European Studies 218 - Modern Germany

(Offered as HIST 228 [EU] and EUST 218).  This course surveys the troubled history of the modern German nation-state, with a focus on culture, society, and politics.  Particular attention is paid to how, in both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, liberal ways of thinking that emerged from the Enlightenment clashed and sometimes merged with traditions of Prussian militarism and absolutism.  The course also emphasizes how German Social Democracy, the world's largest and best organized workers' movement, destabilized the nation-state while laying the foundation for progressive democracy.  Topics include absolutism, the old regime, the Enlightenment, the Napoleonic occupation, the 1848 revolution, unification and rule under Bismarck, German Jews before 1914, mass politics under Wilhelm II, the First World War, the Weimar Republic, the Nazi dictatorship, the Second World War and the Holocaust, the divided Germanys, and the Federal Republic since 1989.  The readings include one monograph but mostly primary source texts, such as diaries, speeches, political pamphlets, and magazine articles from the distant German past.  Students have to submit weekly written answers to questions on these texts and write five short essays.  In each, students must take a position in a debate or interpretation and support conclusions from the primary source texts.  Two class meetings per week.

Limited to 25 students.  Spring semester.  Five College Visiting Professor Donson.