HIST 712

Modern European History Colloquium: War, Politics and Culture in 20th Century Europe

(Graduate seminar)

Karen Hagemann

The British historian Eric Hobsbawm called the twentieth century “The Age of Extremes”, because it was characterized by revolutions, fascism, total wars, and dramatic social and cultural changes. These changes are usually described with the term ‘modernization’, a historical process, which was for a long time interpreted as progress. Historical research in the last two decades has increasingly shown the Janus face of twentieth century modernization: the rationalization of economy, society and culture, the increasing social control of every day live, the social and political exclusion of social groups because of their class, race, gender or religion. This colloquium we will discuss some of the major questions and themes of twentieth century European History with a focus on Britain, France and Germany. The major topic will be war, politics and culture. We will read and discuss important monographs that deal with the cultural and social preparation of war, societies in war and after war, their war memoirs, new forms of modern politics, and the politics and culture of modernization. The seminar introduces students to a broad variety of approaches in European History, in particular social history, political history, military history, cultural history, and gender history. The discussion of the different theoretical and methodological approaches of the authors, their use of primary documents and secondary literature and their strategies to develop and structure their argument, will be next to their major theses an important topic of the course.

The heart of the seminar is the discussion in class. The success of this discussion depends on the preparedness of all students. Everyone should have read the week’s assigned book before class. The sessions will center on their discussion. Participating in a group discussion is important both as a skill and as a learning opportunity. Preparation for and participation in the class discussions are therefore key requirements for this seminar.