1914: Economy and Politics
European Civilization 1871-1914: Society and Culture
Europe’s World Supremacy 1871-1914
Primary and Secondary Sources
Sherman
Bismarck “Speeches on Pragmatism and State Socialism”
Mazzini “The Duties of Man”
Treitschke “Militant Nationalism”
Fabri “Does Germany Need Colonies?”
Kipling “The White Man’s Burden”
Royal Niger Company “Controlling Africa: The Standard Treaty”
AP EUROPEAN HISTORY
Darwin “The Origin of Species and The Descent of Man”
Spencer “Social Statistics: Liberalism and Social Darwinism”
Mill “On Liberty”
Our Sisters “Women as Chemists (Pharmacists)
Marx and Engels, “The Communist Manifesto”
Maier “Socialist Women: Becoming a Socialist”
Pankhurst “Why We Are Militant”
Pope Pius IX “Syllabus of Errors”
Chamberlain “Foundations of the Nineteenth Century: Racism
Wagner “Judaism in Music: Anti-Semitism”
Visual Sources p. 118-121, 138-140
Grew “A Sterner Plan for Italian Unity: Nationalism, Liberalism, and
Conservatism”
Blackbourn “German Unification”
Hobshawn “The Age of Empire”
Hayes “Imperialism as a Nationalistic Phenomenon”
Headrick “Tools of Empire”
Stroebel “Gender and Empire”
Ulam “The Unfinished Revolution: Marxism Interpreted”
Reimer and Fout “European Women”
Lecture/Discussion Topics
 The Concept of the Nation-State
o realpolitik
 The Unification of Italy
o Cavour, Mazzini, Garibaldi
o The Role of France
o War and Diplomacy
 The Unification of Germany
o Bismarck: Blood and Iron
o Wars and Diplomacy
 The Dual-Monarchy
 The Russian Empire
o Reforms and Reaction
o Foreign Policy
 Western Europe
o Domestic Problems and Reform
o Survey
o Changing Demographics
 Imperialism
o The Race for Colonies
o Conflicts
 Social and Cultural Issues
o Art: Impressionism
o Women and Family
AP EUROPEAN HISTORY
o SPRITE Chart
Unit VI 1900-1945
Text Readings
Palmer
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
The First World War
The Russian Revolution
The Apparent Victory of Democracy
Democracy and Dictatorship
The Second World War
Primary and Secondary Sources
Sherman
“Report from the Front: The Battle for Verdun, 1916”
Owen “Dulce et Decorum Est: Disllusionment”
Blucher “The Home Front”
“Program of the Provisional Government in Russia”
Lenin “April Theses: The Bolshevik Opposition”
Lenin “Speech to the Petrograd Soviet- November 8, 1917: The
Bolsheviks in Power”
Wilson “The Fourteen Points”
Remarque “The Road Back”
Linke “Restless Days”
Hauser “With Germany’s Unemployed”
“Program of the Popular Front – January 11, 1936”
Gasset “The Revolt of the Moses”
Freud “Civilization and Its Discontents”
Mussolini “The Doctrine of Fascism”
Hitler “Mein Kampf”
Goebbels “Nazi Propaganda Pamphlet”
Diehl “The German Woman and National Socialism (Nazism)”
Kogon “The Theory and Practice of Hell: The Nazi Elite”
Bettelheim “The Informed Heart: Nazi Concentration Camps”
Baron “Witness to the Holocaust”
Stalin “Problems of Agrarian Policy in the U.S.S.R.: Soviet
Collectivization”
Stalin “Report to the Congress of Soviets, 1936: Soviet Democracy”
Visual Sources p. 153-155, 167-169, 183-184
Stromberg “The Origins World War I: Militant Patriotism”
Strandmann “Germany and the Coming of War”
Craig “The Revolution in War and Diplomacy”
Anderson and Zinsser “Women, Work, and World War I”
Walsworth “Peace and Diplomacy”
Service “The Russian Revolution”
Wohl “The Generation of 1914 “Disillusionment”
Crossman “Government and the Governed: The Interwar Years”
Laux “The Great Depression in Europe”
AP EUROPEAN HISTORY
Kedward “Fascism and Western Europe”
Carsten “The Rise of Fascism”
Fischer “Hitler and Fascism”
Goldhagen “Hitler’s Willing Executioners”
Lee “Dictatorship in Russia: Stalin’s Purges”
Lecture/Discussion Topics
 The Eve of War
 The Great War
o Causes: Long-term and immediate
o The Conduct of the War
o Victory and the Treaty of Versailles
o The Effects
 The Russian Revolutions
o Causes: Long-term and immediate
o 1905
o 1917
o Civil War
o The Bolshevik Program
 The Interwar Years
o The Great Depression
o Political Survey
o The Reflection of the Arts
 The Rise of Fascism
 World War II
o Causes
o German Triumphs
o Stalemate and the Turning of the Tide
o Allied Victory
o Results
 Social and Cultural Issues
o Art: Cubism, Expressionism, Surrealism, Modernism, Postmodernism
o Women and Family
o SPRITE Chart
Unit VII 1945-2000
Text Readings
Palmer
Chapter 22 “The Postwar Era: Cold War and Reconstruction”
Chapter 24 “A World Endangered: Coexistence and Confrontation in the
Cold War”
Chapter 25 “A World Transformed”
Primary and Secondary Resources
Sherman
“The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan”
Ponomaryov “The Cold War: A Soviet Perspective”
AP EUROPEAN HISTORY
Reich “The Berlin Wall”
Laidler “British Labor’s Rise to Power”
Beauvoir “The Second Sex”
Redstockings “A Feminist Manifesto”
Garthoff “The End of the Cold War”
Heilbroner “After Communism: Causes for the Collapse”
Leff “The Collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe”
Donia “War in Bosnia and Ethnic Cleansing”
Visual Sources 201-204
Kennan “Appeasement at Munich Attacked”
Taylor “The Origins of the Second World War: Appeasement Defended”
Gormly “Origins of the Cold War”
Fanon “The Wretched of the Earth”
Lecture/Discussion Topics
 The Cold War
o The Bipolar World
o Politics and Policies
 Containment
 Deterrence
 Collective Security
o Conflicts
 Postwar Adjustments of Western Europe
o Political Survey
o Economic Developments
 The Fall of Communism
o Mikhail Gorbachev
o Reform Movements
o 1989
o 1991
o Pax Americana?
 The Unification of Europe
 Social and Cultural Issues
o Art
o Women and Family
o SPRITE Chart
Final/AP Test Review