86940 - CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

Anno Accademico 2018/2019

  • Docente: Enrico Acciai
  • Crediti formativi: 10
  • SSD: M-STO/04
  • Lingua di insegnamento: Italiano
  • Modalità didattica: Convenzionale - Lezioni in presenza
  • Campus: Forli
  • Corso: Laurea in Scienze internazionali e diplomatiche (cod. 8048)

Conoscenze e abilità da conseguire

This course introduces students to the analysis of 19th and 20th centuries history. A special attention will be paid to political-institutional systems. The chronology of the course ranges from the European Revolutions of 1848 to the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989). The course provide a compared analysis of the main historical events which concerned Italy, France, Germany, Great Britain and Russia in addition to the most relevant extra-European facts.

Contenuti

This course analyses the modern world in order to understand its historical development and present condition.It does so by pursuing three main themes:

  • The evolution of the nation state in global and transnational perspective
  • Fundamental discontinuities in social, political and everyday life
  • The changing balance between Europe and the wider world

The course will be divided into 3 parts. The first part will focus on political transformation in Europe during the XIX century until the First World War. The second part will analyse the interwar period and the totalitarian political systems during the Twenties and Thirties. The last part of the course will concentrate on the Second post-war period, with particular attention on Cold War, transformation in European political systems.

Skills outcomes:

Teaches Common Skills listed below:

- High-level skills in oral and written communication of complex ideas.

- Independence of mind and self-discipline and self-direction to work effectively under own initiative.

- Ability to locate, handle and synthesize large amounts of information.

- Empathy and active engagement with alternative cultural contexts.

 

Contemporary History

Syllabus 2018/19

  1. 25 September: Introduction to the course: What is Contemporary History?
  2. 26 September: A global approach to Contemporary History
  3.  27 September: The French Revolution and its Aftermath
  4.  02 October: 1848 and beyond
  5.  03 October: The Italian and the German Unification
  6.  04 October: Fear and revolution: the birth of the European Labor Movement
  7.  09 October: Colonization
  8.  10 October: The First World War
  9. 18 October: First Mid Term Test
  10.  23 October: A time of Revolution and Counterrevolution
  11.  24 October: The Victors and The Vanquished: European first postwar
  12.  25 October: The Fascist Regime
  13.  30 October: The Nazi Regime
  14. 31 October: Interwar period in global perspective
  15.  06 November: The Spanish Civil War
  16.  07 November: The Second World War
  17. 08 November: The Second World War
  18.  15 November: Second Mid Term Test
  19.  20 November: Beyond 1945: European second postwar
  20.  21 November: Between Decolonization and Revolution
  21.  22 November: Global Cold War
  22.  27 November: Global Cold War
  23.  28 November: The 1980s
  24.  05 December: From the 1990s to the War on Terror
  25.  06 December: Third Mid-Term Test

Testi/Bibliografia

Readings (Attending and non-attending Students)

Mandatory Textbooks:

Christopher Bayly, The birth of the modern world, 1780-1914: global connections and comparisons(Oxford 2003).

Eric Hobsbawm, The age of extremes, 1914-1991(London 1994). [Chapters:

Students will have to choose one bookamong the followings and to discuss it at the oral examination (two books for non-attending students):

  1. Nir Arielli, From Byron to bin Laden. A History of Foreign War Volunteers (Harvard, 2018)
  2. Jelena Batinić, Women and Yugoslav partisans: a history of World War II resistance (Cambridge, 2015).
  3. Jeffrey James Byrne, Mecca of Revolution. Algeria, Decolonization, and the Third World Order (Oxford 2016).
  4. Sebastian Conrad, What is global history? (Princeton, 2016).
  5. Philip Cooke, The legacy of the Italian resistance (New York 2011).
  6. Sheila Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism: ordinary life in extraordinary times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s (New York, 1999).
  7. Emilio Gentile, The sacralization of politics in Fascist Italy (Cambridge, 1996).
  8. Robert Gerwarth, The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End(London, 2016)
  9. Robert Gildea, Fighters in the shadows: a new history of the French Resistance (London, 2015).
  10. Paul Ginsborg, A History of Contemporary Italy. Society and Politics, 1943 – 1988 (London 1990).
  11. Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945(New York, 2005).
  12. Peter Kenz, The Coming of the Holocaust. From Antisemitism to Genocide (Cambridge, 2013).
  13. Lisa Kirschenbaum, International Communism and the Spanish Civil War. Solidarity and Suspicion, (Cambridge, 2015).
  14. Mark Mazower, Dark Continent(London, 1999).
  15. Roberta Pegher, Mussolini's Nation-Empire. Sovereignty and Settlement in Italy's Borderlands, 1922–1943(Cambridge, 2017).
  16. Paul Preston, Paul, The Spanish holocaust: inquisition and extermination in twentieth-century Spain(London, 2012).
  17. Lucy Riall, Garibaldi. Invention of a Hero (Yale, 2008).
  18. Enzo Traverso, Fire and blood: the European Civil War, 1914-1945(London 2016).
  19. Rex Wade, The Russian Revolution, 1917 (Cambridge 2017).
  20. Odd Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times (Cambridge, 2005).

Metodi didattici

22 two hours lectures plus 3 two hours mid-term tests

Modalità di verifica e valutazione dell'apprendimento

Attending Students:

The assessment for this module is as follows:

Summative:

First mid-term Test (10% of the final mark).

Second mid-term Test (20% of the final mark).

Third mid-term Test (20% of the final mark).

Final oral examination (50% of the final mark).

Three short written examinations composed of 10 open questions will be held during the term period in order to understand how familiar the students have become with the arguments of the course. The questions will be based on the lessons of the teacher and on the books in the “mandatory textbooks” section of the readings above [details on the chapters to be studied will be communicate to the students during the term]. Only student who attended the 80% of the classes will be admitted to the mid-term tests. The time at students’ disposals will be 1 hour and 30 minutes.

Every single question will be evaluated from 0 to 3, therefore the highest possible mark in each mid-term test will be 30/30. Student will pass the mid-term if he will get at least 15/30. Students who will succeed the three mid-term tests will be admitted to the final oral examination where they will be asked to discuss both general arguments of the course and the chosen book. The mid-term marks will be valid until September 2019 exams round.

Students who failed one of the three mid-term testswill have the chance to repeat it before the final oral examinations.

Students who failed two or more of the three mid-term tests will have to undergo a written examination composed of 10 open questions on all the module’s teaching program. This will be the 50% of the final mark.

In both cases, the time at students’ disposals will be 1 hour and 30 minutes.

Students have to bring their libretto universitario both during the mid-term tests and the final oral examinations.

Non-Attending Students:

Non-attending students will have to will have to undergo a written examination composed of 15 open questions on all the module’s teaching program. This will be the 50% of the final mark. The time at students’ disposals will be 1 hour and 30 minutes. Students who will succeed the written examination (18/30) will be admitted to the final oral examination where they will be asked to discuss both general arguments of the course and the two chosen books.

Students have to bring their libretto universitario both during the written examination and the final oral examinations.

Strumenti a supporto della didattica

Powerpoint, movies, archival documents

Orario di ricevimento

Consulta il sito web di Enrico Acciai