Pathways: Shaping of the Modern World (Fall 2014)
A history of modernity since 1500. Topics include the emergence of the Atlantic World; early modern society, culture, and the state; trade, colonialism, and slavery; Enlightenment; key political, scientific, industrial and technological revolutions; nineteenth-century nation states and mass society; twentieth-century war, revolution, and resistance; nationalism, internationalism, and totalitarianism; demography, migration, and the environment; work, gender, and daily life.
The course covers seven time periods: Early Modern World; Age of Revolutions; Industrial Societies; Nations and Ideologies; Western Imperialism; World Wars and Totalitarianism; and the Post-1945 World.
Readings:
- Secondary: Western Civilization: A Social and Cultural History by Margaret L. King (3rd ed.; Prentice Hall, 2004). Available on-line.
- Primary: documents and maps on this website.
Requirements:
- Exams: 60%
- Quizzes (based on reading, each class; either multiple choice or map-based, bottom four dropped): 30%
- Participation: 10%
- Office hours, Tuesday, 12.30-1.30, Boylan 1127a
Lecture Handouts & PowerPoints
Schedule:
August 28. Introduction
September 2. Initial Expansion: The Columbian Exchange, Colonialism, and Slavery
- King, Western Civilization, chapter 16
Columbus, Letter to the King and Queen (1492)
Aztec account of the Conquest of Mexico (1519) - plus maps on website
September 4. New Political Patterns
- King, Western Civilization, chapter 17
- plus documents on website
- documents & maps on the website
September 9. The Constitution
- documents & maps on website
September 11. International Revolutions
- King, Western Civilization, chapter 20
- Declaration of the Rights of Man (1789)
- Robespierre, Justification for the Use of Terror (1794)
- Code Napoleon (1804)
- plus map on website
September 16. The World in 1850
- King, Western Civilization, chapter 21
- Metternich: Confessions of Faith
- Marx & Engels, Communist Manifesto, Introduction, parts 1 & 2 (on website)
- plus map on website
September 18. Nationalism and State Formation
- King, Western Civilization, chapter 23
- Mazzini, Duties Towards Your Country (1844)
- Lincoln, Emancipation Proclamation (1863)
- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address (1863)
- 14th amendment, U.S. Constitution
- plus map on website
September 23, 25: No class (college schedule)
September 30. The Creation of Modern Europe
- L.S. Stavrianos, The Balkans since 1493, excerpt
- plus maps on website
October 2 . Imperialism, I
- King, Western Civilization, chapter 24
- Clive, Speech in Commons on India (1772)\
- Burke, Speech in Commons on India (1783)
- Qian Long, Letter to George III (1793)
- Lin Zixu, Letter to Queen Victoria (1839)
- People of Canton, Against the English (1842)
- Kipling, “White Man’s Burden”
- Constitution of the Empire of Japan (1889)
- plus maps on website
October 7. Imperialism, II
- documents & maps on website
October 9. World War I
- King, Western Civilization, chapter 25
- plus documents & maps on website
October 14. Versailles, Leninism, and the World of the 1920s
- King, Western Civilization, chapter 26
- Lenin on self-determination (1917)
- Wilson, Fourteen Points (1918)
- plus documents and maps on website
October 16: No class
October 21. Review
October 23. Midterm
October 28: Imperialism, III
articles and documents at website.
October 30. Responses to the Depression: Fascism and Stalinism, and the New Deal
- King, Western Civilization, chapter 28 (first half).
Mussolini, “What Is Fascism?” (1932) - plus maps on website
November 4: Responses to the Depression: The New Deal
- documents and short readings on website
November 6. Road to War
- documents & maps on website
November 11. World War II
- Western Civilization, chapter 28 (second half)
- plus documents and maps on website
November 13. Coming of the Cold War
- documents & maps on website
November 18. The Cold War Intensifies
- documents and maps on website
November 20 . Decolonization & Civil Rights
- King, Western Civilization, chap. 29
- plus documents & maps on website
November 25. 1968 & the Global Environment
- documents & maps on website
December 2: The Collapse of European Communism
- documents, essays, & maps on website
December 4. Globalization & the Post-Cold War World
- King, Western Civilization, epilogue; plus documents and maps on website
December 9. The Contemporary World
- documents & maps on website
December 11. Review
December 23, 1.00-3.00pm: Final Exam
KC Johnson 
