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HIS-101 Modern Western Civilization: Enlightenme

This course investigates the social, political, intellectual, economic and cultural development of modern Western civilization, from the 18th century Enlightenment, through the French Revolution, Napoleon, the Industrial Revolution, and the turbulent 20th century. We will examine the distinctive features, values and structures of the West during the last three centuries, and explore its frequent interactions with the wider world during the 19th century Age of Imperialism and the Cold War, as well as its role in seismic global events, like WWI, WW2, and the Holocaust. This course carries SUNY General Education World History and Global Awareness credit.

Credits

3

Department

  • Social Science

Course Rotation Schedule

  • Fall: In Person, Online
  • Spring: In Person, Online, Hyflex
For more detailed course information view the Course Outline

HIS 101: Modern Western Civilization: Enlightenme

Department

Social Science

Course Description

This course investigates the social, political, intellectual, economic and cultural development of modern Western civilization, from the 18th century Enlightenment, through the French Revolution, Napoleon, the Industrial Revolution, and the turbulent 20th century. We will examine the distinctive features, values and structures of the West during the last three centuries, and explore its frequent interactions with the wider world during the 19th century Age of Imperialism and the Cold War, as well as its role in seismic global events, like WWI, WW2, and the Holocaust. This course carries SUNY General Education World History and Global Awareness credit.

Credit Hours

3

Contact Hours

Lecture3
Lab0
Other0

Grading Scheme

Letter

SUNY General Education Course

  • World Languages

Course Learning Outcomes

  1. Students will identify the major events, themes and issues of Western history from the 18th century to the present.
  2. Students will describe the interactions and interrelationships between the cultures of the West and those of other regions of the world in the modern era.
  3. Students will describe the distinctive features and unique structures and systems of Western civilization during the 18th - 20th centuries, and their impact on well-being and sustainability during the modern era.

Topic Outline

  1. 1. Legacy of the Middle Ages
  2. 2. The Scientific Revolution
  3.     a. Empiricism: from the "Age of Faith" to the "Age of Reason"
  4.     b. New technology: microscope, telescope, and printing press
  5.     c. The "new science": astronomy, physics, medicine, and chemistry
  6. 3. The 18th-century Enlightenment
  7.     a. Envisaging a more tolerant, rational, equitable, just, and humane society
  8.         i. New approaches to religion: deism, Voltaire, and religious toleration
  9.         ii. Locke, psychology, and educational reform
  10.         iii. Beccaria and judicial and penal reform
  11.         iv. Abolition of slavery
  12.         v. Rousseau and social equality
  13.         vi. Wollstonecraft and women's rights
  14.         vii. Locke, Montesquieu, and constitutional and representative government
  15.         viii. Adam Smith, economic science, and capitalism
  16.     b. Warfare in the Age of Reason
  17.     c. Enlightenment in action: the American Revolution, Declaration of Independence,
  18.        Constitution, and Bill of Rights
  19.     d. Diderot and the "information revolution"
  20.     e. Neoclassicism in art and music
  21. 4. French Revolution, 1789–99
  22.     a. Ancien Régime: absolutism, the Third Estate, and the origins of the Revolution
  23.     b. Moderate phase: reforms of the National Assembly, 1789–91
  24.     c. Radical phase: Robespierre and the Terror, 1792–94
  25.     d. Legacy of the French Revolution: radical utopianism, Romanticism, and
  26.        progressive reform
  27. 5. Napoleon: tyrant and reformer, 1799–1815
  28.     a. Napoleon: subverter of the Revolution
  29.         i. The Napoleonic art of warfare
  30.         ii. Imperial activities in Europe, the Middle East, North America, and the
  31.             Caribbean
  32.         iii. Napoleon's empire: exploitation and repression
  33.         iv. Napoleon's downfall and exile
  34.     b. Napoleon: preserver of the Revolution
  35.         i. Meritocracy, centralization, and administrative reform
  36.         ii. Religious reform: Concordat, 1805
  37.         iii. Legal reform: Napoleonic Code
  38.         iv. Educational reform: University of France
  39.         v. Economic reforms and public health initiatives
  40. 6. Industrial Revolution: blessing and curse for humanity, 1750–1900
  41.     a. Blessing for humanity
  42.         i. From traditional to modern society
  43.         ii. Mechanization, mass production, and the consumer revolution
  44.         iii. Technological innovations
  45.         iv. Age of iron and steam
  46.         v. Transportation and communications revolution
  47.         vi. Medical advances
  48.         vii. Rise of the middle class
  49.     b. Curse for humanity
  50.         i. Factory life and the rise of the industrial working class
  51.         ii. Urbanization and its problems
  52.         iii. Industrial revolution in warfare
  53.         iv. Global and environmental impacts
  54.     c. Cultural and artistic responses to industrialization: J. M. W. Turner,
  55.        realism, and impressionism
  56. 7. Progress and breakdown in the 19th century
  57.     a. Ideological ferment
  58.         i. Liberalism (Malthus and Mill)
  59.         ii. Radicalism (Paine and Bentham)
  60.         iii. Socialism (Saint-Simon, Fourier, and Owen)
  61.         iv. Positivism (Comte)
  62.         v. Marxism
  63.         vi. Feminism
  64.         vii. Anarchism
  65.     b. Political and social change: evolution (British "Age of Reform") and
  66.        revolution (1830 and 1848)
  67.     c. Scientific and intellectual change
  68.         i. Darwinism and evolution
  69.         ii. Pasteur, Koch, Lister, and the bacteriological and surgical revolution
  70.         iii. Age of irrationality: modernism, expressionism, and futurism
  71.         iv. Jung, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Kierkegaard, Freud, and modern
  72.             psychiatry
  73.     d. Nationalism
  74.         i. Nation-building (unification of Germany and Italy)
  75.         ii. National disintegration (Habsburg and Ottoman Empires)
  76. 8. Age of Imperialism: motivations, means, and impact, 1870–1914
  77.     a. Motives: economic, political, strategic, national, and ideological
  78.     b. Means: technological superiority, repression, collaboration, and disease
  79.     c. "The sun never sets": the British Empire in India, Africa, and the Far East
  80.     d. The "Scramble for Africa"
  81.     e. Legacy of imperialism: decolonization, global conflict, and "new imperialism"
  82. 9. World War I: history's first modern, industrial, total, and global conflict,
  83.    1914–19
  84.     a. Origins and causes
  85.     b. Deadlock on the Western Front: trench warfare
  86.     c. Total war: Verdun and the Somme
  87.     d. Technological developments and war in three dimensions
  88.     e. The war goes global: Africa, the Middle East, and the Pacific
  89.     f. Total war on the home front: mobilizing societies and the rise of the modern
  90.        interventionist state
  91.     g. 1918: year of victory and the armistice
  92.     h. The flawed Paris peace treaties of 1919
  93.         i. Germany and the Versailles Diktat
  94.         ii. Treaty of Sèvres and the making of the modern Middle East
  95.     i. Cultural responses to Armageddon: surrealism and Dada
  96. 10. Russian Revolution, 1917–22
  97.     a. Marxism, Lenin, and the "dictatorship of the proletariat"
  98.     b. The Bolsheviks seize power, 1917
  99.     c. Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
  100.     d. Russian Civil War
  101.     e. Emergence of the Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.)
  102.     f. The Comintern, Red Army, and NKVD
  103.     g. Soviet realism
  104. 11. The troubled 1930s: Great Depression, revisionism, Stalinism, and fascism
  105.     a. Peace, prosperity, and conciliation: the Roaring Twenties, 1920–29
  106.     b. Women's suffrage
  107.     c. The Great Depression, the crisis of democracy, and the end of international
  108.        cooperation
  109.     d. Mussolini, Italian fascism, and Mare Nostrum in the Mediterranean
  110.     e. Hitler and the rise of Nazism
  111.     f. The Third Reich: consolidation and Gleichschaltung
  112.     g. Stalinism: "socialism in one country," collectivization, forced
  113.        industrialization, the "Great Terror," and the purges of 1936–38
  114.     h. Spanish Civil War, 1936–39
  115. 12. World War II, 1939–45
  116.     a. Italian and Soviet revisionism, 1935–40
  117.     b. Hitler dismantles the Versailles system, 1933–39: Anschluss and Munich
  118.     c. The appeasement controversy
  119.     d. Blitzkrieg in the West, 1939–40
  120.     e. Eastern Front, 1941–43
  121.     f. The "second front" in North Africa and the Mediterranean, 1942–43
  122.     g. Total war and the home front
  123.     h. Hitler's Europe: collaboration and resistance
  124.     i. The tide turns, 1944–45
  125.     j. War in the air and sea
  126.     k. The Holocaust: from Kristallnacht to Auschwitz
  127.     l. War in the Pacific, 1937–45
  128.     m. Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the birth of the atomic age
  129.     n. Existentialism: Sartre, Heidegger, and de Beauvoir
  130. 13. Cold War, 1945–91
  131.     a. Communist takeover of Eastern Europe
  132.     b. NATO and Warsaw Pact containment, 1947–53
  133.     c. Escalation and crisis, 1953–71
  134.     d. European integration
  135.     e. Détente, 1972–79
  136.     f. "Second Cold War," 1979–85
  137.     g. Collapse of the Soviet Union