The best of times, the worst of times.... It was a century of extraordinary technological advances and, for many Europeans, of unprecedented prosperity. But it would have been difficult to guess in 1900 that Europe in the twentieth century would be devastated by two disastrous wars and that state-sponsored terror, torture, and genocide would erupt in the heart of the continent. And who would have predicted, before 1989, that the Soviet Union and its satellites would collapse so rapidly and so completely? As we enter a new century, it is now possible to place these catastrophes and transformations in historical perspective. Drawing on historical texts, memoirs, and films, History 30C offers a survey of European history from the outbreak of war in 1914 to the present.

Lecture notes and information about papers and examinations will be available on our course website: http://media.ucsc.edu/classes/thompson/history30c/

Please note that regular attendance of lectures and discussion sections attendance is one of the requirements for the course, along with a midterm examination (April 29), a 6-page paper (May 27), and a final examination (Tuesday, June 7@noon-3:00).

Schedule

1. THE TWENTIETH CENTURY (March 28-April 1)

European Civilization and Its Discontents--Churchill's Century--Origins of World War I
Reading: Harold James, Europe Reborn: A History, 1914-2000, chapter 1: "The Twentieth Century in an Iron Cage: Modernization and Rationalization"
Sebastian Haffner, Churchill, chapters 1-4

2. THE FIRST WORLD WAR (April 4-April 8)

Stalemate--Why Germany Lost--Peace
Reading: James, Europe Reborn, Chapter 2: "War and Peace: Lenin and Wilson"
Memoirs and fiction by Marc Bloch, Edmund Blunden, Vera Brittain, Guy Chapman, Robert Graves, Ernst JŸnger, Siegfried Sassoon, and Frederic Manning; poetry by Rupert Brooke, John McCrae, Alan Seeger, Charles Hamilton Sorley, Wilfred Owen, Isaac Rosenberg, Siegfried Sassoon; selections by Paul Fussell, Alistair Horne, and Denis Winter in The Great War Reader, ed. James Hannah

3. THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION (April 11-15)

Why Russia?--Lenin's Revolution--From Lenin to Stalin
Reading: Sebastian Haffner, Churchill, chapter 5: "The Reactionary"
Alexander Stille, Benevolence and Betrayal: Five Italian Jewish Families Under Fascism, Introduction, chapters 1-3 (Ovazzas, Foas, Di Verolis)

4. DICTATORS (April 18-22)

Fathoming Hitler--Mussolini and Fascism--National Socialism
Reading: James, Europe Reborn, chapter 3: "The 1920s: Precarious Democracy" and chapter 4: "Europe and the World of the Depression"
Sebastian Haffner, The Meaning of Hitler, chapters 1-5: "Life," "Achievements," "Successes," "Misconceptions," and "Mistakes"
Sebastian Haffner, Churchill, chapter 6: "One Against All"

5. DARK TIMES (April 25-29)

Terror--Appeasement and the Origins of the Second World War
Reading: James, Europe Reborn, chapter 5: "Peace and War: The International Order in the 1930s"
Adam Hochschild, The Unquiet Ghost: Russians Remember Stalin

MIDTERM EXAMINATION, Friday APRIL 29

6. WAR AND RESISTANCE (May 2-6)

Blitzkrieg--The Battle of Britain--Barbarossa
Reading: James, Europe Reborn, chapter 6: "The Second World War"
Sebastian Haffner, Churchill, chapter 7: "Dejaˆ vu: 1939-1940"
Lucie Aubrac, Outwitting the Gestapo

7. TOTAL WAR AND HOLOCAUST (May 9-13)

Occupation and Resistance--The War Against the Jews--Reckoning
Reading: Sebastian Haffner, Churchill, chapters 8 & 9: "The Man of Destiny" and "Triumph and Tragedy"
Sebastian Haffner, The Meaning of Hitler, chapter 6: "Crimes"
Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz

8. A HARD AND BITTER PEACE (May 16-20)

The Cold War Begins--After Stalin--Boom
Reading: James, Europe Reborn, chapters 7 and 8: "The Reconstruction of Europe, Western Style" and "Yalta and Communism: The Reconstruction of Europe, Eastern Style" 
Slavenka Drakulic, How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed

9. THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE SOVIET EMPIRE (May 23-27)

Brezhnev and Stagnation--Gorbachev and Perestroika--Endgame
Reading: James, Europe Reborn, chapters 9 and 10: "A Golden Age: the 1960s" and "The Limits to Growthmanship: the 1970s"
Stephen Kotkin, Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 1970-2000, chapters 1-4

PAPER DUE: MAY 27

10. THE VELVET REVOLUTION (June 1-3)

1989--After the Cold War:
Reading: James, Europe Reborn, chapters 11, 12 and 13: "Right Step: The 1980s," "Malta and Communism: 1989 and the Restoration of Europe," and "The Return to Europe: The New Politics and the End of the Cold War"
Stephen Kotkin, Armageddon Averted, chapters 5-7

MIDTERM EXAMINATION STUDY QUESTIONS

Two of the following questions will appear on the midterm examination (Friday, April 29). You will be asked to write an essay on one of these questions. In planning your essay, please feel free to draw on a wide range of sources (lectures, texts, films, etc.), but try to place the main emphasis on the course readings.

1. The First World War ended with the defeat of German militarism and shattering of the authoritarian monarchies and empires of Central and Eastern Europe. How then do you account for the ultimate failure of liberalism in the postwar era? What particular political, economic, and social factors tended to undermine the stability of European societies in this period?

2. The Bolsheviks, the Fascists, and the National Socialists created parties of a new type, designed less for electoral competition than for seizing and monopolizing political power. Choose any two of these three and compare and contrast them. Why were these parties successful? To whom did they appeal?

3. Wars in 20th-century European history have set new standards for brutality and ferocity. Choose any two of the major wars we have studied (the First World War, the Russian Civil War, the Spanish Civil War), and consider the reasons for the severity and the duration of each, paying special attention to the sufferings of both soldiers and civilians.

4. Lenin and Stalin, Mussolini and Hitler—the great dictators have cast long shadows across the landscape of 20th-century European history. Choose any two of these leaders and compare and contrast their personalities and strategies. How did they achieve, consolidate, and use (or abuse) their power?

5. Why did certain regimes in the period between the wars systematically persecute, imprison, torture, and murder large numbers of their own citizens?  Compare Stalin's terror with either Hitler's or Mussolini's.

SUGGESTIONS FOR PAPERS (Due May 27)

1. Resistance to oppression requires more than courage: it also implies a set of values or core beliefs that inspire action. Choose one or two of the texts we have read and examine the relationship between these basic convictions and the conduct of the author or the protagonists.

2. Some of the memoirs and poems we have read place their accent on irony or despair; others emphasize hope and solidarity. Compare any two of the memoirs of war, revolution, imperialism, and/or resistance we have read and contrast the moods of their authors. How does the particular historical situation or context of the work help to determine each author's margin of hope?

3. There is always a gap between ideology and practice, but that gap seems to have been particularly large in the case of 20th-century Communism. Compare and contrast the treatments of Communism in any two of the works we have read this quarter.

4. Several of the works we have read this quarter deal with the theme of survival: some of the memoirs and poems of the First World War; Lucie Aubrac's memoir of the French Resistance; Sebastian Haffner’s memoir of the rise of the Nazis; Primo Levi's memoir of Auschwitz; George Orwell’s memoir of the Spanish Civil War; Slavenka Drakulic's essays on daily life under a Communist regime. Compare any two of these works and consider why survival is an issue and how the protagonists survive.

5. What were the principal strengths and weaknesses of Churchill and Hitler as wartime leaders?  In what respects were the personalities and worldviews of the two men crucial factors in determining the shape and outcome of the Second World War?

FINAL EXAMINATION STUDY GUIDE

Two of the following questions will appear on the final examination, and you will be asked to write about one of them. In addition, we will have some brief identifications and passages drawn from the readings, and we will ask you to comment on them by relating them to one or more major trends in twentieth-century European history. THE FINAL EXAMINATION WILL BE GIVEN MONDAY, JUNE 7, from 12:00PM to 3:00PM.

1. Tocqueville says somewhere that the most dangerous time for an old regime is the moment when it begins to reform itself. Apply this insight to the USSR in the Gorbachev era.

2. Occupying one-sixth of the earth, endowed with abundant resources and a nuclear arsenal, a superpower for more than forty years, the Soviet Union collapsed like a house of cards in 1991. Identify and elucidate three or four factors that contributed to this unexpected disintegration. Which of these factors do you regard as most important?

3. Western European countries achieved unprecedented levels of prosperity in the decades after World War II.  How do you account for that success, and what factors, in recent years, have tended to emphasize its limits and precariousness?

4. Even in the era of “globalization” of the world’s economy and homogenization of its cultures, nationalism continues to be a potent force. It is arguably the most important force in 20th-century European history. How do you account for the continuing appeal of nationalism, particularly in Eastern Europe and the former Yugoslavia, in spite of the horrors of the first half of the century?

Lectures