Hist143 Europe and the Modern World Schedule F26

History 143 Fall Semester 2026 History 143 Fall Semester 2026 History 143

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Class Schedule

For a given day, the readings listed should be read in full by the class time. All readings are potentially the subject of reading quizzes, but the quizzes for the outside readings (such as Martin Guerre) are worth four regular reading quizzes, noted below.

Unit One: Europe from 1500 to 1800

Aug 26--Introduction
In class and for review: short film by Ollie Bye on the expansion and decline of the House of Habsburg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tlWHDYKej0

Aug 28--Long Ago and Far Away: The World of 1500
Read the Wikipedia entry of "The House of Tudor," but only the "Intro"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Tudor
Also, read an interesting modern medical history of Henry VIII
https://history-hub.chalkefestival.com/history-hub/mad-bad-and-dangerous-to-know-henry-viiis-medical-history-2/
And, finally, Chapter XVII from Nicolo Machiavelli's The Prince (published 1532)
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1232/1232-h/1232-h.htm#link2HCH0017

Aug 31--The State Emerges: Ottomans, Venetians,  Habsburgs, Tudors/Stuarts, Romanovs.
Read this short bio of Elizabeth I of England:
https://www.thoughtco.com/elizabeth-i-of-england-1221224

And watch this pretty good history of ireland up to its conquest by the English throne. Stop, if you like, around 10:20 minutes on the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcG4h3zqB1Y

And watch this very good video on the history and geography of Russia. You can stop at about 7:30 on the video, which is all we need for now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcM9TaPkn_c

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ireland
BUT only the sections under "History" called "Norman and English Invasions" and "Kingdom of Ireland"

Then read this
A Habsburg Primer, short essay by Hunt Tooley!

Sep 2--Material Life in Europe in the 1500s: Food, Work, Disease, Crisis, Witches!
For background to Copernicus's own writings, read:
   the introduction to the Copernicus entry in Wikipedia, and just skim through the rest of the article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolaus_Copernicus

Then read the Intro to Nicolas Copernicus's great work at http://www.bartleby.com/39/12.html
    (Be careful: Copernicus was not Galileo. Read the intro carefully: Whom does he thank?)

Also, here is the class powerpoint for reference. You don't need to look at this before class.
Witches!

Sep 4--Technology, Economy, State, Discovery, and the Columbian Exchange
read only the short intro to the Wikipedia article on the Great Debasement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Debasement

Watch this crazy but accurate video on Jakob Fugger (!) From "History Bites":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=og-yA0Vd8Kc&t=13s

And watch this video by John Green of Crash Courses on the Spanish Empire and more:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjhIzemLdos

Sep 7--Europe Goes Global: Exploration, Trade, and Conquest
Read the whole article from Wikipedia on the Columbian Exchange
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_exchange

Sep 9--Religion and State: The Protestant Reformation
Read the History.com short history of the Protestant Reformation
And watch an excerpt from the superb 2003 film, Luther: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1YS5JuVGUA

Sep 11--The Reformation (Cont.) and the Thirty Years War
Read this short biography of John Calvin:
https://www.notablebiographies.com/Ca-Ch/Calvin-John.html
and
Wikipedia on the Thirty Years War: INTRO to the article only (in other words, only up to but not including "Contents")
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years%27_War
and read carefully this very brief primary (this means "eyewitness") account of the Siege of Magdeburg during the Thirty Years War and the little intro
https://germanhistorydocs.org/en/from-the-reformations-to-the-thirty-years-war-1500-1648/a-local-apocalypse-the-sack-of-magdeburg-1631

Sep 14-Class discussion of The Return of Martin Guerre
For class, a quadruple-value reading quiz on the book, with special emphasis on the SOURCES of the Martin Guerre episode in particular (meaning, what kinds of evidence does Davis use in reconstructing the story or narrative--records, testimonies, and things like that).

Sep 16--Absolutism.
Read the Wikipedia entry on Bossuet (Intro of the article only): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques-B%C3%A9nigne_Bossuet
and the Wikipedia entry on Colbertism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colbertism
--in the Colbertism article, read only to, and not including, "Industry Reforms"
    Bossuet on kingship:
https://history.hanover.edu/texts/bossuet.html
accounts of Louis XIV:
http://history.hanover.edu/texts/louisxiv.html
(please read these thoroughly and try to envision what is being told.)

Sep 18--Responses to Absolutism: Tax Revolt and Other Rebellions
Read Etienne de la Boëtie, Discourse of Voluntary Servitude. This is the whole book in pdf form: http://mises.org/rothbard/boetie.pdf. You need read only pp. 7-12 of Rothbard's intro and pp. 39-45 of the text itself.
    John Locke, Second Treatise: Of Civil Government. Sections related to rebellion and tyranny, from paragraph 220 to the end:
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch3s2.html
    Peasant and regional protest:
    The seventeenth-century "croquants" in southern France: https://mises.org/mises-daily/peasants-rise-croquants-17th-century

Sep 21--The Age of Reason: The Scientific Revolution
Read the Intro only of the Wikipedia entry on the Scientific Revolution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Revolution
Map Quiz 1 at the beginning of class

Sep 23--The Enlightenment
Watch the CrashCourse video on the Enlightenment (16 min.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnoFj2cMRLY
And Read:
From Lady Wortley Montagu's letters, 1717:  http://www.fordham.edu/Halsall/mod/montagu-smallpox.asp
From the Italian philosophe Cesare Beccaria, on crime an punishment:  http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/18beccaria.asp
Wikipedia on the Scottish Enlightenment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Enlightenment
(read down to, and not including, the subsection "Significance."

Sep 25--The Enlightenment and Enlightened Monarchies.
From Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations (1776):  http://www.fordham.edu/Halsall/mod/1776asmith-mercsys.asp

a selection of passages pertaining to the great French "salons" of the Enlightenment:  http://www.fordham.edu/Halsall/mod/18salons.asp

Wikipedia on Thomas Jefferson and religion:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson_and_religion
On this one, only down to "Disestablishment of religion in Virginia."

Wikipedia on Enlightened Absolutists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightened_absolutism
Read only down to the section "Modern use"

Sep 28--The Origins of the French Revolution.
--Short "lecture" on the origins of the FR: youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5Z4SZ6ESM
And read:
--Tooley Info sheet:  http://artemis.austincollege.edu/acad/history/htooley/Hist143FrenchRevHdt.html
--Cahier de doléances from Carcasonne: http://history.hanover.edu/texts/cahier.htm l

Sep 30--The French Revolution
Listen to a short lecture piece which might help set the stage:
Presentation with sound: Rousseau and the Late Enlightenment
CHECK for sound etc.
(to play the sound and automatic timing, go to the TAB Slideshow and then bit the button "Play from Start")

Also read about the Levee en masse, a military recruitment on steriods: https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/1793levee.asp

And Edmund Burke (1729-1797) on the execution of Marie Antoinette:  https://www.historyplace.com/speeches/burke.htm

Oct 2--From Revolution and Napoleon.
Map Quiz 2 at the beginning of class
And watch another John Green Crash Course, this one on Napoleon:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pd6E38FfuMg

Oct 5-- Romanticism and Post-revolutionary Europe.
Short powerpoint, no sound, mostly informational.
See also the Info Sheet
THE SHORT NINETEENTH CENTURY: LIBERALISM. REFORM, and NATIONALISM
And read the lyrics of Schiller's/Beethoven's "Ode to Joy"
http://classicalmusic.about.com/od/romanticperiodsymphonies/qt/Beethovenjoytxt.htm
and William Wordsworth's poem "We Are Seven"
http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww124.html

Oct 7-- Midterm Exam: Bring a test booklet (green or blue book). Go to the restroom before class. You must write the test in non-eraseable pen--no pencils or eraseable pens--seriously

Oct 9--No Class: Fall Break

Oct 12--The Industrial Revolution, and Liberal Economics and Culture
Wikipedia on the Industrial Revolution:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution
(on this one, just read the INTRO and then skip down to "The Factory System" and "Standards of Living"

Oct 14--Charles Dickens, Hard Times
Read the short Intro to Wikipedia on Dickens
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dickens

And read all of Dickens, Hard Times. And please read carefully. Bring your book to class, either paper or electronic. Be ready to talk about it!
The reading quiz will count as four regular reading quizzes.

Oct 16--Nations, Peoples, and Nationalisms, 1815-1900. Tooley Info sheet: http://artemis.austincollege.edu/acad/history/htooley/Hist143NatHdt.html
Arndt, "Where is the German Fatherland?":  http://www.fordham.edu/Halsall/mod/arndt-vaterland.asp
Proclamation of the Irish Republic, Easter 1916: http://www.fordham.edu/Halsall/mod/1916proc.jpg
Read the Gilbert and Sullivan song lyrics from the 1879 comic opera Pirates of Penzance, by the famous British writing team, Arthur S. Sullivan and W.S. Gilbert.
  https://genius.com/Gilbert-and-sullivan-for-he-is-an-englishman-annotated

Oct 19--The Origins of the Great War
Tooley, The Great War (read chapter one on the origins of the war)

Oct 21--World War I. Read parts of the Wikipedia entry on World War I: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I
Read the intro. Then skip down to "Progress of the War" and read down to but not including section 5 "Aftermath."
This is the equivalent of about 20 pages in a book or journal, so be sure to allot plenty of time.

Oct 23--The Bolshevik Revolution. The Bolshevik Revolution and the Rise of Stalin. (Map Quiz 2 at the beginning of class.)
Watch and listen to a powerpoint of mine, about 15 min. long.
Powerpoint on the Two Russian Revolutions of 1917
(this is with sound--just play from the beginning. I just realized that close to the beginning of the recording, I called the powers of Britain/France/Russia etc. as the Central Powers. Just a slip of the tongue. These were the Allied or Entente powers. The Germans/Aust-Hung/Ottomans etc. were the Central Powers.)

Oct 26--The Paris Peace, 1919-1920
Read these entries from a blog I wrote a few years back:
http://parispeace1919.blogspot.com/2009/06/framework-of-events-mayjune-at-paris.html
http://parispeace1919.blogspot.com/2009/06/diktat-i.html
http://parispeace1919.blogspot.com/2009/07/diktat-ii.html
http://parispeace1919.blogspot.com/2009/09/when-i-left-off-speaking-of-diktat-i.html

Oct 28--The Rise of Hitler
Read this short bio of Hitler's early life from the Holocaust Museum site:
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/adolf-hitler-early-years-1889-1921
AND--view/listen to these two ppts of mine: give these time to download. It might take a minute or two.
Comparative Totalitarians. 11 min
The Depression and the Nazis. 6 min
If the sound doesn't work, you can still read through them, I hope. They should help make sense of the twenties and thirties

Oct 30--The Interwar Period: Stalin, the Spanish Civil War, and the Coming of World War II
Watch this very solid bio of Stalin and his road to the Red Terror:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqfcpNrcGb0&t=32s

Nov 2--War...
Reading:
look carefully at Tooley Info sheet:
InfoTotalitarians
and the info sheet on WWII:
WORLD WAR II: CHRONOLOGY AND PHASES

Nov 4--...and Holocaust
Read ALL of Dry Tears (quadruple value reading quiz) AND
Read Himmler’s “Posen speech”
You should read the carefully documented Nizkor page on how this recording came about:
http://www.nizkor.com/hweb/people/h/himmler-heinrich/posen/oct-04-43/index.html
The translation of the short, particularly gruesome part of the part of the speech that you need to read is in a link that is a little hard to find. It is:
http://www.nizkor.com/hweb/people/h/himmler-heinrich/posen/oct-04-43/ausrottung-transl-nizkor.html
AND you might try listening to some of the audio linked on both pages (one of the files should work for you). The tone of Himmler's voice alone is worth listening to as he discusses the in-progress Holocaust
Be ready for a 4X value reading quiz on Dry Tears.

Nov 6--Origins of the Cold War
Read the Wikipedia entry on the Cold War, but ONLY the "intro" (down to "Contents")
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War
Also, watch this basically accurate history of the Cold War on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF3u8Ju9aAg

Nov 9--Cold War II. Map Quiz 3 at the beginning of class.
Tooley Info sheet: http://artemis.austincollege.edu/acad/history/htooley/ChronEurPost45.html
Watch this pretty good, and brief documentary on the Berlin Airlift. Only 11 minutes, it is pretty accurate for the big picture. The background material is good, too.
And watch the little TedEx documentary on the Berlin Wall, written by historian Konrad Jarausch (6.5 minutes). It is quite accurate. The Wall went up in 1961.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9fQPzZ1-hg
Konrad Jarausch was an outstanding American historian of Germany at the University of North Carolina.
Map 3 Quiz at the beginning of class

Nov 11--Decolonization
read the US State Department's short history of this vast subject:
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/asia-and-africa

Nov 13--No Class--Inauguration of President Cantor!

Nov 16--The West: Migration: Gastarbeiter, Asylum, and More (Map Quiz 3 at the beginning of class.)
AN INFORMAL CHRONOLOGY OF EUROPE SINCE 1945

Nov 18---Eastern Europe: The Soviet Empire in the Seventies and Eighties.
Read this CIA intelligence report from Dec. 1982 (two months after the death of Brezhnev and the beginning of Andropov's short tenure as head of the USSR). The report is aimed at informing officials in the Reagan administration. Think carefully about the conditions it describes and the policy options it lays out.
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1981-88v03/d251

Nov 20--Gorbachev and the world in the late 1980s.
Listen to these two speeches.
The first is Mikhail Gorbachev extending season's greetings to the US on Dec. 31, 1987
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TORzXd5QHXo
The second is Ronald Reagan's famous "Tear Down this Wall" speech. It took place right by the Berlin Wall on Dec. 6, 1987. Please listen at the very least up to 12:10.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MDFX-dNtsM

THANKSGIVING BREAK

Nov 30--The Fall of Communism
Read the US State Department history page on the fall of Communism in Europe, 1989/90:
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1989-1992/fall-of-communism
Also read the entire Wikipedia entry on Gorbachev:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorbachev
Tank Man at Tiananmen Square:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrQqDqOx3KY

Dec 2--Europe in the 2000s
Powerpoint without sound for the last two classes
Please read this powerpoint carefully. This is to give you the general info for the last two classes.

Dec 4--Wrapping Up: Some review and some special issues, including the Russo-Ukrainian War
no reading

NOTES--LOOK OVER LAST BIT AND REPLACE SOME READINGS WITH VIDEOS