Modern European History

Units

1. 1

   Enlightenment and the old regime

   3 lessons

   1. Society and monarchy in the old regimeDescribe Europe's great powers in 1715, explain Louis XIV's absolute monarchy and its machinery, and show how the three estates of France divided privilege and the burden of taxation.
   2. The Enlightenment and the public sphereExplain what the Enlightenment was, name Voltaire, Montesquieu, Diderot and Kant and their main claims, and show how salons, journals and correspondence formed a public sphere in which ideas circulated.
   3. Enlightened absolutism and the partitions of PolandCompare the reforms of Frederick II, Catherine II and Joseph II, explain the limits of enlightened absolutism, and trace the three partitions of Poland in 1772, 1793 and 1795.
2. 2

   French Revolution and Napoleon

   3 lessons

   1. From fiscal crisis to revolution, 1789Explain how the French crown's fiscal crisis led to the Estates General, narrate the events from May to October 1789, and state the principles of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
   2. The Republic, war and the TerrorExplain how war and the fall of the monarchy led to the Republic and the Terror, describe the Committee of Public Safety and Robespierre's rule, and state how Thermidor ended it.
   3. Napoleon's empire and its fallExplain Napoleon's rise from Brumaire in 1799, follow the campaigns from Austerlitz in 1805 to the Russian invasion of 1812 and Waterloo in 1815, and describe the Congress of Vienna's redrawing of Europe.
3. 3

   Industrialization

   3 lessons

   1. Britain's industrial revolutionExplain why Britain industrialised first, trace the chain of coal, steam, iron and cotton innovations from 1712 to the 1830s, read the growth of cotton and iron output, and place the railways on a map.
   2. Industrialization on the continentExplain how industrialisation spread from Britain to Belgium, northern France and the German states, describe the role of the Zollverein of 1834 and of railways, and read the uneven industrial spread of 1850.
   3. Class, cities and the social questionDescribe urban growth in Manchester, Paris and Berlin, read Engels's account of Manchester and Chadwick's data on health, trace the factory acts, and distinguish the early socialist responses to the social question.
4. 4

   1848 and nationalism

   3 lessons

   1. The revolutions of 1848Trace the revolutions of 1848 from Paris in February to Vienna, Budapest, Berlin and the Frankfurt Parliament, and explain why most of them failed by 1849.
   2. Italian unificationExplain how Italy was unified between 1859 and 1870 through the diplomacy of Cavour and Piedmont, Garibaldi's Thousand of 1860 and the proclamation of the kingdom in 1861, and why the Risorgimento left a divided country.
   3. German unificationExplain how Bismarck unified Germany through three wars, against Denmark in 1864, Austria in 1866 and France in 1870 to 1871, ending with the empire proclaimed at Versailles in January 1871, and weigh the roles of diplomacy, military reform and nationalism.
5. 5

   Imperialism

   3 lessons

   1. The scramble for AfricaExplain the Berlin Conference of 1884 to 1885 and the partition of Africa by 1914, with Leopold's Congo and the Boer War as cases, and weigh the causes of the scramble.
   2. Empire in Asia and its justificationsDescribe British India after 1857, French Indochina and the Dutch East Indies on a map, and explain the justifications of empire, the civilizing mission and Hobson's 1902 critique of imperialism.
   3. Alliances and the road to 1914Explain the alliance blocs of the Triple Alliance and Triple Entente, the Anglo-German naval race in battleships, and the Moroccan and Balkan crises of 1905 to 1913 that made a general war more likely.
6. 6

   World War I and the Russian Revolution

   3 lessons

   1. The July crisis and the Western FrontNarrate the July crisis of 1914, from Sarajevo on 28 June through the ultimatum and mobilizations to war, explain the Schlieffen Plan and the Marne, and describe the trench line from the sea to Switzerland.
   2. Total war and the revolutions of 1917Describe the home front in total war, the battles of Verdun and the Somme in 1916, and the Russian revolutions of 1917, the February Revolution, the Soviets and the Bolshevik seizure of power in October, in a dated sequence.
   3. Armistice, Versailles and the new map of EuropeExplain the armistice of 11 November 1918, the Treaty of Versailles and its reparations, and the new states that replaced the Habsburg, Ottoman and Russian empires on a before and after map of Europe.
7. 7

   Interwar crisis and fascism

   3 lessons

   1. Weimar Germany and the Great DepressionExplain the Weimar Republic's early crises, the hyperinflation of 1923 and the Dawes Plan, the stability of 1924 to 1929, and how the Great Depression raised unemployment and the Nazi vote from 1928 to 1933.
   2. The Soviet Union from civil war to StalinDescribe the Russian Civil War of 1918 to 1921 on a map of Reds and Whites, the New Economic Policy of 1921, Stalin's rise, forced collectivization, the five-year plans with their output figures, and the Great Terror of 1937 to 1938.
   3. Fascism in Italy and Nazi GermanyCompare how Mussolini came to power through the March on Rome in 1922 and Hitler through his appointment in January 1933, and compare the two regimes on party, state, propaganda and terror.
8. 8

   World War II and the Holocaust

   3 lessons

   1. Appeasement and the outbreak of warExplain Hitler's expansion from the Rhineland in 1936 through the Anschluss and Munich in 1938 to the occupation of Prague and the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 1939, and why Britain and France appeased and then went to war over Poland.
   2. The war in Europe, 1939 to 1945Trace the war in Europe from the fall of France in 1940 through Operation Barbarossa in 1941, Stalingrad, D-Day in 1944 and the converging fronts of 1945, and explain why Germany lost.
   3. The HolocaustTrace the Holocaust from the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 and the ghettos through the mass shootings and the Wannsee Conference of 1942 to the killing centres, locate the main camps and deportation routes, and read the numbers killed and the voices of survivors.
9. 9

   Europe since 1945

   3 lessons

   1. Cold War divisionExplain how Europe was divided after 1945, with the Iron Curtain, the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan, NATO and the Warsaw Pact, the Berlin blockade of 1948 to 1949 and the building of the Wall in 1961.
   2. European integrationTrace how western Europe moved from the Coal and Steel Community of 1951 and the Treaty of Rome of 1957 to the single market, the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 and the enlargements of the European Union.
   3. 1989 and the end of Soviet controlExplain how Solidarity, Gorbachev's reforms and the peaceful revolutions of 1989 ended communist rule in eastern Europe, how the Berlin Wall fell on 9 November 1989, and how the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.