SYLLABUS

HST 303: MODERN EUROPE IN THE 20TH CENTURY
Alan Kimball, McKenzie 367, 346-4813. Office hours =
KIMBALL@UOREGON.EDU

GTF:

Course materials are in the course source book, in Knight Library, in lectures, and on the course webpage.  You will purchase the course source book, Perry, Berg and Krukones, Sources of Twentieth-century Europe, and a lab book. In the lab book, you will keep a record of readings, library work and webpage work, draft two take-home "draft" essays, & write your midterm & final exams. The journal will contain all your own work for the course. You will take notes on lectures in a separate notebook.  Here is a basic calendar of the term's work:

!! ap19------------------FIRST SUBMISSION OF JOURNAL
!! my03:---------------- MIDTERM EXAM IN JOURNAL, FIRST TAKE-HOME ESSAY
!! je10:at 15:15pm ----FINAL EXAM IN JOURNAL, WITH SECOND ESSAY

First assignment:  Purchase a gray-blue canvas lab book (9x7 inches; Stock # 43-571, JUST EXACTLY THIS ONE; ask at the customer service desk in the basement of the UO Book Store). The first thing I want you to do with your lab book (let’s call it the journal) is paste a white label securely to the outer upper right-hand corner of the front cover (a mailing label will do). Boldly inscribe your name there. Please leave the inside cover & the first 5-6 pages blank for keeping your own table of contents & a comprehensive, numbered list of books & other library material consulted. It is your responsibility to guide the reader to each part of the journal. Leave the final two pages of the lab book blank for my comments & grading. Separate from the journal, keep another notebook for lecture, course handouts, etc. The journal is where you keep a record of YOUR WORK, and the notebook is where you keep a record of MY WORK.

Second assignment: Locate this course on the following webpage
[© Alan Kimball]:

    http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~kimball/courses.htm

These first two and ten further assignments are listed and explained on the course website.

ABOUT GRADES: Essays & exams are due at the time the class meets on the days specified. Late assignments are penalized one grade. Assignments AWOL 24 hours after due date are given a failing grade. Failure to complete any one of the essays or exams will result in a failing grade for the course. Unpenalized postponement of an assignment is possible only when documented illness or happenstance forces delay, or when arranged in writing beforehand. If you attend class regularly, keep a good lecture notebook, devote eight or nine hours of your study-week to your reading & writing, & keep a good record in your journal, you may be sure that you are meeting course expectations.

 

 

A Numbered Summary of
Twelve Specific Assignments

1)  Purchase and set up your journal, as instructed on the one-page hand-out syllabus.  In this journal you will keep a record of all website and library work through the term. The journal is a record of all your own work, and I have composed an extended description of how to employ the journal to help you with this exercise. Keep lecture notes and other handouts in a separate notebook. The journal is where you keep a record of YOUR WORK, and the notebook is where you keep a record of MY WORK.

 

2)  The course website.  In the first days of the term, read through descriptions of all 12 assignments here, including linkages to auxiliary explanatory pages. Get a feel for the larger shape of course requirements. It seems a lot when considered all together, but remember the old proverb: "inch by inch, life's a cinch; mile by mile, life's a trial".

Read "Ways of Seeing History" (which links to three "sub-essays": "Taxonomy", "Interests", and "Dozen Categories").  This is a "philosophical" discussion of the technical peculiarities involved in this course.

Most of the technical peculiarities you will meet in this course are connected with what I call the Student's Annotated Chronology and Systematic Bibliography [SAC © Alan Kimball]. Follow that hypertext link and read the explanation of how to use SAC, including "SOME IMPORTANT CONCLUDING THOUGHTS ABOUT SAC".

You may print any part of the electronic material I provide this class & place it in your lecture notebook. All of your own notes on internet and library materials should be in your journal.

Class attendance is essential for the successful completion of this course. The course does not "happen" on the internet or even in the library; it happens when you bring the internet and library materials into contact with lectures in order to expand and refine that most important historical arena: Your own mind.

 

3) You may then jump directly to the time period of our course.

First I must say that "the historian's twentieth century" runs from approximately 1885 to 1992. Notice that the opening date (terminus a quo) and the final date (terminus ad quem) are underlined and thus provide a hypertext link to SAC entries that represent something like event bookends for our twentieth-century European adventure. Here is a taxonomized "snap shot" of some main features of our history [UNDER CONSTRUCTION; these entries will be linked to SAC] =

I. Mentalities = "The Age of Everything"
   Moral absolutism vs. "pragmatism"
   Science and scientism    "Uncertainty"    New spiritualism    Existentialism
   "Banquet Years"    "Art at the end of its tether" = artists vs. their audiences   James Joyce
   Science fiction    anti-utopianism        Pop-culture      Irony, scepticism and cynicism
   Darwin(ism)  Marx(ism)  Nietzsche   Freud(ianism)    Weber   "behaviorism"  Keynes   McLuhan

II. Institutions = Liberal tradition victorious and then on the ropes
    Churches  Public education     Print medium      Electronic medium    censorship
    Liberal government challenged by radical right and left
    Political parties = one, two or multiple party systems; "cadre parties"
    "managerial revolution"    "totalitarianism"
    neo-federalism (devolution) vs. unification = NATO, EU

III. Social Structure
    Wage laborers     women (gender and sex)      national minorities     mass society

IV. Economy
    Imperialism and the "Second Industrial Revolution"    Welfare statism    Environmentalism
    neo-mercantilism ("military industrial complexes")   trans-national corporations

"The Great Game"   World War One    World War Two    Cold War   "New World Order"

Six SAC pages cover our period:

SAC 1855 to 1903
SAC 1904 to 1917
SAC 1917 to 1920
SAC 1921 to 1945
SAC 1946 to 1982
SAC 1982 to "now"

Check them out. At first concentrate on the entries at the top of the appropriate SAC pages in order to establish a general sense of chronology, the main periods or peak events in the epoch covered on that page.

As we get ourselves launched, the course CALENDAR will provide weekly guides to SAC and readings in several campus locations (see points four and five below).

4)  Tour UO collections, round one.

Here I link you with the webpage LIBRARIES. Concentrate at first on the first three locations there=

KNIGHT Reserve Book Room
KNIGHT Reference Division
KNIGHT MAP Room

Locate the range of European historical atlases= G1021, G1030, G1035, and G1791 to G1797. The range G2080+ is devoted in Eastern Europe. The range G1038 is devoted to WW2 and provides just about the best way to study the war as a geo-political struggle.

Check this bibliography of atlases.

Develop a general visual sense of main developments, the sweep of events, from the late 19th century to our time.

Study the course of the Rhine and Danube rivers from their origins to their deltas. Locate the major cities on their banks.

Consider how Western Europe is a "peninsula of peninsulas" jutting out from the northewest corner of the great Eurasian continent.

Ponder the ways in and out and all around the Mediterranean Sea; locate Gibralter, the Nile River, the Suez Canal, and the straights around Gallipoli (south of Istanbul).

How would you sail from Portugal to St.Petersburg, Russia? List the narrow sea passages en route.

How many "national minority" territories do you find in Great Britain?

Does Russia (Siberia) have an authentic Pacific shore?

The big oil tankers sail from the Persian Gulf to Japan by what route? To Korea? To China?

See how many answers to these questions you can find in

Contemporary Europe: A Geographic Analysis. NYC:1997 [REF D900.E97]

Notice that this last title is in the Reference Section over on the east wall of the first floor.

Click to connect directly to JANUS ELECTRONIC CATALOG (& other catalog services)

 

5)  Tour UO collections, round two. Now you should work your way through the remaining sections of the webpage titled LIBRARIES=

KNIGHT stacks
University of Oregon Museum
KNIGHT Information Technology Center

In the Lawrence Hall Architecture & Allied Arts Library, browse the ranges ND190... through ND196.... Concentrate on ND195... and ND196.... Select a beautiful and informative book which suggests to you something about the relationship between the arts and the broader European historical experience in the 20th century. Look it over for an hour and note your impressions.

Click to connect directly to A&AA VISUAL RESOURCES COLLECTION (& other catalog services)

 

6)  Submit the journal for an early "no-fault" evaluation (check date on CALENDAR)

 

7)  NATIONAL HISTORY:

Consult general description of assignments 7 & 8.

Assignment 7 asks you to select one European nation-state (e.g., England, France, Germany, etc.) and concentrate on its historical experience as we explore the broader 20th century European experience.

Don’t rush into your choice.  Run several FIND searches, starting with our first chronological range in SAC, before you select "your own" nation-state.

8)  IMPERIALISM:

Consult general description of assignments 7 & 8.

Select one non-European people of the global eastern hemisphere who have been colonized, imperialized and/or liberated from European dominion in our period. Learn the main outline of their historical experience of imperialism over the time period covered this term. You might consider one from the following list (with hypertext links to a good starting point for a FIND search)=

You might consider a European people liberated from imperial dominion=

For a general search on this question, start with the SAC that covers the 19th century imperialist experience from the subjugation of China. From that point=

   CONTROL+F/European imperial/

Work your way through the 20th century in the subsequent SAC pages. At the bottom of each SAC page, you can "click" on a hypertext link to the next SAC page in chronological order [EXAMPLE].

I am working to create a hypertext LOOP on the phrase "European imperial". When that  happens, travel through SAC pages seeking information on that topic with be much eased.

 

9)  Research and draft first essay. General instructions and advice about what is meant by "draft essays" is found on the webpage "Draft Essay". Remember that the topics suggested in assignments 7 & 8 above do not require that you write specific essays. Assignment 9 is distinct from assignments 7 & 8.

The first of two draft essays will be written in your journal prior to the midterm exam. Here's my suggestion. I recommend that you select your first topic, primary documents, and reference sources (guided by SAC, the list of Main Themes, and other course materials) in the general subject area of international relations between two European nation-states in the years leading to and during World War One.

Locate the border areas appropriate to our course in the bibliography of atlases or during your tour of the Reference Division and the MAP Room, then choose one for special concentration.  I recommend that you consider one of the follow three key border or frontier areas for your first draft essay=

France/Germany
the Balkans
Poland east or west

Notice how syllabus assignments 7 and 8 invite you to select a European region and a non-European region for some special attention.  The recommendation here for your first draft essay draws your attention to the borders of two sovereign European states where they confront one another in an era of European catastrophe. Assignments seven and eight are exercises in (7) regional domestic history and (8) European imperialism, while (9) this first draft essay topic is an exercise in European inter-state relations. As you make your choices, avoid duplication. Broaden your horizons.  I am glad to consult with anyone on this matter. 

 

10) Take a midterm exam and submit the journal to me with the first draft essay complete (check date on the CALENDAR)

 

11) Research and draft a second essay. You decide what you want to write about and which primary documents you want to put at the center of your attention. Otherwise, the second draft essay is like the first. I insist only that your two essays not overlap with one another. Your title might be something like this: "The contribution of [fill in the blank with your choice of primary documents] to my understanding of history". In other words, describe how your specific documents illuminate some of the general trends of the history we are studying. It is wise, of course, to use secondary and other reference works to help you interpret the primary documents of your choice.

 

12) Take a final exam and submit the journal to me with the second draft essay complete (check date on the CALENDAR)

 

ACADEMIC CALENDAR

The calendar provides specific hypertext linkage to certain parts of SAC. The GLOSSARY explains the bibliographical abbreviations. Certain of these titles are in THE RESERVE BOOK ROOM. Think of the suggestions in SAC as menus. "You makes your choice, and you takes your chances". When the 9 hours are up each week, congratulate yourself.

1st Week DIMENSIONS OF 20th-CENTURY HISTORY

Complete exercises one, two and three.

 

2nd Week  Mentalities

Complete exercises four and five

Experiment with the big world map linked to our course website

*--Darwin(ism): 1859:England | 1868:England | 1902:London |
*--Karl Marx [LOOP]
*--Fedor Dostoevskii, novelist and moralist
*--Nietzsche: 1883:1891
*--Leo Tolstoy, novelist and moralist
*--Freud: [LOOP] Don't forget Carl Jung
*--Science: Goedel | Heisenberg | Piaget |
*--Scientism: Norbert Wiener | B.F. Skinner |

*--Religion: Bertrand Russell | Martin Buber | Reinhold Niebuhr | 1937:England, Oxford. World Ecumenical Conference | Rudolf Bultmann | Jacques Maritain | Dietrich Bonhoeffer | Paul Tillich |

*--Philosophy: Henri Bergson | José Ortega y Gasset | Miguel de Unamuno | Jean-Paul Sartre | Karl Jaspers | Michel Foucault |

*--Letters: Russian "Silver Age" | Thomas Mann | Franz Kafka | James Joyce | Virginia Woolf | Albert Camus

*--Arts: Richard Wagner | Pablo Picasso | Italian Futurism | Wassily Kandinsky | Igor Stravinsky | "Dada" Movement | Bauhaus | Surrealism | Walter Benjamin |

*--Ideologies or public debate: Two waves of "racism" swept over Europe. Follow the hypertext LOOP on the word "racism", beginning with 1868:England. Check a significant moment in the history of the League of Nations. Now F/raci/ from 1926:Austrian to the end of that SAC page| The reaction against the rationalist and "positivist" trends of the 19th century caused intellectuals to denounce intelligentsia | Arnold Toynbee oscillated between cultural pessimism, multi-culturalism, and "Western" triumphalism|

 

3rd Week The Second Industrial Revolution

*--Ideas: Ferdinand Tönnies | Thorstein Veblen | Lord Furness extolled corporations while John Davis and other "progressives" warned against them| Rudolf Hilferding's "co-partnership of classes" | Walter Rathenau's vision of a thoroughly planned national economy | Adolf Berle defined the modern "corporation"

*--Max Weber: Protestant "ethic" and the "spirit" of capitalism |

*--Events: Rise of the transnational corporation | Late industrialization of Russia | Russian statist corporation | Standard Oil breakup |

*--Labor: Click on "labor" LOOP from 1869au to 1914au04

*--Women: Follow the LOOP from 1848 to 1949

 

!! ap19:-------------------FIRST SUBMISSION OF JOURNAL

 

4th Week Imperialism (up to WW1)

*--Ideas: 1874:1896: The giant growth of industrial productivity was fueled in part by growing European control over the world's markets, a "globalization" of the European economy. Economic competitiveness thus became linked with national competitiveness. Out of this a new spirit of militarism gripped parts of Europe  | Jules Ferry | Joseph Conrad

*--Events: 1885fe26:Berlin Conference | Cecil Rhodes | Italian defeat at the hands of Ethiopia | USA defeated decrepit, mercantilistic Spanish Empire | English imperialism found new life in rapprochement with old enemy, USA | English imperialism in Tibet | Russian imperialism in Manchuria provoked Japanese imperialist response | Russo-Japanese War stirred European imperialist and anti-imperialist passions | As nationalist/imperialist violence threatened, efforts were made at international control and mediation | But imperialist/militarist agreements continued to build toward war

World War One

*--Ideas: Norman Angell and others gave warning while yet others praised the heroic virtues of war | The Second International tried to buck the tide

*--Events: Bismarck LOOP | Serbian nationalism | Imperialism turned back on Europe | German war aims | World War One | War in the air; war undersea | Tragic Somme offensive | French troops rebelled | "Peace" on the Eastern Front | One year later, Armistice on the Western Front | Versailles treaties assured future conflicts

*--Military-industrial: Kriegsrohstoffabteilung | Russian mobilization | English mobilization | Walter Rathenau

 

5th Week European socialism, Russian and world Revolution

Complete exercise nine.

Consult page on the two phases of European revolution

*--Prelude: First and Second Internationals [LOOPS] | Karl Marx
*--1905 Revolution
*--1917 February Revolution. Beginning | As a global event
*--1917 October (Soviet) Revolution
*--Revolutionary Civil War and Allied intervention: 1918ja16:Kiev

*--Unnamed Revolution: Max Weber | "Young Turks" | 1919:India | the Third International | "socialism in one country" | 1928:Peruvian | "you must abolish backwardness"

 

!! my03:----------------- MIDTERM EXAM IN JOURNAL,
            WITH FIRST TAKE-HOME DRAFT ESSAY

 

6th Week Statism vs. liberal democracy
(between world wars):

*--Doctrines: Georges Sorel | L.T. Hobhouse | V.I. Lenin and the Russian Marxist revolution | Comintern vs. capitalism, Fascism, and moderate socialism| Weakened liberal tradition | European Socialism after the debacle of voting war credits in 1914

*--Practice:  The collapse of European and, eventually, North American capitalist economies after WW1 | Weimar Constitution and the Rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party | Fascist Italy | Joseph Stalin and "Socialism in One Country" | Apotheosis of total statism: the concentration camp | 1927:1937: a decade of sharp economic and political crisisJohn Maynard Keynes | Follow the second "labor" LOOP from 1914au04 to 1941de12 | 1949:English Labour Party

*--Dissent and resistance

*--Interpretations: Nikolai Berdiaev | A.V. Dicey | Robert M. MacIver | Leni Riefenstahl | Johan Huizinga | Elie Halévy | Ignazio Silone | Arthur Koestler | Friedrich A. Hayek | Karl Polanyi | Ernst Cassirer | Robert Redfield | George Orwell | Hanna Arendt | R.H. Tawney | Milovan Djilas |

 

7th Week = World War Two

*--Precipitating events in Europe: Austrian Anschluss and the Munich Accord

*--Four phases:
(1)  Hitler vs. Western Europe (brief Western Front)
(2)  Hitler vs. USSR. Stalingrad
(3)  The Pacific War [with its origins a century earlier]
(4)  Again, a brief Western Front

 

8th Week Origins of the Cold War

*--Interpretations: Hans J. Morgenthau |

*--Wartime agreements: Lend-Lease Act | Atlantic Charter | "Big Three" met before USA directly involved in WW2 | Casablanca Conference | Moscow "four power declaration" | Teheran Conference | Cairo Conference | Yalta Conference | Potsdam Conference

*--From destruction to recovery: Europe in ruins | Final allied efforts at diplomatic resolution of post-WW2 problems | Marshall Plan

*--Remilitarization: USSR and USA Military-Industrial Complexes | Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech | Failed search for international control of atomic energy | "Truman Doctrine" | USA National Security Act | NATO |

*--European front: Czechoslovakia | Comintern reborn? | "West" moved to isolate USSR in relationship to the German Question; USSR retaliated | Yugoslavia | Poland | Council for Mutual Economic Assistance [SEV or "ComEcon"] | Hungaria | More Germany  | Germany again | Then, Germany brought into NATO | "Western" powers created sovereign nation-state, "The Federal Republic of Germany" [known colloquially as "West Germany"] | USSR responded by creating its own military alliance, "The Warsaw Pact" | Hungarian uprising against Soviet control

*--Asian front: 1945au06:USSR declared war on Japan | Vietnam declared itself independent from French rule and asked USA for help | USSR withdrew from Manchuria and Western China | Korean LOOP | Revolutionary China | Sino-Soviet split |

*--Other Third World fronts: Theory of "Third World politics" | USA created "Organization of Amercan States" [OAS] | Guatemala | Bandung Conference asserted independence of "Third World" from both superpowers | Algerian revolution overthrew French imperialist power |

*--A Lost Chance to End It: Death of Stalin; election of Eisenhower |

 

9thWeek   Cold War in Its Maturity and Decline

*--India: LOOP from imperial subordination to national independence

*--New Russia, rise and fall: | Decline and fall of the USSR; rise of a new central Europe

European unification vs. regional devolution of power

*--Internationalism: 1889jy14:jy20 | 1907je:Hague | 1946ja10 | 1946mr08:mr18 | 1948:UNO | 1949au

*--Pan-Europeanism: An early prophet in a troubled time (1926) | 1952jy25 |

*--Nationalism: 1959ja08
*--Immigration
*--Reactionary rebirth? | Germany | Austria | Germany again | Russia
*--Confusing "free market" with "democracy"
*--Confusing military might for diplomatic prowess

Start to wrap up exercises seven and eight

 

10th Week   A new world order?

*--Ideas: 1929:Spanish | 1934:English | Samuel P. Huntington
*--The media
*--Environment; Ecology; the "Green" movement

Complete exercise eleven

!! je10:at 15:15pm -------------- FINAL EXAM IN JOURNAL,
                WITH SECOND ESSAY

You may submit a self-addressed and stamped envelope of proper dimension to me at the end, and I will mail your journal to you after grades are submitted. Or email me that you wish to pick up your journal. I will reply telling you where and when you may do that. Good luck to all.

 

Some General Bibliography

1. Primary Sources in translation
(in addition to those entered in GLOSSARY)

<>America's relations with Eastern Europe [videorecording]. Produced and directed by Steven Kostant ; written by John F. Ross ; created by Penelope Lane Czarra; Host, Robert Siegel. Washington, D.C. : Global View Productions, Inc., c1990. IMC VIDEOTAPE 01607 and VIDEOTAPE 01607 guide. 1 videocassette (50 min.) : sd., col. ; 1/2 in. + 1 study guide (27 leaves) An impressionistic overview of America's historical relationship with Eastern Europe: from a Hungarian film depicting the life of early immigrants to the U.S., to a "Cold War" documentary, to a satirical animation from Hungary on the Gorbachev-Reagan Summit

<>Between two wars / John Golby ... [et al.]. Milton Keynes, England ; Bristol, PA, USA : Open University Press in association with the Open University, 1990. ((D723 .B47 1990 ))

<>Black, Cyril Edwin, 1915- , and E. C. Helmreich. Twentieth century Europe, a history. Knopf, 1963 [c1959] 2d ed., rev. D424 .B58 1963. Historiography: setting the American mind on the meaning of Europe.

<>Black, Eugene Charlton, ed. Posture of Europe, 1815-1940; readings in European intellectual history. Homewood, Ill., Dorsey Press, 1964. ((>BPE |D359.7 .B55|))

<>Brinton, Crane, 1898-1968. The temper of western Europe. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1953. D1051 .B75. Historiography: setting the American mind on the meaning of Europe.

<>Cameron, Rondo, ed. Civilization since Waterloo. Itasca IL: F. E. Peacock, 1971. ((noUO|))

<>Knoebel, Edgar E. The Modern world. San Diego : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, c1988. 4th ed. ((CB357 .M63 1988 |))

<>Kohn, Hans, 1891-1971. Living in a world revolution; My encounters with history. New York, [Trident Press] 1964. ((D15.K64 A3))

<>National cultures and European integration : exploratory essays on cultural diversity and common policies / edited by Staffan Zetterholm. Oxford [England] ; Providence, RI : Berg, 1994 [DD203 .E85 1994] 175p. Historiography: contemporary mind sets on Europe
--Staffan Zetterholm, Introduction : cultural diversity and common policies
Ulf Hedetoft, The state of sovereignty in Europe : political concept or cultural self-image
--Stephen George, Cultural diversity and European integration : the British political parties
--Staffan Zetterholm, Why is cultural diversity a political problem? A discussion of cultural barriers to political integration
--Wolfgang Zank, Cultural diversity and the political system : the German experience
--Henrik Plaschke, National economic cultures and economic integration
--Poul Thois Madsen, Is culture a major barrier to a single European market? The case of public purchasing
--Hanne Niss, European cultural diversity and its implications for pan-European advertising

<>Perry, Marvin, Joseph Peden, and Theodore Von Laue. Sources of the Western Tradition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991 2nd ed. ((noUO|))

<>Pollard, Sidney, comp. Documents of European economic history. London, Edward Arnold, 1968- . ((HC240 .P595 3vv))

<>Readings in European international relations since 1879 / selected and edited by W. Henry Cooke and Edith P. Stickney. New York : Harper & Bros., 1931. ((D394 .C6 ))

<>Rebuilding Europe's bombed cities. Edited by Jeffry M. Diefendorf. Basingstoke : Macmillan, 1990. ((D829.E8 R43 1990b))

<>Rogers, Perry M. Aspects of Western Civilization: Problems and Sources in History. Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice Hall, 1992. 2nd ed. ((noUO|))

<>Tierney, Brian, and Joan Scott, eds. Western Societies: A Documentary History. 2vv. NYC: Knopf, 1984. ((noUO|))

<>USA State Department. O.S.S./State Department intelligence and research reports : V. postwar Europe. Edited by Paul Kesaris. Washington : University Publications of America, 1977 [SOC. FILM 605] [D1053.U52 (guide)]

<>Ward, Barbara, 1914- . The West at bay. New York, Norton [1948]. D843 .J32. Historiography: setting US & European attitudes toward "West" (and in other works the "Non" western world).

<>Weber, Eugen Joseph 1925- . The Western Tradition: From the Enlightenment to the Present. Lexington: Heath, 1972. ((noUO |))

    \\

2. English language secondary sources (big reference textbooks)

Paul Kennedy wrote that most of the histories of the 20th-century, “are too hasty, unbalanced, and breathlessly one-sided (or bland and textbookish, which is even worse). [...] A book with a strong argument will always be more challenging, and better, than a mere distillation of common knowledge” [2006no02:TLS:23]. (Compare Kennedy's words with the essay "Ways of Seeing History" on that same topic [ID]). Kennedy’s notion of the very best books on the century just past (some of them written more nearly in the middle of the century than at its end, and some of them covering a period much longer than one century) =
*--Geoffrey Barraclough, An Introduction to Contemporary History (1964)
*--Niall Ferguson, The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West (2006)
*--Eric Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914-1991 (1994)
*--Theodore H. von Laue, The World Revolution of Westernization: The Twentieth Century in Global Perspective (1987)
*--John R. McNeill, Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World (2000)
*--William H. McNeill, The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society Since AD 1000 (1982)

<>Blaser, Werner, 1924- . West meets East : Mies van der Rohe / Werner Blaser, in cooperation with Johannes Malms ; [translation from German into English, John Dennis Gartrell]. Basel ; Boston : Birkhäuser, c1996. AAA NA1088.M65 B613 1996

<>Bond, Brian. War and society in Europe, 1870-1970. [Leicester, Leicestershire] : Leicester University Press in association with Fontana Paperbacks, 1983. D396.B63 1983b

<>Brown, Brendan, 1951- . Monetary chaos in Europe. London ; New York : Croom Helm, c1988. HG186.A2 B76 1988

<>Cameron, Rondo, and V.I. Bovykin with the assistance of Boris Ananich. International banking, 1870-1914. New York : Oxford University Press, 1991. ((HG3881 .I575124)2((655p RUSA))3((Results of a study conceived at the Eighth International Economic History Congress in Budapest, 1982.
--Great Britain / P.L. Cottrell
--U.S. banks in international finance / Vincent P. Carosso and Richard Sylla
--The case of the French banks / Hubert Bonin
--International aspects of the development of German banking / Richard Tilly
--Belgium / Herman Van der Wee and Martine Goossens
--The role of international factors in the formation of the banking system in Russia / V.I. Bovykin and B.V. Anan'ich
--Banking and finance in the Danish economy / Hans Christian Johansen
--Sweden / Ragnhild Lundström
--Banks and banking in Canada and Australia / Ian M. Drummond
--Japan / Kanji Ishii
--Foreign banks and foreign investment in the United States / Mira Wilkins
--Foreign banks and foreign investment in Russia / B.V. Anan'ich and V.I. Bovykin
--Banking and financial relations between Russia and the United States / Ruth AmEnde Roosa
--The Austro-Hungarian banking system / György Köver
--Foreign capital in the Italian banking sector / Peter Hertner
--The banking system and foreign capital in Brazil / Maria Bárbara Levy
--Extra-regional banks and investments in China / Frank H.H. King
--European banks in the Middle East / Jacques Thobie
--The oil industry / A.A. Fursenko
--Banking and the electrotechnical industry in Western Europe / Albert Broder
--Iron and Steel / Ulrich Wengenroth
--International Harvester and its competitors / Fred V. Carstensen

<>Dorpalen, Andreas. Europe in the 20th century; a history. New York, Macmillan [1968] D424.D63

<>European History, about it|
|__Themes in modern European history, 1890-1945. Edited by Hayes, Paul, 1942- . London ; New York : Routledge, 1992. D395 .H29 1992
|__Ideas into politics : aspects of European history, 1880 to 1950.  Edited by R.J. Bullen, H. Pogge von Strandmann, and A.B. Polonsky. London : Croom Helm ; Totowa, N.J. : Barnes & Noble, 1984. JA84.E9I33 1984
|__States and nations : the rebirth of the nationalities question in Europe.   Edited by Hans van Amersfoort and Hans Knippenberg. Amsterdam : Koninklijk Nederlands Aardrijkskundig Genootschap : Instituut voor Sociale Geografie, Faculteit Ruimtelijke Wetenschappen, Universiteit van Amsterdam, 1991. D2009 .S73 1991. GO Lynch,Peter below

<>Farnsworth, Clyde H. Out of this nettle: a history of postwar Europe. New York, John Day Co. [1974, c1973] HC240.F37

<>Gardner, Lloyd C., 1934- . Spheres of influence : the great powers partition Europe, from Munich to Yalta. Chicago : I.R. Dee, 1993. D749 .G37 1993

<>Gilbert, Felix, 1905- . The end of the European era : 1890 to the present. New York : Norton, c1991. 4th ed. ((D443 .G473 1991 |))

<>Gildea, Robert. Barricades and borders : Europe 1800-1914.   Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1996 2nd ed. D358 .G55 1996

<>Gollwitzer, Heinz, 1917-. Europe in the age of imperialism, 1880-1914. Translated from the German. [New York] Harcourt, Brace & World [1969] D395.G5813

<>Gottschalk, Louis Reichenthal, 1899-1975. Europe and the modern world since 1870; special volume, Europe and the modern world. Chicago, Scott, Foresman [1954] D395 .G69

<>Hobsbawm, E. J. (Eric J.), 1917- . The age of extremes : a history of the world, 1914-1991. New York : Pantheon Books, c1994. D421 .H582 1994

<>Holmes, John W. (John William), 1935- . The United States and Europe after the Cold War : a new alliance? Columbia : University of South Carolina Press, c1997 [D1065.U5 H65 1997]
--The old order passes
-- The transformation of old relationships
-- Western Europe on the road to integration
-- NATO: triumph and tragedy
-- Can European security be based on the OSCE?
-- The European Union as an emerging economic superpower
-- The "European Union": political union or overreach?
-- U.S. interests
-- What are our options?
-- But what if Europe breaks apart?
-- Can we forge a new alliance?

<>Hughes, H. Stuart (Henry Stuart), 1916- , and James Wilkinson. Contemporary Europe : a history. Englewood Cliffs, N.J. : Prentice Hall, c1991. 7th ed. D424 .H83 1991

<>Keylor, William R., 1944- . The twentieth-century world : an international history. New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 1996. 3rd ed. D421 .K46 1996

<>Knapton, Ernest John. Europe, 1815-1914. New York, Scribner [1965] D359 .K68

<>Laqueur, Walter, 1921- . Europe in our time : a history, 1945-1992.   New York : Viking, 1992. D1051 .L28 1992

<>Lynch, Peter. Minority nationalism and European integration. Cardiff : University of Wales Press, 1996. JN15 .L95 1996

<>Maiskii, I. M., about him. Iz istorii Evropy v novoe i noveishee vremia : k 100-letiiu so dnia rozhdeniia akademika I.M. Maiskogo. Moskva : Izd-vo "Nauka", 1984. D443.I9 1984

<>Marwick, Arthur, et al. War and change in twentieth-century Europe.   Buckingham, England ; Bristol, PA, USA : Open University Press in association with the Open University, 1990. D424 .W37 1990

<>Mayne, Richard J. Postwar, the dawn of today's Europe. New York : Schocken Books, 1983. D1051.M39 1983

<>Mazower, Mark. Dark continent : Europe's twentieth century. New York : A.A. Knopf ; Distributed by Random House, 1999. D424 .M39 1999

<>Mosse, George L. (George Lachmann), 1918- . Fallen soldiers : reshaping the memory of the World Wars. New York : Oxford University Press, 1990. U22.3 .M63 1990

<>Pollard, Sidney. Peaceful conquest : the industrialization of Europe, 1760-1970. Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 1981. HC240.P596

<>Roberts, J. M. (John Morris), 1928-. Europe, 1880-1945.  New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston [1967] D395.R65

<>Sontag, Raymond James, 1897-1972. A broken world, 1919-1939. New York, Harper & Row [1971]. D6.R5 vol. 19

<>Stone, Norman. Europe transformed, 1878-1919. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1984, c1983. D395.S77 1984

<>Swatos, William H., Jr., ed. Twentieth-century world religious movements in neo-Weberian perspective. Lewiston : E. Mellen Press, c1992. BL48 .T94 1992

<>Taylor, A. J. P. (Alan John Percivale), 1906- . From the Boer War to the Cold War : essays on twentieth-century Europe. With an introduction by Chris Wrigley. London : Hamish Hamilton, 1995. D424 .T386 1995

<> Taylor, Edmond, 1908-. The fall of the dynasties; the collapse of the old order, 1905-1922. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1963. D412.7 .T3

<>Scott, Franklin Daniel, 1901- , and Herbert D. Andrews. The twentieth century world: a reading guide. Evanston, Ill., Chandler's, 1959. 11th ed. Z6204 .S38 1959

<>Wegs, J. Robert. Europe since 1945 : a concise history. New York : St. Martin's Press, c1977. D1051 .W34 [247p]

<>Wright, Gordon, 1912- . The ordeal of total war, 1939-1945. New York, Harper & Row [1968]. D6.R5 vol. 20

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|