History 278: Twentieth-Century Europe

A social, cultural, and political history of Europe from World War I through the Fall of Communism in 1989. This course looks at the “Dark Century” of Europe: its (self) destruction in the First and Second World Wars and the Holocaust; its experiments with fascism, Nazism, and communism, and its attempts to overcome the past after 1945. The course looks at why Europeans were seduced by violence in the pre-1945 era and at how the post-1945 welfare state tried to answer earlier tensions. Significant time is spent on the early Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, but we also will look at social and cultural change in the post-1945 era, including decolonization and the rise of immigration to Europe. The class ends with a brief exploration of the Revolutions of 1989.