HIST 242: Early Modern Europe

Spring 2003

 

Course Description and Requirements

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Course Description

This course is an investigation of period between the "end" of the Middle Ages and the coming of the French Revolution, or roughly from 1350-1789.  Commonly known as the Early Modern, this era encompasses key historical developments that mark the gradual transformation of the medieval world to modernity.  Our goal is to understand both the major developments in the transition to a modern world - characterized by the importance of science, technological progress, secular civic politics and capitalist economics, all monitored by the nation state - and the various approaches historians have taken to analyze the period.  To this end, this course provides a rigorous and comprehensive introduction to twelve important topics in the history of early modern Europe, each seen from a different historiographical perspective.

Course Requirements

You will have to write three 7- to 8-page papers.  These will be comparative critical analyses of two of the books in each of the topical course subdivisions.  Each paper will account for 20% of your final grade.

   

You will also be responsible for facilitating (that is, leading) discussion on one of the assigned books.  This means that you must prepare leading questions to start up discussion, and be prepared to answer questions on both the factual material and  the  scholar's methodology.  Consulting scholarly reviews on your selected book will help you better prepare for this  assignment.  Your Discussion Facilitation will account for 20% of your final grade.

 

Finally, you are expected to participate fully in class discussion.  This means that you need to have read and critically thought about each week's assignment.  You must also be engaged in the discussion - the success of our class depends on it.  Therefore, participation will account for the remaining 20% of your final grade.  For details about the attendance and participation policies, see the Course Policies page.

 

 

Required Readings

  • Beik, William.  Absolutism and Society in Seventeenth-Century France: State Power and Provincial Aristocracy in Languedoc.  Cambridge University Press, 1990.

  • Bouwsma, William J.  John Calvin: A Sixteenth Century Portrait.  Oxford University Press, 1989.

  • Dear, Peter R. Revolutionizing the Sciences: European Knowledge and Its Ambitions, 1500-1700.  Princeton University Press, 2001.

  • Dewald, Jonathan. The European Nobility, 1400-1800. Cambridge University Press, 1995.

  • Furet, Francois.  Interpreting the French Revolution.  Cambridge University Press, 1990.

  • Goodman, Dena.  Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment.  Cornell University Press, 1996.

  • Hale, John R.  The Civilization of Europe in the Renaissance.  Simon & Schuster, 1995.

  • Martines, Lauro.  Power and Imagination.  Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988.

  • O'Malley, John W.  Trent and All That: Renaming Catholicism in the Early Modern Era.  Harvard University Press, 2002.

  • Parker, Geoffrey.  Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500-1800.  Cambridge University Press, 1996.

  • Wiesner, Merry E.  Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe.  Cambridge University Press, 2000

  • Zemon Davis, Natalie.  The Return of Martin Guerre.  Harvard University Press, 1984.