HIST 228
Europe in the Twentieth Century Spring 2025
Division II

From the vantage point of 1989, democracy’s victory over fascism and communism in Europe in the twentieth century appeared decisive, even inexorable. From the present vantage point, however, the contingencies attending Europeans’ commitment to democracy in the twentieth century have reemerged strongly, pointing toward a still uncertain future and a different reading of the past. This course offers a survey of twentieth-century European history with a focus on the political ideas, movements, formations, thoughts and feelings that shaped Europeans’ experiences from the bottom up and the top down. Organized topically and thematically, the course will consider European society in the fin-de-siècle period; imperialism, racism, and mass politics; the impact of the Great War on European thought, culture and society; the Russian Revolution and Stalinist Russia; economic and political stabilization in the 1920s; the Depression; the rise of Fascism and National Socialism; World War II and the Holocaust; the establishment of postwar social democratic welfare states; decolonization; the “economic miracle” of the 1950s; the uprisings of 1968; the development of the European Union; the 1989 revolutions in Eastern Europe; the break-up of Yugoslavia; and recent debates about the future of Europe. Through a combination of lecture and discussion, the course seeks to introduce students to the major ideologies and institutions that shaped the lives of Europeans in the twentieth century, and to reflect on the role of ordinary people who devised, adapted, embraced, and sometimes resisted the dominant ideas and practices of their time.