Narratives of Europe in the Twentieth Century

What narratives do historians tell of Europe in the twentieth-century? What events and processes do they opt to emphasize, explain and make relevant for us today? General histories of Europe’s recent past published over the last several decades carry such titles as: “the age of extremes”, “the dark continent”, “cataclysms”, “fire and blood”, “the price of freedom”, “out of the ashes”, “to hell and back”, “roller-coaster”, “postwar”, “barbarism and civilization”, “contesting democracy” etc. What arch of vision informs these books and what stories lie behind these metaphors? The aim of this course is to introduce students to the ways in which historians conceive of the history of Europe in the twentieth century. The course is thus thematically organized, with a major topic of historical debate assigned chronologically to each class, from the catastrophe of the First World War to the neoliberal remaking of Europe in the wake of the 1989 revolutions. For each class we will be reading sample chapters from some of the major overviews of recent European history. We will be approaching these texts critically, looking not so much for empirical detail as for the overarching logic of their argument, as well as for their ability to paint a broader picture of a given historical epoch and tease out some consequences for subsequent developments. We will also question these texts for their use of concepts and narrative strategies, in addition to paying close attention to the geographical reach that underpins their selection of historical actors, events and processes. By the end of the course, students will have understood that no matter how idiosyncratic histories of Europe in the twentieth century may be, any such narrative invariably needs to address the topics of war, revolution, capitalism and democracy.