Last updated: May 1, 2015
Faculty of Social Sciences
SOCIETY, CULTURE AND POLITICS IN THE MODERN ERA, 1500 – 2000
71-003-18
Prof. Amikam Nachmani
BA Lecture, Obligatory
Year: 2015-2016, ‫תשע"ו‬
Semesters: 1st -2nd
Two Credit Points
Annual course: Tuesday, 12:00 – 13:30
Office Hours: Tuesday, 13:30 – 14:15
Office: Mexico, Dept. of Political Studies, 2nd Floor, 2.53
Email: amikam.nachmani@biu.ac.il
General
The course discusses the main aspects relating to European and western societies, politics and cultures
in the modern era, particularly in the years 1500 – 2000 AD.
The course intends to give its students the ability to understand the development of the modern state
and its culture. The focus will be on various important periods and events that shaped the human
society, like the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution,
colonialism, imperialism, the two world wars, the cold war, globalization, etc. In addition, the course
focuses on several historical and literary texts - - few of them are hundreds years old - - that epitomize
the development of European and world history between the Middle Ages and the modern days.
Students’ Requirements
A. Students have to attend regularly all the course’ meetings. Absence from more than three meetings
will prevent the student from taking the final exam.
B. There will be one final exam at the end of the academic year (100% of the final grade). The exam
will include the lectures given during the course’ meetings + obligatory bibliography selected from the
following list of reading and from additional sources.
C. In addition, the material for the final exam will include 90 items and topics that the students will
have to answer multiple choice questions pertaining to them (50%) + questions relating to the course’
lectures and the obligatory bibliography (50%).
The subjects that will be discussed in length or briefly during the academic year will include the
following:
The Renaissance
The rise of the modern state
The Reformation
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The scientific revolution of the 17th century
Absolutism
The Enlightenment
The American and the French Revolutions
The industrial revolution
Society, culture and science at the end of the 19th century
Colonialism and imperialism
The First World War
The world between the two world wars
The rise of Fascism and Nazism
The Second World War
The cold war
European Union
The Far East: China, Japan, India
Globalization
Immigration
Refugees
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The bibliography includes obligatory reading and recommended reading. During the academic year
selected chapters from the list below as well as other items will be added to the obligatory and
recommended reading. The list below includes books from the 2000s as well master pieces from earlier
years.
John Hutchinson and Anthony D. Smith (Editors), Nationalism, Oxford, Oxford University Press,
1994
Reserved under NAT (276614)
Anthony D. Smith, The Nation in History, University Press of New England, 2000
320.54 SMI n (516783) – in the Reserve (in Central library)
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the origin and Spread of Nationalism,
London, Verso, 1991
Reserved under AND (403011)
Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, New York,
Simon and Schuster, 1996
909.829 HUN c (344389)
Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, Oxford, basil Blackwell, 1983
320.54 GEL n (4187)
Patrick J. Geary, The Myths of Nations. The Medieval Origins of Europe, Princeton, New Jersey,
Princeton University Press, 2003
305.80094 GEA m (518517) – in the History library
E.J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780. Programme, Myth, Reality, Cambridge,
Cambridge University press, 1992
320.54 HOB n (150025)
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Leslie Sklair, Globalization. Capitalism and its Alternatives, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002
330.122 SKL g3 (1154239)
Paul Hayes, "The Triumph of Caesarism, Fascism and Nazism", Hayes Paul, Themes in Modern
History, 1890- 1945, London, Routledge, 1992, pp. 174 – 204.
Offprint (1110828)
David Held and Anthony McGrew, "The Great Globalization Debate: An Introduction", in David Held
David and Anthony McGrew (eds.), The Global Transformation Reader, Cambridge, Polity Press,
2000, pp. 1 – 45.
327.17 GLO 2000 (467572)
& Offprint (1110837)
H.W. Koch, "Social Darwinism as a Factor in the 'New Imperialism'", in H. W. Koch, The Origins of
the First World War :Great Power Rivalry and German War Aims, Houndmills, Basinstoke,
Macmillan, 1984, pp. 319 – 342
940.3112 ORI 1984 (428491) – in the History library
& Offprint (1110844)
Shu, Guang Zhang, "China's Strategic Culture and Cold War Confrontations", Westad, Odd Aime,
Reviewing the Cold War; Approaches, Interpretations, Theory London, Frank Cass 2002, pp. 258
– 277.
327.73047 NOB 1998 (1156876)
& Offprint (1110838)
Duiker W.J. and Spielvoge J. J., The Essential World History, vol. II, Belmont, Wadsworth
Publishing, 2005
909 DUI e6 (1173171) – 6th edition, 2011
909 DUK e2 (1105751) –2nd edition, 2005 – In the History library
Fieldhouse D. K., Colonialism 1870 – 1945, London, Macmillan, 1985
325.309 FIE c (54253)
Holland, R. F., European Decolonization 1918-1981, London, Macmillan, 1985
909.82 HOL e (58147) – in the History library
Kagan D., The Western Heritage Since 1648, vol. II, N.Y. Prentice Hall, 2003
909.09821 KAG w10 (1173176) – 10th edition, 2010
909.09821 KAG w9 (1105749) – 9th edition, 2007 – in the History library
Lundestad, G., East, West, North, South: Major Developments in International Politics 1945-1990
, Oslo, Norwegian University Press, 1991
327 LUN e (1156877) – 5th edition, 2005
Merriman, J., A History of Modern Europe: From the Renaissance to the Present N.Y., W.W.
Norton, 1996
940.2 MER h2 (584803) – 2nd edition, 2004
940.2 MER h3 (1186153) – 3rd edition, 2010 – in the History library
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Perry, M., Western Civilization, a Brief Survey, Boston, Houghton Miffin Co, 1990
901.9 PER w (139665) – in the History library
Gabriel A. Almond, Scott Appelby, Emmanuel Sivan, Strong Religion: the Rise of Fundamentalisms
Around the World, Chicago, University of Chicago press, 2003
N/A
RECOMMENDED READING
Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press,
1991
Bernard Lewis, The Arabs in History, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1993
Tony Judt, Postwar: a History of Europe since 1945, London, Vintage, 2010
David Thomson, Europe since Napoleon, New York, Knopf, 1976
Edwin P. Hoyt, The rise of the Chinese Republic, New York, McGraw-Hill, 1989
Philip Short, Mao, a Life, London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1999
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners. Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust,
London, Little, Brown and Company, 1996
Alan Bullock, Hitler: a Study in Tyranny, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, Penguin, 1976
Alan Bullock, Hitler and Stalin, Parallel Lives, London, HarperCollinsPublishers, 1993
Robert Payne, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, New York, Barnes and Noble, 1973
Ian Kershaw, Hitler, 1889 – 1936: Hubris, London, Penguin, 1998
Ian Kershaw, Hitler, 1936 – 45: Nemesis, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, Penguin, 2000
FICTION, NOVELS, LITERARY WORKS
George Orwell, Animal Farm: a Fairy Story, London, Penguin, 1952
George Orwell, 1984, New York, New American Library, 1961
Primo Levi, If this is a man? Harmondsworth, Middlesex, Penguin, 197
Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses , London, Viking Press, 1988
Hans Fallada, Alone in Berlin, London, Penguine Modern Classics, 2009
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