Democracy is often understood as institutional forms abstracted from the
political, social and intellectual history of Europe. This course will instead
analyse assumptions, developments and crises of democracies in the
nineteenth and twentieth century, with particular attention to the
legacies of the major conflicts (First and Second World War; Cold War), to
the periods of transformation and transition, to the antidemocratic
dynamics of interwar Europe.
Attending students are required to rely on notes taken over the course
and to prepare on one 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
two 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
J. W. Mueller, L'enigma democrazia. Le idee politiche nell'Europa del
Novecento, Einaudi, Torino 2014
b)
R. Evans, Alla conquista del potere. Europa, 1815-1914, Laterza, Roma-
Bari 2020
C. Clark, I sonnambuli. Come l'Europa arrivò alla Grande guerra, Laterza,
Roma-Bari 2013
G. Claeys, Marx e il marxismo, Einaudi, Torino 2020
P. Gatrell, L'inquietudine dell'Europa. Come la migrazione ha rimodellato
un continente, Einaudi, Torino 2020
R. Gerwarth, La rabbia dei vinti. La guerra dopo la guerra 1917-1923,
Laterza, Roma-Bari 2017
I. Kershaw, All'inferno e ritorno. Europa, 1914-1949, Laterza, Roma-Bari
2016
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
R. Paxton, Il fascismo in azione. Che cosa hanno veramente fatto i
movimenti fascisti per affermarsi in Europa, Mondadori, Milano 2006
H. Case, L'età delle questioni. Politica e opinione pubblica dalle Rivoluzioni alla Shoah, Carocci, Roma 2021.
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 democracy-building,
Una parte infine è dedicata all'analisi del lungo dopoguerra fino al 1989-
1991: le eredità della Seconda guerra mondiale, le divisioni della Guerra
fredda e i diversi percorsi delle democrazie costituzionali in Europa
occidentale e delle democrazie popolari in Europa orientale, le forme di
sviluppo e di crisi tra anni Sessanta e Settanta, fino alle trasformazioni
degli anni Ottanta, alla fine della Guerra fredda e alla dissoluzione del
blocco comunista sovietico, al processo di integrazione europea.
their different stages and forms, with special attention to the crises of the
interwar period.
Prerequisites
It is recommended to have already passed the examination of
contemporary history.
Teaching Methods
The course will be based on frontal lessons.
In case, a part of the course will be held in form of presentation and
discussion of texts (a book, some articles) by the students.
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 book presentation is scheduled for attending
students. The evaluation of the presentation will add between 1/30 to
3/30 to the mark of the oral examination.
Course program
The course aims at explaining the history of contemporary democracy in
the different contexts where it was born, was contested and overthrown.
The analysis will follow the different trajectories of democracy-building,
the various political cultures that legitimised the democratic institutions,
and the political and social transformations they implied in nineteenthand
twentieth-century Europe. A special attention will be devoted to the
transitions and crises of democracy in interwar Europe. 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 first part the course will present a general overview of the
preconditions for the ascent of the early democratic forms, from the
political revolutions of the late eighteenth century to the Great War. At
the core of the analysis will lie the various conceptions of democracy and
the conflicting relations with liberalism and socialism, as well as the
different forms of antiliberal and antidemocratic, populist and
antisocialist reactions. While the forms of popular participation developed
in Europe, new waves of authoritarianism, nationalism and racism arose.
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 nationstates
and democratic institutions: 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, violent political experiments (fascism,
Nazism, Soviet communism.
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.