To provide a broad survey of the literature and historiographical problems of the different fields in history.

If European liberals of the 1840s had been told that what lay ahead was an "Age of Catastrophe," they would not have believed it. For them, that humans could organize their affairs for the general good was an article of faith. This course asks the difficult and important question of why their optimism was misplaced. After all, in important ways they were right: over succeeding generations tens of millions of fully literate Europeans would gain voting rights, amidst expanding prosperity and growth of knowledge. Still, one historian looking backward describes the Europe that resulted as a "dark continent." After considering how early liberals contended with the proximate and disturbing legacy of the French revolution, the course traces major experiments and experiences of self-rule: from the reforms and revolutions of 1830 and 1848/49; the challenges posed to liberal doctrines by socialism, nationalism, and early forms of top-down populism ("Bonapartism"); state-sponsored imperialism and first experiments in exporting democracy eastward at Berlin in 1878; and the extraordinary growth of mass politics preceding the cataclysm of WWI, which was vaguely expected but not anticipated. That "Great War" produced a second great experiment in transplanting democracy (again to Eastern Europe) as well as movements claiming to realize self-rule in ways that cruelly mocked liberal democracy: communism, fascism, and a rich spectrum of authoritarian regimes. Societies on the continent's western rim dealt with the challenges of feminism and the reformist workers' movement, but all European regimes, west to east, from far left to far right, created social welfare states. Many of these in some way relied upon racial hierarchies in heavily exploited colonies beyond Europe's boundaries. The Second World and the Cold wars that followed featured what were meant to be ultimate clashes of ideologies: democracy versus fascism, then liberal capitalism versus state socialism. Who won seems clear in both cases; why and with what consequence is not. Twelve years of Nazi rule at Europe's heart had taught moderates of left and right in postwar Western Europe the need to cooperate, while the eastern half extirpated fascism by replacing market capitalism with the socialist planned economy. Attempts to reform late state socialism (after 1980) led to its transformation to something else, something we still don't have a name for. All that we know is that the latest attempt to transfer "the" European liberal model of democracy eastward has produced unexpected results, now called right-wing populism, or more imaginatively perhaps, illiberal democracy. No matter what the responses to liberalism have been called, they extend backward not all that far in time, a mere five and six generations, and provide constant, troubling rejoinders to the heady optimism of the liberalism's pioneers. At the same time each generation has appeared to learn from the previous. In that sense by tracing the catastrophes of democracy, we "organize" modern European history, and can soberly ask what lessons might be drawn about realizing the promises of self-rule, in Europe and beyond.

This seminar will be taught synchronously, via remote instruction. It will meet regularly during the scheduled class times, and students will need to attend those meetings to succeed in the class.

Repeat Rules