Topics that will be discussed in class are listed here. Each week readings will be made available on Moodle.
Week 1. Sep. 2-4: Napoleon and the legacy of the French revolution
Week 2 Sep. 9-11: The European environment and the British industrial revolution
Week 3 Sep. 16-18: The new French revolutions
Make up: Sep. 20: The Greek war of independence
Week 4. Sep. 23-25: Karl Marx and the Communist Manifesto
Week 5. Sep. 30-Oct. 2: The question of German unification: Napoleon to Bismarck
Week 6. Oct. 7-9: France: art, poetry, literature
Week 7. Oct. 14-16: The Russian dilemmas: tradition and modernization
Week 8. Oct.21-28: Queen Victoria and the making of the British Empire
Week 9. Oct. 28-30: The return of nationalism: Italy, Poland, Hungary
Week 10. Nov. 4-6: Napoleon III and the rebuilding of Paris
Week 11. Nov. 11-13: E.D. Morel: Congo and the “Belgian atrocities”
Week 12: Nov. 18-20: The scramble for Africa. The “strong brown God”
Week 13: Nov. 25-27: Economic imperialism? Kerala and the world rubber industry
Week 14: Dec. 2-4: War and peace: Sir Norman Angell and The Great Illusion
Readings will include excerpts and chapters from:
N. Bonaparte, Memoirs of the History of France
F. Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England
E. Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolutions
D. Pinkney, Napoleon III and the Rebuilding of Paris
R. Robinson, J. Gallagher, Africa and the Victorians. The Official Mind of Imperialism
E. Radzinskij, Alexander II
A.J.P. Taylor, The Struggle for Mastery in Europe
E.P. Thompson, The making of the English Working Class
D. Worster (ed.), The Ends of the Earth. Perspectives on Environmental History