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

This course offers a general introduction to the major historical problems and historiographic trends in the study of Europe from the Renaissance to the French Revolution. We will examine research and debates concerning such issues as the periodization of ‘early modernity,’ the social order and everyday life, the concept, and realities of the ‘Renaissance,’ religious reformations, empires and state formation, the general crisis of the seventeenth century, absolutism, constitutionalism, urbanization, Europe and the world, industrialization, enlightenment, and revolution. The course will be comparative in approach, including all areas of Europe from Russia to Great Britain in so far as the literature and time permits. It will also offer students exposure to a wide variety of methodological approaches, from demography to literary theory. Readings will include the following authors, among others: Fernand Braudel, Philip Hoffman, Gene Brucker, Garrett Mattingly, John Bossy, Carlo Ginzburg, John Elliot, Geoffrey Parker, Natalie Davis, Paul Avrich, Jan DeVries, Alexis de Tocqueville, John Brewer, Anthony Pagden, Michel Foucault, Lynn Hunt, and François Furet. Course requirements: Along with energetic and creative execution of all the required readings participants will give several seminar presentations, write two short papers and one longer final essay.

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