00929 - Modern History

Learning outcomes

The course concerns the reconstruction of the main events in Early Modern History, in the light of the latest historical interpretations. After completing the course, students will be able to place the facts and issues in the context of international events and will be able to show sound knowledge and understanding of the main phases of European and World history from the end of the 15th to the end of the 18th Centuries.

Course contents

The course includes a long general part oriented on these topics:

Early Modern history: a definition

The equilibrium of the world since the end of the fifteenth century: China

The equilibrium of the world since the end of the fifteenth century: Japan and India

The equilibrium of the world from the end of the fifteenth century: The Safavids and the Ottoman Empire

The equilibrium of the world since the end of the fifteenth century: Africa and the origin of the slave trade

The equilibrium of the world since the end of the fifteenth century: America before Columbus

The formation of the Portuguese and Spanish empires

Three realities become one: the meaning of intolerance in the Iberian Peninsula

The legacy of the long European Middle Ages

Humanism, Renaissance, print

Papacy, political powers and cities in the Italian crisis

The end of the religious unity of the West

Effects of the Reformation: beliefs, representations, conflicts

Hapsburg hegemony and its enemies

The Thirty Years War and the English Civil War

The birth of the modern state in Europe

The new empires: Low Countries, France and Great Britain in the world

The reorganization of Europe. United Kingdom, France, Prussia, Austria, Russia

Society, communication, culture: the crisis of European consciousness

English hegemony, world wars and the global economy

Enlightenment and jurisdictionalism in Europe

The birth of industrialism

Two revolutions: the birth of U.S.A.

Two revolutions: France from 1789 to the fall of Napoleon

Afterwards a brief monographic part will address the problem of cultural history of the early modern age

Readings/Bibliography

All students must read the following three texts:

Carlo Capra, Storia moderna, 1492-1848, Firenze, Le Monnier-Mondadori, 2016 (fino all'età napoleonica)

Marco Bellabarba, Vincenzo Lavenia (a cura di), Introduzione alla storia moderna, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2018.

Peter Burke, La storia culturale, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2009

B.

Students who attend the course must read also the parts I, II and VI of this text:

Charles H. Parker, Relazioni globali nell'età moderna, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2012

Students who do not attend the course will have to read this fourth text in full.

Teaching methods

In addition to the traditional lectures, the teacher will use maps, texts and images to accustom students to read the sources and to understand the spaces and representations of the past. Any educational materials will be made available on-line in the appropriate section (Alma-DL) of the University website http://campus.cib.unibo.it/

Assessment methods

The oral exam will take place in the dates expected at the end of the lessons.

For the students who attended the course, the text of Peter Burke can be substituted by writing a short essay on a topic to be agreed with the teacher and to be sent by e mail one week before the oral exam (no less than 15,000 and no more than 20,000 signs, including spaces).

Teaching tools

The course may also include participation in seminars and conferences promoted by the teacher, as well as visits to archives, libraries and sites of historical interest to make contact with the sources of early modern age in the city of Ravenna and its surroundings. Internet will be used to access sites that fetch sources, images, maps and materials of interest.

Links to further information

https://www.unibo.it/sitoweb/vincenzo.lavenia

Office hours

See the website of Vincenzo Lavenia