HIST 216: Europe, 1618–1939: From the Thirty Years’ War to the Age of Dictators (Rev. C3 & C4) Report a Broken Link

History 216: Europe, 1618–1939: From the Thirty Years’ War to the Age of Dictators surveys the most significant political, economic, social, religious, and intellectual trends in European history from the end of the sixteenth century to the 1930s. The course aims to provide both a description and an explanation of the forces that shaped the modern world, including the development of the nation state, military conflict, the intellectual movements of the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, industrialization, urbanization, nationalism, the spread of European industry, commerce, and culture to both the New World and the continents of Africa and Asia, and the development of new forms of government in the early twentieth century. The course also prepares students for further studies in history by emphasizing critical reading and essay writing skills.

Unit 1


Supplementary Readings
Halsall, Paul, ed. 2006. Internet Medieval Sourcebook. New York: Fordham Center for Medieval Studies.

Online collection of translated primary sources.

Southgate, Beverley. History: What & Why? Ancient, Modern and Postmodern Perspectives. London: Routledge, 1996.

Unit 2


Required Reading
Townshend, Charles, ed. The Oxford History of Modern War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Please read Chapter 2: The Military Revolution I: The Transition to Modern Warfare, by John Childs. Note that this is a large file that may take some time to download.

Supplementary Readings
Black, Jeremy. “A Military Revolution?” European Warfare, 1494–1660. London & New York: Routledge, 2005 [2002].
Halsall, Paul, comp. 2006. Internet Modern History Sourcebook.

Online collection of translated primary sources.

Harris, Tim. “The Legacy of the English Civil War: Rethinking the Revolution.” The European Legacy 5, no. 4 (2000): 501–514.
Hobsbawm, E. J. “The General Crisis of the European Economy in the 17th Century.” Past and Present 5 (May 1954): 33–53.
Holt, Mack P. The French Wars of Religion, 1562–1629. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Hurt, John J. Louis XIV and the Parlements: The Assertion of Royal Authority. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004.
Israel, Jonathan I. Dutch Primacy in World Trade, 1585–1740. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989.
Pincus, Steve. “The Glorious Revolution.” History Compass 1 (2003): 1–6.
Wilson, Peter. “European Warfare 1450–1815.” War in the Early Modern World. Edited by Jeremy Black. London: UCL Press, 2005 [1999].

Unit 3


Supplementary Readings
Bushkovitz, Paul. Peter the Great: The Struggle for Power, 16711725. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Faroqhi, Suraiya. The Ottoman Empire and the World Around It. London: I. B. Tauris, 2004.
Halsall, Paul, comp. 2006. Internet Modern History Sourcebook.

Online collection of translated primary sources.

Kotilaine, Jarmo, and Marshall Poe, eds. Modernizing Muscovy: Reform and Social Change in Seventeenth-Century Russia. London & New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004.
Sutherland, N. M. “The Origins of the Thirty Years’ War and the Structure of European Politics.” English Historical Review 107, no. 424 (July 1992): 587–625.

Unit 4


Required Reading
Outram, Dorinda. “Enlightenment Thinking About Gender.” In The Enlightenment, 80–95. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Supplementary Readings
Daston, Lorraine, and Katherine Park. Wonders and the Order of Nature 11501750. New York: Zone, 1998.
de Gouges, Olympe. “Declaration of the Rights of Woman, 1791.” In Women in Revolutionary Paris, 1789–1795. Edited by Darline Gay Levy, Harriet Branson Applewhite, and Mary Durham Johnson, 87–96. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1980.
Habermas, Jürgen, Sara Lennox, and Frank Lennox. “The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article (1964)”. New German Critique, No. 3 (Autumn, 1974): 49–55.
Halsall, Paul, comp. 2006. Internet Modern History Sourcebook.

Online collection of translated primary sources.

Israel, Jonathan I. Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man, 16701752. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Israel, Jonathan I. Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 16501750. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002 [2001].
Montesquieu (Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de la Brède et de Montesquieu). The Spirit of Laws. Translated by Thomas Nugent. Kitchener, CA: Batoche Books, 2000.

Unit 5


Required Reading
Blanning, Tim. “People.” In The Pursuit of Glory: Europe 16481815, 40–92. London: Penguin, 2008.
Supplementary Readings
Davis, David Brion. The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770–1823. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Halsall, Paul, comp. 2006. Internet Modern History Sourcebook.

Online collection of translated primary sources.

The National Archives [UK], Abolition of Slavery

Online collection of documents and illustrations.

Richardson, David. “The British Empire and the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1660–1807.” In The Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. II: The Eighteenth Century, 440–464 . Edited by P.J. Marshall. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

This book is no longer available online. You may request the book from the AU Library catalogue. Be sure to choose Volume II.

Thomson, Janice E. Mercenaries, Pirates, and Sovereigns: State-Building and Extraterritorial Violence in Early Modern Europe. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994.
Turley, David. The Culture of English Antislavery, 1780–1860. London: Routledge, 1991.
Ward, W. R. Early Evangelicalism: A Global Intellectual History, 1670–1789. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Unit 6


Required Reading
Bell, David A. “War's Red Altar.” In The First Total War: Napoleon's Europe and the Birth of Warfare as We Know It, 263–301. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2007.
Kates, Gary, ed. The French Revolution: Recent Debates and New Controversies. London: Taylor & Francis, 2002.

Please read Introduction, by Gary Kates.

Supplementary Readings
Burke, Edmund. Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). Yale University Press, 2003.
Conway, Stephen. “Britain and the Revolutionary Crisis, 1763–1791.” In The Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. II: The Eighteenth Century, 325–346. Edited by P.J. Marshall. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

This book is no longer available online. You may request the book from the AU Library catalogue. Be sure to choose Volume II.

Desan, Suzanne. The Family on Trial in Revolutionary France. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.
Doyle, William. The Oxford History of the French Revolution, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Dwyer, Philip G., and Peter McPhee, eds. The French Revolution and Napoleon: A Sourcebook. London: Routledge, 2002.

Online collection of translated primary sources.

Hufton, Olwen H. Women and the Limits of Citizenship in the French Revolution. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992.
Kates, Gary, ed. The French Revolution: Recent Debates and New Controversies. London: Routledge, 1998.
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution.

Online collections of essays, documents, images, and other sources.

Paine, Thomas. Rights of Man. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1984.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). Online at the University of Virginia Library’s E-Text Centre.

Unit 7


Required Readings
Blanning, T. C. W. The Oxford History of Modern Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Please read Chapter 2: The Industrialization of Modern Europe 1750–1914, by Clive Trebilcock.

Engels, Friedrich. The Condition of the Working Class in England. London: Electric Book Company, 2001.

Please read The Mining Proletariat and The Agricultural Proletariat.

Supplementary Readings
Halsall, Paul, comp. 2006. Internet Modern History Sourcebook.

Online collection of translated primary sources.

Blanning, T. C. W., ed. The Oxford History of Modern Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Engels, Friedrich. The Condition of the Working Class in England. Edited by Victor Kiernan. Germany, 1845; Penguin, 1987.
Frader, Laura L. The Industrial Revolution: A History in Documents. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Malthus, Thomas. An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798). London: Electric Book Company, 2001.
More, Charles. Understanding the Industrial Revolution. London: Routledge, 2000.
Ricardo, David. The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. London: Electric Book Company, 2001.
Temin, Peter. “Two Views of the British Industrial Revolution.” The Journal of Economic History 57, no. 1 (March 1997), 63–82.

Unit 8


Required Reading
Sperber, Jonathan. The European Revolutions, 1848–1851, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Please read Chapter 3: The Outbreak of Revolution.

Supplementary Readings
Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 2006.
Chapman, Tim. The Congress of Vienna: Origins, Processes and Results. London: Routledge, 1998.
Colley, Linda. Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837. London: Pimlico, 2003.
Porter, Andrew, ed. The Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. III: The Nineteenth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Please read Chapter 22: Ireland and Empire, which is in Part II of the book.

Fortescue, William. France and 1848: The End of Monarchy. London & New York: Routledge, 2005.
Grosby, Steven. Nationalism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Online collection of translated primary sources.
Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. The Communist Manifesto. London: Electric Book Company, 2001.
Sperber, Jonathan. The European Revolutions, 1848-1851, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Unit 9


Required Reading
Blanning, T. C. W. The Oxford History of Modern Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Please read Chapter 4: From Orders to Classes: European Society in the Nineteenth Century, by Pamela Pilbeam.

Supplementary Readings
Blanning, T. C. W., ed. The Oxford History of Modern Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Darwin, Charles. On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. London: Electric Book Company, 2001.
Halsall, Paul, comp. 2006. Internet Modern History Sourcebook.

Online collection of translated primary sources.

Merrick, Jeffrey, and Bryant T. Ragan, Jr., eds. Homosexuality in Modern France. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Perkin, Harold. The Origins of Modern English Society, 2nd ed. London: Taylor and Francis, 2004.
Perkin, Joan. Women and Marriage in Nineteenth-Century England. London: Taylor and Francis, 2004.
Scott, Joan Wallach. Gender and the Politics of History. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.
White, Chris, ed. Nineteenth-Century Writings on Homosexuality: A Sourcebook. London: Routledge, 1999.

Unit 10


Required Readings
Eley, Geoff. Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe, 1850–2000. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Please read Chapter 4: The Rise of Labor Movements: History’s Forward March.

Porter, Andrew, ed. The Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. III: The Nineteenth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Supplementary Readings
Abrams, Lynn. Bismarck and the German Empire, 1871–1918. London: Routledge, 2006.
Bew, Paul. Ireland: The Politics of Enmity, 1789–2006. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Brustein, William. Roots of Hate: Anti-Semitism in Europe Before the Holocaust. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Chapman, Tim. Imperial Russia 1801–1905. London: Routledge, 2001.
Eley, Geoff. Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe, 1850–2000. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Feuchtwanger, E. J. Bismarck. London: Routledge, 2002.
Halsall, Paul, comp. 2006. Internet Modern History Sourcebook.

Online collection of translated primary sources.

Quataert, Donald. The Ottoman Empire, 1700–1922, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Townshend, Charles. Terrorism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Unit 11


Required Readings
Parker, John, and Richard Rathbone. African History: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Please read Chapter 5: Colonialism in Africa.

Howard, Michael. The First World War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Please read Chapter 1: Europe in 1914. Please note that pages 1 and 2 may be reversed.

Supplementary Readings
BBC Animated map of the Battle of the Somme
Canada War Museum
Etherington, Norman, ed. Missions and Empire. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Halsall, Paul, comp. 2006. Internet Modern History Sourcebook.

Online collection of translated primary sources.

Brown, Judith M., and Wm. Roger Louis, eds. The Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. IV: The Twentieth Century, 114–137. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001 [1999].

Please read Chapter 5: The British Empire and the Great War, 1914–1918, by Robert Holland.

Howard, Michael. The First World War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Imperial War Museums (UK)
Read, Christopher. From Tsar to Soviets: The Russian People and their Revolution, 191721. London: UCL Press, 2005.
Smith, Bonnie G. Imperialism: A History in Documents. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Smith, S. A. The Russian Revolution: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Sondhaus, Lawrence. “The Dreadnought and the Origins of the First World War.” In Naval Warfare, 1815–1914, 197–224. London & New York: Routledge, 2000.
Wade, Rex A. Revolutionary Russia: New Approaches. London: Routledge, 2004.
Winter, Jay, ed. America and the Armenian Genocide of 1915. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Unit 12


Required Readings
Bock, Gisela. “Racism and Sexism in Nazi Germany: Motherhood, Compulsory Sterilization, and the State.” Signs 8, No. 3, Women and Violence (Spring, 1983): 400–421.
Bartov, Omer, ed. The Holocaust: Origins, Implementation, Aftermath. London, New York: Routledge, 2001.

Please read Chapter 2: Psychiatry, German Society and the “Euthanasia” Programme, by Michael Burleigh.

Supplementary Readings
Bartov, Omer, ed. The Holocaust: Origins, Implementation, Aftermath. London: Routledge, 2001.
Blinkhorn, Martin. Mussolini and Fascist Italy, 3rd ed. London: Routledge, 2006.
De Grazia, Victoria. How Fascism Ruled Women: Italy, 1922–1945. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.
Geary, Dick. Hitler and Nazism, 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2000.
Halsall, Paul, comp. 2006. Internet Modern History Sourcebook.

Online collection of translated primary sources.

Henig, Ruth. The Weimar Republic, 19191933. London: Routledge, 2002.
Lyttelton, Adrian. The Seizure of Power: Fascism in Italy, 1919–1929. London: Routledge, 2004.
Passmore, Kevin. Fascism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum