HIST 1001A: The Making of Europe
Summer 2017
Instructors: Hal Goldman and Meghan Lundrigan
In this full-summer course we will examine the history of European society from its origins in the ancient civilizations of the Near East up to the present day. During the early summer term we will study the period from antiquity to the Enlightenment. In that period, many of the fundamental ideas about culture, morality, religion, politics and law that underlay our modern Western society were developed. The first cities arose, writing was invented, class structures developed, and the great monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—so influential in the world today—gained influence. The peoples of classical Greece and Rome developed new ways by which people governed themselves. Invasions by German-speaking peoples disrupted European society and melded together Christian thought, classical traditions, and their own warrior values to create a new society that was identifiably “Western.” The history and ideas we will examine in the first term form the very foundations on which our modern Western society is built.
In the late summer term we will focus on the history of European society since 1600 AD. During that time, the major domestic enterprise undertaken by Europeans involved working out the appropriate relationship between individuals and their government. The struggle over this issue took place in the context of a society facing religious upheaval, rapid urbanization, industrialization, and technological advance. At the same time that Europeans were dealing with these internal conflicts, their involvement with the world’s other cultures and civilizations, underway since the fifteenth century, also picked up speed. Europe’s increasing domination of the rest of the world also raised serious questions for Europeans and the people with whom they came into contact.
Our challenge in this course is to understand all of these developments and the people who gave birth to them. We will see that the process of answering these questions did not work itself out solely in the political arena. Thus, for example, we will examine how the struggles of Europeans were reflected in their literature, art, and music as well. The course will consist of twice-weekly weekly classes consisting of lecture and discussion of assigned material. Assigned work each semester consists of quizzes, a short paper, a primary source assignment, and an end-of-term examination.