This course will present and analyse some of the main historical processes of the twentieth-century Europe, with special regard to the legacies of the major conflicts (First and Second World War; Cold War) and to the periods of transformation and transition (1917-1923; 1944-1948; 1989-1991). A monographic part will be devoted to the political and social crises of the interwar Europe, to the Right and Left radicalisms, to fascisms and communisms.
Attending students are required to rely on notes taken over the course and to prepare the selected chapters of the books of group (a) and on one of the books of the group (b). Non-attending students are required to prepare on the entire texts of two of the books of group (a) and on one of the books of the group (b):
a)
M. Mazower, Le ombre dell'Europa. Democrazie e totalitarismi nel XX secolo, Garzanti, Milano 2000, (chapters 1, 2, 4, 5)
J. W. Mueller, L'enigma democrazia. Le idee politiche nell'Europa del Novecento, Einaudi, Torino 2014 (chapters 4, 5)
T. Judt, Postwar. Europa 1945-2005, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2017 (part 3: chapters XIV-XIX)
b)
C. Clark, I sonnambuli. Come l'Europa arrivò alla Grande guerra, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2013
R. Gerwarth, La rabbia dei vinti. La guerra dopo la guerra 1917-1923, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2017
J. Horne/R. Gerwarth, Guerra in pace. Violenza paramilitare in Europa dopo la Grande guerra, Mondadori, Milano 2014
I. Kershaw, All'inferno e ritorno. Europa, 1914-1949, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2016
S. Reichardt, Camicie nere, camicie brune. Milizie fasciste in Italia e in Germania, Il Mulino, Bologna 2009
T. Snyder, Terre di sangue. L'Europa tra Hitler e Stalin, Rizzoli, Milano 2011
S. Pons, La rivoluzione globale. Storia del comunismo internazionale dal 1917 al 1991, Einaudi, Torino 2012
M. Mazower, L'Impero di Hitler. Come i nazisti governavano l'Europa occupata, Mondadori, Milano 2010
I. Deak, Europa a processo. Collaborazionismo, resistenza e giustizia fra guerra e dopoguerra, Il Mulino, Bologna 2019
T. Judt, Postwar. Europa 1945-2005, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2017
P. Hanebrink, Uno spettro si aggira per l'Europa. Il mito del bolscevismo giudaico, Einaudi, Torino 2019
In agreement with the teacher, the students may ask for other texts.
Learning Objectives
The course intends to provide the students with fundamental means for orienting themselves in the history of contemporary Europe, analysing the different regions of East and West in a comparative framework. Notably, it aims at investigating the processes of disintegration and integration, stabilization and destabilization of the political and social orders, with special attention to the crises of the interwar period.
Prerequisites
It is recommended to have already attended the general course of Contemporary History.
Teaching Methods
Frontal lessons.
Further information
Attending students are requested to be regularly present and to actively take part in the lessons.
Type of Assessment
The final examination is oral. It aims at assessing the acquisition of the knowledge in the history of contemporary Europe and of its main questions. An optional written examination, based on 3-4 open questions and concerning the topics already presented and analysed in the course, is scheduled for attending students. The evaluation of the written examination will add between 1/30 to 3/30 to the mark of the oral examination.
Course program
The course aims at explaining the processes of disintegration and integration, of destabilization and stabilization, of destruction and reconstruction of the social and political orders in Europe between the end of the Great War and the end of the Cold War, with special attention to the interwar period. Overcoming the traditional dualism between East and West, inherited by the Cold War, it intends to investigate which were the convergences and divergences between different imperial and national experiences both in Western Europe and in East Central and South-Eastern Europe.
In the introductory part the course will present the main forces stemming from the crises set out by the Russian-Japanese war of 1904-1905, by the Russian revolution of 1905-1906 and by the series of conflicts which from East to West brought to the Great War. These forces sped up processes of nationalisation and democratisation, but the continental (Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and German) Empires were able to reform themselves and not doomed to collapse.
The course will tackle the cycle of war and revolution of 1914-1922, with the aim of analysing the violent backlashes of the post-war period, the collapse of the continental Empires and the formation of the new states: a competition between different ideas of Europe derived from post-war disorder – one that marked both the effort of reconstruction in the 1920s and the subsequent crisis of the 1930s. A special attention will be devoted to the crisis of the liberal democracy, of the ascent of new political experiments (fascism, Nazism, Soviet communism), to the forced displacement of populations and of mass violence.
A final part of the course will point out the fundamental features of the long post-war period up to 1989-1991: the legacies of the Second World War, the divisions of the Cold War and the different paths of the constitutional democracies in Western Europe and of the popular democracies in Western Europe, the drivers of development and crisis between the 1960s and 1970s, up to the transformations of the 1980s, to the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Communist regimes, to the process of European integration.