Department of Humanities 2010–2011

H05. EUROPEAN HISTORY 1870–1989

COURSENOTES

Prof. David Edgerton

Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine
E-mail: [email protected]

Aims
The aim of the course is to give you a general knowledge of European social, economic and
political history since 1870. Of course, not everything can be covered, but through lectures
and readings you will become familiar with some of the main issues that have attracted the
attention of historians. Essays writing will allow you to explore particular themes in more
depth, and if you wish, in relation to developments in the history of science, technology and
medicine.

Objectives
• Through lectures and set readings you will gain an overall picture of social, economic and
political change in Europe between 1870 and 1989. You will be familiar with changing geo-
political pattern of European nation-states and empires; the causes and effects of wars; the
main political movements; changes in living standards; and the range of experiences which
European peoples have lived through.
• You will be able to read a complex historical text; to write a good historical essay; and to
acknowledge the work of historians by citing existing work clearly, accurately, and
appropriately
• You will learn to challenge, criticise and evaluate historical arguments; to formulate
arguments clearly; to choose and judge between competing arguments; to understand that
different people in different times and places interpret events differently.

Course structure
The course consists of weekly lectures (a total of 20) on Mondays, beginning on 11 October
2010, and seminars (a total of 10). Seminars will take place in the Seminar and Learning
Centre (SALC) on Level 5 of the Sherfield Building at times to be arranged.

Essays and assessment

Assessment: vacation essays at Christmas and Easter; one two-hour examination
You are required to write two essays, each of around 2,000 words. The first essay must be
handed in by 2 pm Thursday 13 January 2011, and the second by 2 pm, Thursday 5 May
2011.
The examination will take place on Monday, 21 March 2011.
Coursework must be handed in at the Humanities Reception desk (level 3, Sherfield
Building). Credit will be deducted for late submissions unless an extension is granted in

1
advance. The essay will not be accepted without a Department of Humanities cover sheet
(included in the Humanities Student Handbook or available from the Humanities website).
This provides evidence that you have handed in your essay on time and includes a
declaration that it is your own work.
The only valid reasons for requesting an extension to a coursework deadline are illness or a
serious personal problem. Workload pressures, including examinations in the student’s home
department, are not judged to be a valid reason. Students needing to request an extension
should download the ‘Coursework Extension Request Form’ from the Humanities website.
Please complete and sign the form and return it to Christian Jacobi, Humanities
Administrator, in Level 3, Sherfield Building, or by e-mail to [email protected],
along with any supporting documentation such as a medical certificate. The Humanities
Department administration will, if necessary, liaise with the home department to ascertain the
seriousness of the circumstances. Apart from in very exceptional circumstances, the
maximum extension period will be two weeks. Students submitting late assignments
without arranging an extension will be subject to a mark penalty of 5% per day,
including weekends.
The first essay will account for 30% of the total mark, the second essay for 40%. The
remaining 30% is accounted for by the exam. Please note: the only acceptable reason for not
sitting the exam is illness.
This course is externally examined. You should therefore ensure that you retain copies of
your essays for resubmission to the external examiner in the Summer term.
Problems or queries: If you have any difficulties please feel free to contact me:
Prof. David Edgerton, Centre for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, Room
222 Central Library, e-mail: [email protected].

How to succeed in this course

The course emphasizes reading, debating, and writing skills that are sometimes unfamiliar,
but essential, to scientists and engineers. There are no notes available, or lecture handouts:
you are expected to take notes, and then share and compile notes with your fellows. Practice
in note-taking is like practice in differential equations: you only learn by doing. Essays and
exams can be considered similarly. You should write, and then re-write your essays; you
should practice exam questions within your study group. Say there are four of you compiling
notes in your group. For four days each of you takes turns to write out a question and then
together you explore the answers. The readings are, in reality, only the beginning. They will
be focused on in tutorials, and used as a springboard in many lectures. You should be taking
notes on the readings, and deepening your knowledge of the historical issues through more
reading. The best way to test your knowledge of the lecture and reading material is via
discussion in the tutorials.

Reading
The readings for this course are taken mostly from two works by the historian Eric
Hobsbawm. You may want to buy these books – they will be worth reading again and again
over many years. Both are available in paperback. They are very clear and easy to read,
cover everything from politics to science, and contain useful photographs, statistics and
maps. However, some of you might prefer to use other texts, and some examples of these
are given. For your essays, additional readings are suggested.
In view of your heavy workload, readings have been kept to one per lecture. You are
expected to do this reading. For each lecture, except where indicated you should read the
relevant chapter (s) the two books by Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Empire, 1875–1914 and
The Age of Extremes, the short twentieth century 1914–1991.

2
Additional recommended general readings
James Joll (various) Europe since 1870
Mark Mazower (1997) Dark Continent
Norman Davies (1996) Europe: a History, Oxford
T.C.W. Blanning (1996) The Oxford Illustrated History of Modern Europe, Oxford
Donald Sassoon (1996) One Hundred Years of Socialism: the West European Left in the
Twentieth Century
Bernard Wasserstein, (2008) Barbarism and Civilization: A History of Europe in our Time ,
Oxford
Richard Vinen, (2000) A History in Fragments: Europe in the Twentieth Century Little Brown

Also recommended
D. Thompson (various) Europe since Napoleon
J.A.S. Grenville (1980) A World History of the Twentieth Century, Vol, 1 Western Dominance,
1900–1945, Fontana, 1st edn
J.A.S. Grenville (1994) The Collins History of the World in the Twentieth Century
Robert Wolfson (1978) Years of Change: European History 1890–1945, Hodder and
Stoughton, 1st edn
J.M. Roberts (1989) Europe 1880–1945, Longman, 2nd edn
C.J. Bartlett (1994) The Global Conflict: the international rivalry of the Great Powers, 1880–
1990
Robert Gildea (1987) Barricades and Borders: Europe 1800–1914
Derek Urwin (1989) Western Europe since 1945: a political history (fourth edn)
David Welch (1994) Modern European History, 1871–1975: a documentary reader
Martin Kitchen, Europe between the Wars: a political history (London, 1988)
Chris Cook and John Paxton, European Political Facts, 1848–1918
Chris Cook and John Paxton, European Political Facts, 1918–1990

Atlases
Atlases are of very great value in studying history. See in particular
The Times Atlas of World History (1994)
The Times Atlas of European History (1994)
Penguin Atlas of Recent History: Europe since 1815
Martin Gilbert (1993) The Dent Atlas of Russian History, second edition
Richard and Ben Crampton (1996) Atlas of Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century,
Routledge.
Richard Overy (1996) The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Third Reich

Newsreels online
Two vast collections of British newsreels are available online. Remember that they represent
a mainstream indeed official British view of the time.

See http://www.britishpathe.com/ and http://www.itnsource.com/

TV documentaries
The Haldane library has videos of some very useful TV documentaries on history.
Specially recommended are The Road to War, The People's Century, The
Nazis: a warning from history and Cold War. Videos can be seen in the Haldane Library. Ask
at the main issue desk.

3
CD-Rom
You may want to use some of the historical CD-Roms available, for example the Microsoft
Encarta encyclopedia. Citations from CD-Roms should be made in the same way as for
books.

The Net
One way in for historians is through the Institute of Historical Research on www.ihr.sas.ac.uk.

General
There is a very rich literature on European history between 1870 to 1989 – indeed it is vast.
The Haldane Library contains a good selection. Look under 940 for European
History; 942 British; 943 German; 944 French; 945 Italian; 946 Spanish; and 947
Russian. You will find biographies under 920.

You might also like to browse through the world history and European history sections of
major bookshops like Waterstones or Blackwells.

Lecture Schedule 2010–2011

AUTUMN TERM

Monday 11 October Introduction to the course

Age of Empire - Ch 2
Monday 18 October The Industrialisation of Europe 1870–1914
Age of Empire – Ch 2
Monday 25 October (Michael Weatherburn) Monarchies and Empires in Europe
Age of Empire – Chs 4, 5; or Europe Since 1870 – Ch 1
Monday 1 November European Empires in Asia and Africa
Age of Empire – Ch 3; or Europe Since 1870 – Ch 4
Monday 8 November The causes of the Great War
Age of Empire – Ch 13 or Europe Since 1870 – Ch 7
Monday 15 November (Michael Weatherburn) The course of the Great War
Age of Extremes – Ch 1 OR Europe Since 1870 – Ch 8
Monday 22 November The New States of Europe,
Atlas of World History AND Europe Since 1870 – Ch 9, 10
Monday 29 November The Great Depression 1929–1932
Age of Extremes – Chapter Three
Monday 6 December Dictatorship and Democracy 1919–1939
Age of Extremes – Ch 4 OR Europe Since 1870 – Ch 12
Monday 13 December Overview and review

SPRING TERM

Monday 10 January Causes of the Second World War

Age of Extremes – Chapter Five

4
Monday 17 January Europe at War
Atlas of World History AND Europe Since 1870 – Ch 13
Monday 24 January Concentration Camps and the Holocaust
Film: Blueprints of Genocide (this can be seen in
the A/V room in the Haldane Library).
Europe Since 1870 – Chapter Fourteen
Monday 31 January Europe and the Cold War: Nato and the Warsaw Pact
Age of Extremes – Chs 8, 13 OR Europe Since 1870 – Chs 15,
16 pp. 481-491.
Monday 7 February The end of the European Empires
Age of Extremes – Chapter Seven
Monday 14 February The long boom, the Common Market and the EEC
Age of Extremes – Chapter Nine
Monday 21 February Welfare States in Europe
Age of Extremes – Chapter Ten
Monday 28 February Actually Existing Socialism
Age of Extremes – Chapter Sixteen
Monday 7 March Overview and Review

Monday 14 March Revision

Monday 21 March Exam

ESSAYS

General reading for all essays

As well as the Hobsbawm text you are very strongly encouraged to consult the general works
listed above. You should use a selection from these general sources in answering all the
questions. The readings given under each topic are additional specialist works.

Essay Topics

Essay Topics: Autumn Term

1. How would you account for the fact that Britain was the richest country in Europe in the
1870–1914 period?
Additional Readings
Sidney Pollard, Peaceful Conquest (Oxford, 1981)
Sidney Pollard, Britain's Prime and Britain's Decline (London, 1989)
Clive Trebilcock, The Industrialisation of the European Powers, 1780–1914 (London,
1981)
Jordan Goodman and Katrina Honeyman, Gainful Pursuits: the making of Industrial
Europe, 1600–1914 (London, 1988)

5
2. Why was Africa colonised in the years 1870–1914?
Additional Readings
Daniel Headrick, The Tentacles of Progress: Technology transfer in the Age of
Imperialism (New York, 1988)
Andrew Porter, European Imperialism, 1860–1914 (London, 1994)

3. Why did Germany and Austro-Hungary lose the Great War?

Additional Readings
Trevor Wilson, The Myriad faces of War (London1986)
Norman Stone, The Eastern Front, 1914–1917 (London, 1975)
Avner Offer, The First World War: an agrarian interpretation (Oxford, 1989)
Orlando Figes, The People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891–1924 (London,
1996)

4. Why did revolutions fail outside Russia in the period 1917–1923?

Additional Reading
F.L. Carsten, Revolution in Central Europe, 1918–1919 (London, 1972) (covers
Germany and Austria)
R.J. Crampton, Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century (London, 1994)
Martin Kitchen, Europe between the Wars: a political history (London, 1988)
Donald Sassoon, One Hundred Years of Socialism: the West European Left in the
Twentieth Century (London, 1996)

5. Give an account of how and why the borders of central European nations changed in the
years 1933–1940, giving particular attention to the policies of Germany and the USSR.
Additional Reading
Penguin Atlas of Recent History: Europe since 1815
Richard and Ben Crampton, Atlas of Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century
(London, 1996)
Richard Overy, The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Third Reich (London,1996)

Essay Topics: Spring Term

1. Assess the claim that the Soviet Union won the Second World War.
Additional Reading
Richard Overy, Why the Allies Won (London, 1995)
Alan Milward, War, Economy and Society, 1939-1945 (London, 1978)
John Barber and Mark Harrison, The Soviet Home Front: a social and economic
history of the USSR in World War II (London, 1991)
Studs Terkel, The ‘Good War': an oral history of world war two (London, 1985)

6
2. 'Why did so many civilians perish in Europe in WW2??
Additional Reading
John Barber and Mark Harrison, The Soviet Home Front: a social and economic
history of the USSR in World War II (London, 1991)
Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wippermann, The Racial State: Germany 1933-1945
(Cambridge, 1991)
Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews (London, 1985)
Adam Tooze, The Wages of Destruction (London, 2007)

3. Why did the European economies grow so fast after 1945?

Additional Reading
Armstrong et al, Capitalism Since the Second World War (London, 1984).
Herman Van der Wee, Prosperity and Unheaval:The World Economy, 1945-1980
(London, 1986)
M.M. Postan, An Economic History of Western Europe (Cambridge, 1964)
Derek Aldcroft, The European Economy, 1914-1970 (London, 1978)
R.J. Crampton, Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century (London, 1994)
David Ellwood, Rebuilding Europe (London, 1992)

4. Compare the decolonisation of the British, French and Portuguese empires.

Additional Reading
R.F. Holland, European Decolonisation, 1918-1981 (London, 1985)
Franz Ansprenger, The Dissolution of the Colonial Empires (London, 1989)
M.E. Chamberlain, Decolonisation (London, 1985)