Students will receive an introduction to the course aims, structure and methods of evaluation. History as academic discipline will be discussed. Instructor will divide the class into groups for the seminars and group presentations.

Seminar Session: This module looks at 15th- and 16th-century-Europe, beginning by considering what is meant by ‘the state’ during this period, and how political units and affiliations fitted in alongside other markers of identity and status. We will then have discussion of the Italian Renaissance, based on the Merriman chapter, including considerations of how to define the Renaissance, humanism and the concept of the individual.

Seminar Session: This is the first part of an intensive examination of the religious crises in Europe of the early modern period: the Reformation. The aim is to highlight the diverse responses of early modern states, societies and individuals to the theological disputes which threatened the fabric of European civilization from the 16th to the mid-17th centuries.

Seminar Session: This session is devoted to discussing the era of religious-inspired war which rocked Europe, including the Thirty Years War. We will also consider the ramifications of all this for the state in Europe, particularly in France, which lurched from being a ‘failed state’ to an effective ‘absolutist’ one.

Lecture Session: The unit looks at the rise of the absolutist state in much of Europe including Russia, contrasting this particular form of early ‘modernity’ with the Dutch Republic and the limited monarchy of Great Britain. The intellectual revolution known as the Enlightenment is introduced. This is followed by the first group seminar presentation. Group A will present on 'The Rise of the West.'

Seminar Session: This module looks at how a political reform movement in France turned that country into creative, idealistic and bloody turmoil, and before long influenced the rest of continent with passionate ideas of liberalism, nationalism, socialism and conservatism.

Lecture Session: The first half of the session is a lecture on the Industrial Revolution – among the most formative processes in European history. And it was a process: a series of largely uncoordinated social, economic and technological changes which transformed much of the world we live in. This is followed by Group B’s presentation.

Lecture Session: The unit examines the 19th century in the context of the struggle between progressive/revolutionary and conservative/reactionary forces and social groups. The central, dramatic focus of attention is the 1848 ‘spring of nations’. We will also consider the strange hybrid of authoritarianism (including so-called patriarchy) and liberalism that characterized European states in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Seminar Session: The First World War was a decisive watershed in the history of European civilization. In its wake, revolutions of the Left and the Right took place; four empires fell; new nations rose in their place, and old nations ‘reappeared’ on the map. The session looks at the major causes and the course of the First World War.

Seminar Session: Class discussion on the outcomes and legacies of the First World War, the most enduring and vital of which include the violent advent of Communist rule in Russia and the Paris Peace Conference, the failed attempt at ensuring that World War I was the ‘war to end all wars’. Early optional submission date for Essay.

Lecture Session: This module looks at the extremism which came to dominate European political, economic and social life in the 1920s and 1930s, and considers the chief reasons for the breakdown of the Versailles System by 1939.

Seminar Session: This discussion looks at the causes, course and consequences of the most devastating conflict in human, including a consideration of the Holocaust and the morality of Allied victory.

Lecture Session: The Cold War was the single greatest fact of life in Europe after World War II. This session looks at the establishment of Communist regimes and on contrasting conditions between East and West Europe. Yet we should not be blind to some commonalities between both sides of the Iron Curtain, such as youth movements and a culture of protest and dissent. Eventually, dissent helped to bring down Communist rule in the East.

A final session will explore the major themes addressed in the course, and suggest ways of approaching contemporary European history.