Modern Germany since 1871

- GE 30465 -

CRN 41348

TR 3:30-4:45

Cross-Lists: HIST 30465 & EURO 30203

FULFILLS UNIVERSITY / COLLEGE REQUIREMENTS

Liberal Arts 5 / 6: History (WKHI)

Arts & Letters college Requirement: History

Course description

This course begins in 1866, when Prussia’s victory over the Austrian Empire secured its hegemony in Central Europe, and ends with Germany’s integration into the European Union in 1992. Students will investigate the profound cultural, social, and political transformations that shaped Germany in this period. This course will pay particular attention to three themes. First, it will survey how German governments and actors negotiated the political claims generated by both national and religious diversity and rapid industrialization. Second, it will examine how German society, culture, and politics were influenced by its complex transnational relationships with other European states and overseas colonies. Finally, it will use German history to explore the evolution and practice of political ideologies like liberalism, socialism, and fascism. Topics will include: building the German Empire; World War I and the legacy of defeat; the Weimar Republic; National Socialism, World War II and the Holocaust; the divided German state during the Cold War; and reunification and European Integration. Class will combine lectures with analysis of primary sources.

Together, we will pursue two major objectives. First, Students will be introduced to the complexity of German history and Germany’s diverse interconnections with Europe and the modern world in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Students will learn important events, figures, social developments, and cultural movements.

Second, students will practice the skills of historical literacy. They will engage with important scholarship of German history (secondary literature), and learn to digest, synthesize, and even critique the arguments of other historians. They will learn to discern the larger ramifications of particular interpretations. Students will practice analyzing primary sources, and using historical evidence. They will learn to articulate and defend their own historical interpretations and arguments.

The Instructor