Prof.
Office:
McKenzie 351
Office hours: Tues. 10:15-11:30,
Thurs.
1:00 - 2:45 (or by appointment)
Telephone: 346-4857 (o), 302-9032 (h)
HISTORY
428/528 WESTERN EUROPE SINCE 1945
Politics
and social change
Tues./Thurs. 4:00-5:20, Pacific 30
Course description:
This course centers on the social transformation of Western Europe in
the postwar era. Major themes include
the shift from a depression mentality to affluence in every country of Western
Europe; the new consumerism; the cultural revolution of the 1960s-70s; changes
in women’s roles and rights; and the evolution of Western European societies
from ethnically homogeneous to multiracial and multiethnic societies. We will explore these issues against a
backdrop of national politics and European integration.
Grades will be based on:
6 unannounced quizzes on assigned
readings (I’ll drop the lowest grade)
30%.
1 short (4-5 page) paper on supplementary
readings, with oral presentation: 20%.
1 final research paper (10-12
pages). 50%.
In addition, active, thoughtful participation
may raise your grade one notch.
Because the short papers are to be
discussed in class, I will not accept late papers.
Required texts available at
the bookstore:
Paul Ginsborg, A History of Contemporary Italy
Lawrence Wylie, Village in the Vaucluse
Ron Ramdin, Reimaging Britain
Required text available
through used bookstores on-line (e.g. abebooks.com): Gisela Kaplan, Contemporary Western
European Feminism. Unfortunately,
this book is no longer in print. There
is one copy on reserve at Knight, and another nine copies are available through
Orbis. Many other copies are available
on line. If you order one quickly, you
should be able to get the book at a very reasonable price.
Class schedule:
Tues., Sept. 30
Introduction
Thurs., Oct. 2
“Liberation” and political renewal on the continent
Required reading: Paul Ginsborg, A History of Contemporary Italy, pp. 8-71.
Extra assignment for graduate students:
two essays of your choice from Politics
of Retribution in Europe (on reserve at Knight, D810.C696 P6 2000), pp.
133-232 (be prepared to describe in class).
Tues., Oct. 7 Italian
politics and society: renewal or
retrenchment?
Required reading: Contemporary
Italy, 72-210.
Thurs., Oct. 9 Welfare states in formation
No
required reading for undergraduates.
Graduate students: read some of
the supplementary list.
Supplementary
reading: Richard Titmuss, “The Social
Division of Welfare,” in his Essays on
the Welfare State (Knight reserve HN 389.T58); Denise Riley, “Some
Peculiarities of Social Policy concerning Women in Wartime and Postwar
Britain,” and Jane Jenson, “The Liberation and New Rights for French Women,”
both in Behind the Lines, pp. 260-72
and 272-85 (Knight reserve D639.W7 B43); T. H. Marshall, “Citizenship and
Social Class,” in his Citizenship and
Social Class and Other Essays (Knight reserve HN400.S6 M378 1950), 1-85.
Tues., Oct. 14 French
society at the start of the 1950s
Required reading: Village
in the Vaucluse (to p. 325, “Peyrane Today”)
Thurs., Oct. 16
French politics from the Fourth to the Fifth Republics
Required reading: Document handout.
Tues., Oct. 21 An age
of affluence
Required reading: Village
in the Vaucluse, 325-84; Contemporary
Italy, 210-53.
Supplementary reading: Michael Wildt, “Changes in Consumption and
Social Practice in West Germany During the 1950s,” in Getting and Spending: European
and American Consumer Societies in the Twentieth Century, 301-16 (Knight
reserve HC110.C6 G48 1998); Arnold Sywotek, “From Starvation to Excess? Trends in the Consumer Society from the 1940s
to the 1970s,” in The Miracle Years: A Cultural History of West Germany, 1949-1968,
341-59 (Knight reserve DD258.7.M57 2001); Kaspar Maase, “Establishing Cultural
Democracy: Youth, ‘Americanization’, and
the Irresistable Rise of Popular Culture,” in the same book, pp. 428-50; Paul
Ginsborg, A History of Contemporary Italy,
pp. 210-53 (Knight reserve DG572.G48 1990); Richard F. Kuisel, “Yankee Go
Home: The Left, Coca Cola, and the Cold
War,” in his Seducing the French,
37-69 (Knight reserve DC59.8.U6 K85 1993); Paul Rock and Stanley Cohen, “The
Teddy Boy,” (xerox on reserve) and Dick Hebdige, “The Meaning of Mod” (xerox on
reserve).
Thurs., Oct. 23
Vatican II and the secularization of Western Europe
Required reading: Contemporary
Italy, 254-97 (esp. 259-61).
Supplementary reading: “Catholics:
Imagination and Sin,” in A History
of Private Life, vol. 5, pp. 285-313 (Knight reserve GT2400.H5713 v. 5);
Maurice Larkin, “Angels on the Point of a Needle: Counting Catholics in France and Spain,” in Problems in Contemporary French History
(Knight reserve, DC33.P75 2000b).
Tues., Oct. 28 Youth
revolt and the “bullet years”
Required reading: Contemporary Italy, 298-405.
Supplementary readings: Ingrid Gilcher-Holtey, “May 1968 in France,”
pp. 253-76 of 1968: The World Transformed (Knight reserve
D839.2.A17), and from the same volume, Claus Leggewie, “A Laboratory of
Postindustrial Society: Reassessing the
1960s in Germany,” pp. 277-94; Stuart J. Hilwig, “The Revolt against the
Establishment: Students and the Press in
West Germany and Italy,” pp. 321-50; Gerd-Rainer Horn, “The Changing Nature of
the European Working Class,” pp. 351-72.
Thurs., Oct. 30
Introduction to women’s liberation in Europe
Required reading: Contemporary
Western European Feminism, 1-59.
Tues., Nov. 4
Feminism and social change in social democratic Scandinavia
Required reading: Contemporary
Western European Feminism, 60-102.
Supplementary reading: Kristina Orfali, “The Rise and Fall of the
Swedish Model,” in A History of Private Life, vol. 5, pp.
417-49 (Knight reserve GT2400.H5713 v. 5); Gosta Esping-Andersen, Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, pp.
tba.; Norman Ginsburg, “Sweden: The
Social Democratic Case,” in Comparing
Welfare States, pp. 173-99 (Knight reserve HV51.C762 1993); Sven Olsson,
“Towards a Transformation of the Swedish Welfare State,” in Modern Welfare States, pp. 44-82 (Knight
reserve HV37.M62 1987b).
Thurs., Nov. 6
Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, France: political currents
Required reading: Contemporary
Western European Feminism, 103-78, plus handout.
Tues., Nov. 11
Revolution in Southern Europe
Required reading: Contemporary
Western European Feminism, 179-283.
Thurs., Nov. 13
Toward multiracial Europe:
immigration in Britain
Required reading: Reimaging Britain, 141-193.
Supplementary reading: Alec Hargreaves, Immigration, “Race” and Ethnicity in Contemporary France,
1-85; Ulrich Herbert, A History of Foreign Labor in Germany,
1880-1980, pp. 193-257 (Knight reserve HD8458.A2 H3913 1990); Jane Kramer, Unsettling Europe, pp. 77-120 (Knight
reserve); Rogers Brubaker, Citizenship
and Nationhood in France and Germany, pp. 138-89 (Knight reserve JN2919.B78
1992); Hans Korno Rasmussen, No
Entry: Immigration Policy in Europe,
pp. 137-52; Ellie Vasta, “Rights and Racism in a New Country of
Immigration: The Italian Case,” in John
Wrench and John Solomos, eds., Racism and
Migration in Western Europe (Oxford, 1993); Giovanna Campani, “Immigration
and Racism in Southern Europe: the
Italian Case,” Ethnic and Racial Studies
16 (1993): 507-35 (in the stacks at
Knight, HT 1501.E73).
Tues., Nov. 18
British society and politics in the Thatcher era
Required reading: Reimaging
Britain, 193-257.
Thurs., Nov. 20
Film: My Beautiful Laundrette (begin). No required reading.
Tues., Nov. 25 Film
(end).
Required reading: Reimaging
Britain, 258-349.
Thurs., Nov. 27 No
class -- happy Thanksgiving!
Tues., Dec. 2 Towards
European unification
Required reading: Achille Albinotti, “The New Europe and the
West,” pp. 1-37 in A New Europe? Special issue of Daedalus, ed. Stephen R. Graubard (Knight reserve D1051.N48 1964);
in the same volume, Raymond Aron, “Old Nations, New Europe,” pp. 38-61; Oliver
Franks, “Britain and Europe,” pp. 89-104.
Thurs., Dec. 4 A new
Europe?
Required reading: ‑Tony Judt, “A Grand Illusion,” in his
A Grand Illusion? (Knight reserve
D443.J83 1996), pp. 3-44; and find something interesting to share on your own
on European unification.
Final paper due in
my office, McKenzie 351, no later than 1:00, Wednesday, Dec. 10.
Assignment
for short papers: The basic purpose of
this assignment is for you to read one or more additional texts on the topic of
our course. In your paper, your primary
aim should be to explicate your text or texts, i.e. to identify the main
argument or arguments and to describe how the author develops them. At the same time, you should try to
contextualize your text against the other things we have read (or, if you are
feeling energetic, against other works that you have found). For example, if you were assigned Michael
Wildt’s article on consumption in West Germany, you might compare his portrayal
against what you know about the British and French cases; or if you were
assigned an article on the Swedish welfare state, you might try to relate it to
the information in Gisela Kaplan’s book on women’s status and the women’s movement
in Scandinavia. Ideally, the additional
readings and short papers will give you a helpful angle on the core readings
for the course. As for your in-class
presentation, I’m looking for something very short: all you need to be able to do is to explain,
in a few minutes, what you got out of your text, and your fellow students or I
might ask you a question or two about it.