HSTR 502: Readings in Modern European History:

The Short Twentieth Century

Fall 2017

Robert H. Greene

Office Hours: LA 257A, W 1-3 and by appointment

Email:

Course Description & Goals:

This graduate colloquium explores classic and recent scholarship in European history from the First World War through the collapse of the Eastern Bloc – a period famously dubbed by British historian Eric Hobsbawm the “short twentieth century.” Our geographic focus is primarily Western and Central Europe, with longer and more frequent glances eastward as we move forward chronologically. A recurring theme that we will explore throughout the course is the influence of violence, particularly during the two world wars,on European political, social, and cultural development throughout the calamitous twentieth century. Specific topics will include the First World War and its legacies; the challenge to the liberal consensus posed by new extremistpolitical philosophies in the wake of Versailles; the Sonderweg thesis and the rise of German Nazism; racial thinking and eliminationist violence in the Second World War; postwar reconstruction and political and social reconfiguration; decolonization and the West’s divestment of its overseas empire; the origins of the Cold War; changing patterns of production and consumption on either side of the Iron Curtain; Europe’s changing relationship with the United States in the postwar world; and the role of historical memory (and forgetting) in the context of political change.

The chief goals of the course are to expose students to the major historiographical problems in the field, to investigate new and classical scholarly trends in modern European history, and to cultivate critical thinking, writing, and analytical skills.

This course is designed for History graduate students and presupposes no prior knowledge or intimate familiarity with modern European history. If you feel you need a brisk refresher on the general narrative of the twentieth century, see me and I can recommend (and/or let you borrow) some useful texts. Solid and thorough overviews of the field include Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes (1994); Mark Mazower, Dark Continent (1998); and Konrad H. Jarausch, Out of Ashes (2015).

Course Requirements:

Completion of assigned readings, faithful attendance in class, and engaged, active participation are essential for success in this course.

  1. Presentation: Students will be required to lead discussion (either singly or in pairs) twice during the semester. We will determine a presentation schedule for the semester in the first week of the course.
  2. Each presenter will email the class (myself included) a list of FIVE (5)discussion questions no later than Friday morning at 9.00 am. (see below).
  3. We will begin each class with opening remarks from the week’s presenter(s). Presenters will lay out the argument, structure, and historiographical significance of that week’s texts (both the assigned readings and supplementary articles). Presenters will provide a bit of basic information on the author’s background, areas of expertise, body of work, which will help to provide additional context for the discussion (you should always read up on the historians whom you’re reading). Presentations should be approx. 10-12 minutes and will summarize the themes, arguments, sources, and contribution of the reading(s) as well as relate the work(s) under consideration to both common andSupplemental course readings. Presenters should (ideally) engage with the questions submitted by fellow students, as well (see below). Overall, keep the presentations moving at a brisk pace; strive for clarity, succinctness, and insight.
  1. Writing assignments:
  2. Each student will writethree (3) 750-1000 word book reviews on the assigned texts. You will email the class (myself included) a copy of your review by 9.00 am on Fridaymorning. I strongly encourage you to read your comrades’ reviews in advance of our Friday meeting. You will bring a hard copy of the review (stapled and properly formatted) to class on Friday (12-point font, standard margins, word count at end of review).
  3. On weeks that are you presenting, you will write an extended 1500-word review of the book, in conjunction with the supplemental readings. Email the class (myself included) a copy of your extended review by 9.00 am on Friday morning. You will bring a hard copy of the extended review (stapled and properly formatted) to class on Friday (12-point font, standard margins, word count at end of review).
  4. Each week, you will email the group with at least five (5)thoughtful discussion questions on the week’s readings. These questions are in lieu of writing a book review. Discussion questions are due by 9.00am on Friday morning. Simply put your questions in the body of your email (not as an attachment).
  5. Doctoral students preparing an examination field with me in modern Europe should arrange a time to meet with me in the first few weeks of the semester to discuss additional assignments.

So, in sum, you will be responsible for producing:

  • Three book reviews (750-1000 words)
  • Two extended reviews (1500 words each) in the weeks you are presenting
  • Twelve sets of discussion questions

On Writing Book Reviews:

A book review should both summarize and critically analyze/appraise the author’s main arguments, use of evidence, historiographical approach, and conclusions. Ideally, the book review should also comment on the significance of the author’s contribution to the field. Reviews in Journal of Modern History, American Historical Review, and Past and Present are among the best for this purpose, but feel free to look at other journals as well. Use the formatting style of published reviews as a template for your review. When in doubt, don’t hesitate to ask me.

On Formulating Discussion Questions:

Your questions should engage with the big, substantive issues raised by the week’s readings, not minor arcana, mere summaries, or pub trivia. Your questions should engage with the methodology, argument, source base, and/or historiographical significance of the book, and should compel us to wrestle with the historical and historiographical stakes of the reading(s) we’re discussing. These questions must do more than ask us to repeat or summarize the content or approach of a particular text. Some of your questions might ask us to compare works across weeks. In weeks that you are presenting, at least two of your questions should engage with the supplemental articles/essays. In preparation for our discussions, all students are expected to consider their comrades’ questions thoroughly.

Books Available for Purchase:

  • ^ Alan Kramer, Dynamic of Destruction: Culture and Mass Killing in the First World War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007)
  • George L. Mosse, Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991)
  • * Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi, Fascist Spectacle: The Aesthetics of Power in Mussolini’s Italy (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997)
  • Enzo Traverso, The Origins of Nazi Violence (New York: The New Press, 2003)
  • * Peter Fritzsche, Life and Death in the Third Reich (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008)
  • ^ Alon Confino, A World Without Jews: The Nazi Imagination from Persecution to Genocide (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014)
  • ^ Tara Zahra, The Lost Children: Reconstructing Europe’s Families after World War II (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015)
  • Todd Shepard, The Invention of Decolonization: The Algerian War and the Remaking of France (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008)
  • * Edith Sheffer, Burned Bridge: How East and West Germans Made the Iron Curtain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011)
  • Victoria de Grazia, Irresistible Empire: America’s Advance through Twentieth-Century Europe (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005)
  • ^ Mary Neuberger, Balkan Smoke: Tobacco and the Making of Modern Bulgaria (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013)
  • ^ Katherine Verdery, Secrets and Truths: Ethnography in the Archive of Romania’s Secret Police (New York: Central European University Press, 2014)

(* = on 24-hour reserve at the circulation desk at the Mansfield Library)

(^ = e-book available through the Mansfield Library website; note: there might be limits on the number of simultaneous users)

The articles below marked “Supplemental” are available as PDFs on the HSTR 502 Moodle page.

Course Schedule:

September 1: Introduction to the Course

September 8: The Great War as Watershed

  • Alan Kramer, Dynamic of Destruction: Culture and Mass Killing in the First World War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007)
  • Supplemental:
  • Peter Holquist, “‘Information is the Alpha and Omega of Our Work’: Bolshevik Surveillance in Its Pan-European Context,” Journal of Modern History 69:3 (September 1997): 415-50
  • Andrew Donson, “Why Did German Youth Become Fascists? Nationalist Males Born 1900 to 1908 in War and Revolution,” Social History 31:3 (August 2006): 337-58

September 15: War and Memory

  • George L. Mosse, Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991)
  • Supplemental:
  • Belinda Davis, “Experience, Identity, and Memory: The Legacy of World War I,” Journal of Modern History 75:1 (March 2003): 111-31
  • Arno J. Mayer, “Post-War Nationalisms, 1918-1919,” Past and Present, no. 34 (July 1966): 114-26

September 22: Politics in a New Key

  • Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi, Fascist Spectacle: The Aesthetics of Power in Mussolini’s Italy (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997)
  • Supplemental:
  • Emilio Gentile, “Fascism as Political Religion,” Journal of Contemporary History25:2/3 (May – June 1990): 229-51
  • Robert O. Paxton, “The Five Stages of Fascism,” Journal of Modern History 70:1 (March 1998): 1-23

September 29: The “Peculiarities” of German History

  • Enzo Traverso, The Origins of Nazi Violence (New York: The New Press, 2003)
  • Supplemental:
  • George Steinmetz, “German Exceptionalism and the Origins of Nazism: The Career of a Concept,” in Stalinism and Nazism: Dictatorships in Comparison, ed. Ian Kershaw and Moshe Lewin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 251-84
  • Jürgen Kocka, “German History before Hitler: The Debate about the German Sonderweg,” Journal of Contemporary History 23:1 (January 1988): 3-16

October 6: “Everyday” Nazism

  • Peter Fritzsche, Life and Death in the Third Reich (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008)
  • Supplemental:
  • Alf Lüdtke, “The Appeal of Exterminating ‘Others’: German Workers and the Limits of Resistance,” Journal of Modern History 64, Supplement: Resistance Against the Third Reich (December 1992): S46-S67
  • Ian Kershaw, “Hitler and the Uniqueness of Nazism,” Journal of Contemporary History 39:2 (2004): 239-54

October 13: Perpetrators and Violence

  • Alon Confino, A World Without Jews: The Nazi Imagination from Persecution to Genocide (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014)
  • Supplemental:
  • Dirk Riedel, “A ‘Political Soldier’ and ‘Practitioner of Violence’: The Concentration Camp Commandant Hans Loritz,” Journal of Contemporary History 45:3 (2010): 555-75
  • Christopher R. Browning, “One Day in Jozefow: Initiation to Mass Murder,” in Lessons and Legacies: The Meaning of the Holocaust in a Changing World, ed. Peter Hayes (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1991), 196-209

October 20:Comparative and Transnational Histories

  • Tara Zahra, The Lost Children: Reconstructing Europe’s Families after World War II (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015)
  • Supplemental:
  • William H. Sewell, Jr., “Marc Bloch and the Logic of Comparative History,” History and Theory 6:2 (1967): 208-18
  • Ian Tyrrell, “Reflections on the Transnational Turn in United States History: Theory and Practice,” Journal of Global History 4:3 (November 2009): 453-74

October 27:Empire and Race

  • Todd Shepard, The Invention of Decolonization: The Algerian War and the Remaking of France (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008)
  • Supplemental:
  • Jordanna Bailkin, “Where Did the Empire Go? Archives and Decolonization in Britain,” American Historical Review 120:3 (June 2015): 884-99
  • Sarah Van Beurden, “The Value of Culture: Congolese Art and the Promotion of Belgian Colonialism (1945-1959),” History and Anthropology 24:4 (2013): 472-92

November 3: The Cold War

  • Edith Sheffer, Burned Bridge: How East and West Germans Made the Iron Curtain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011)
  • Supplemental:
  • Jan T. Gross, “Social Consequences of War: Preliminaries to the Study of Imposition of Communist Regimes in East Central Europe,” Eastern European Politics and Societies 3:2 (Spring 1989): 198-214
  • Federico Romero, “Cold War Historiography at the Crossroads,” Cold War History 14:4 (2014): 685-703

November 10: Veteran’s Day; NO CLASS

November 17:Gender and Social Change

  • Victoria de Grazia, Irresistible Empire: America’s Advance through Twentieth-Century Europe (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005)
  • Supplemental:
  • Mary Nolan, “Gender and Utopian Visions in a Post-Utopian Era: Americanism, Human Rights, Market Fundamentalism,” Central European History 44:1 (March 2011): 13-36
  • Mary Louise Roberts, “Gender, Consumption, and Commodity Culture,” American Historical Review 103:3 (June 1998): 817-44

November 24: Thanksgiving; NO CLASS

December 1: Culture and Consumption

  • Mary Neuberger, Balkan Smoke: Tobacco and the Making of Modern Bulgaria (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013)
  • Supplemental:
  • Andreas Wirsching, “From Work to Consumption: Transatlantic Visions of Individuality in Modern Mass Society,” Contemporary European History 20:1 (February 2011): 1-26
  • Jackie Clarke, “Work, Consumption, and Subjectivity in Postwar France: Moulinex and the Meanings of Domestic Appliances, 1950s-70s,” Journal of Contemporary History 47:4 (October 2012): 838-59

December 8: Memory Redux

  • Katherine Verdery, Secrets and Truths: Ethnography in the Archive of Romania’s Secret Police (New York: Central European University Press, 2014)
  • Supplemental:
  • Omer Bartov, “Eastern Europe as the Site of Genocide,” Journal of Modern History 80:3 (September 2008): 557-93
  • Maria Todorova, “The Mausoleum of Georgi Dimitrov as lieu de mémoire,” Journal of Modern History 78:2 (June 2006): 377-411

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