A.P. European History
Syllabus
Mrs. Barbara Kondratowicz
I. Course Description
Advanced Placement European History is a college-level survey course that will
challenge you to think critically about the intellectual, cultural, economic, political,
diplomatic and social events that have shaped Europe from the Renaissance to modern
day. The course also allows students the opportunity to earn college credit upon passing
a three-hour exam offered by the College Board in May. Although eligibility to earn
college credit is available, the emphasis of the course is to develop skills for the student’s
academic future. Thus A.P. European History aims to further refine the student's analytic
skills, examine conflicting historical interpretation, promote historical scholarship,
develop sophisticated research skills and extensive skill development in writing of
document-based essays.
II. Texts:
Required Text:
A History of Western Society Since 1300
by John P. McKay, Bennett D. Hill, and
John Buckler
Sources of the Western Tradition
Vol. II
by Marvin Perry
Suggested Text:
Modern European History
by Birdsall S. Vialt
Supplemental Texts:
The Annotated Mona Lisa
by Carol Strictland
Sources of the West
Vol. I and Vol. II
by Mark A. Kishlansky
III. Goals and Expectations
The goal of A.P. European History is to enhance student ability to:
A. understand historical themes
B. analyze historical evidence and historical interpretations
C. express historical understanding in writing
Tests: Tests are based on the A.P. Exam. Following each unit students will be given a test
that includes both multiple-choice questions and a free-response essay. The multiple
choice questions are taken from released A.P. exams, review books and the text. Freeresponse essays are taken from released A.P. exams.
Free-Response Essays and Document Based Essay Questions: In the reply to a freeresponse essay or the DBQ students are asked to analyze, evaluate, compare, contrast,
describe, discuss, explain or discuss change over time. While free response essays will
appear on tests, students will also be given take home essays that must include both
citations and a bibliography. DBQs will be given in class under the 45 minute time
restraint (15 minutes devoted to reading the documents and planning and 30 minutes
devoted to writing the essay.)
Debates, Oral Presentations and Simulations: In addition to class discussions, students
are given an opportunity to prove their knowledge through oral presentations related to
the arts and a final project on European policy; various simulations such as the signing of
the Treaty of Westphalia, French Salon, Congress of Vienna, and unification of Italy; as
well as debates such as the Trial of Martin Luther, “Who is the Most Absolute of the
Absolutes?” and current European policies.
Homework: Daily reading and writing assignments, as well as long term assignments, are
posted on teach notes.
Index Cards: After each chapter students will be required to submit the vocabulary on
index cards. These cards will be used as flash cards to study for the College Board exam,
midterm and final.
IV. Course Outline
I.
The Later Middle Ages
A. The Black Death
B. The Hundred Years War (1337-1453)
1. Causes and Responses
2. Course of War
3. Joan of Arc and Victory for France
4. Consequences
C. The Decline of the Church
1. Babylonian Captivity
2. Great Schism
3. Conciliar Movement
D. Society during the Middle Ages
1. Marriage
2. Parish Life
3. Fur-Collar Crime
4. Peasant Revolts
II.
III.
5. Vernacular Literature
European Society in the Age of the Renaissance
A. Evolution of the Italian Renaissance
1. Republics
2. Balance of Power among the Italian City-States
B. Intellectual Hallmarks of the Renaissance
1. Individualism
2. Humanism – Read Except from Oration on the Dignity of Man
by Mirandola
3. Secularism
4. Worldliness
C. Art and Artists
1. Art and Artists
2. The status of Artists
Excerpts on the Renaissance from the Annotated Mona Lisa
Individual Presentations: How is the selected artist an
innovator in the field of visual arts?
D. Society During the Renaissance
1. Education and Political Thought
Read The Prince by Machiavelli
2. The Printed Word – Castiglione and Boccaccio
3. Women
4. Culture and Sexuality
5. Slavery and Ethnicity
E. Politics and the Rise of Nation-States
1. France
2. Spain
3. England
The Reformation
A. The Condition of the Catholic Church and the Old Order
1. signs of disorder
2. signs of vitality
Read Excerpt from In Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus
B. Martin Luther and Birth of the Protestant Reformation
1. Luther’s Early Years
2. The Ninety-five thesis
3. Protestant Thought
4. Social Impact of Luther
Simulation: Trial of Martin Luther
C. Political Impact of Germany – Peace of Augsburg
D. The Spread of the Protestant Reformation
1. Calvinism – Read Excerpt from Institutes of the Christian Religion
2. Anabaptists
3. English Reformation
4. Church of Scotland
5. Protestantism in Ireland
6. Lutheranism in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark
7. Eastern Europe
E. The Catholic Reformation/Counter Reformation
1. Institutional Reform
2. The Council of Trent
3. New Religious Orders
4. The Holy Office
Essay: Describe and analyze the ways in which the development of
printing altered both the culture and the religion of Europe during
1450-1600
IV. Religious Wars and Overseas Expansion
A. Politics, Religion, and War
1. Origin of difficulties in France
2. Religious Riots and Civil War in France
3. The Netherlands under Charles V
4. Revolt of the Netherlands
5. The Spanish Armada and Philip II
6. The Thirty Years War
7. The Treaty of Westphalia
8. Germany After the Thirty Years War
B. Expansion
1. Exploration and Conquest
2. Technology
3. Motives
4. The Columbian Exchange
5. Effects of Spain’s discoveries in the New World.
C. Influence of Religious Wars and Expansion on Society
1. Status of Women
2. European Witch-Hunt
3. Elizabethan and Jacobian Literature
4. Baroque Art and Music
Individual Presentation: How is the selected artist an
innovator in the field of visual arts?
V. Absolutism in the West
A. Foundations of French Absolutism
1. Henry IV, Sully, and Richelieu
Read excerpts from Politics Drawn From the Very Words of Holy Scripture
Bishop Jacques-Benigne Boussuet
2. Absolutism Louis XIV
3. Colbert and Louis’ economic policies
4. Revocation of the Edict
5. Louis XVI’s Wars
B. The Decline of Absolutism in Spain
C. Constitutionalism
1. The Decline of Royal Absolutism in England (1603-1649)
2. Religious Issues
3. Puritanical Absolutism in England: Cromwell and the Protectorate
4. The Restoration of the English Monarchy
5. Constitutional Monarchy and Parliament
6. The Dutch Republic in the Seventeenth Century
VI. Absolutism in the East
A. Consolidation of Serfdom
B. Rise of Austria and Prussia
1. Austria vs. Ottomans
2. Prussia and the 17th Century
3. The Consolidation of Prussian Absolutism
C. Development of Russia
D. Absolutism and Baroque Architecture
Debate: Who is the most “absolute” of the Absolutes.
ESSA
VII. Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment
A. Scientific Revolution
1. Scientific Thought 1500
Read On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres Nicolaus Copernicus
2. From Brahe to Newton
Read excerpts from the trial of Galileo
3. Bacon, Harvey, Decarte – Inductive Reasoning Vs. Deductive Reasoning
Read excerpts
Attack on Authority and Advocacy of Experimental Science
Francis Bacon
Read excerpts
Discourse on Methods Rene Descartes
B. Enlightenment
1. The Emergence of the Enlightenment
Read What is Enlightenment? Immanuel Kant
2. The Philosophes, Salons and the Public
Read Excerpts from
Second Treatise on Government John Locke
A Plea for Tolerance and Reason Voltaire
Good Sense Baron d’ Holbach
Encyclopedia Denis Diderot
The Social Contract Jean Jacques Rousseau
On Crimes and Punishments Cesare Beccaria
3. The Later Enlightenment
4. Urban Culture and Public Opinion
Simulation: The French Salon
VIII. Eighteenth Century European Expansion
A. Agricultural and Land
1.
Agricultural Revolution
2.
Open Field System
3.
England and Low Countries
4.
Enclosure
B. Population Explosion
C.
The Cottage Industry
1.
The Putting Out System
2.
Textile Industry
D. The Atlantic Economy
1.
Mercantilism and Colonial Wars
2.
Foreign Trade
3.
Slave Trade
4.
Economic Liberalism
Read Excerpts from The Division of Labor and The Wealth of Nations
Adam Smith
IX. Changing Life of the People
A. Marriage and Family
B. Children and Education
C. Food and Medical Practice
DBQ : Analyze attitudes toward and responses to “the poor” in Europe
between approximately 1450 and 1700
X. The French Revolution
A. The French Revolution and the First Stage 1789-1791
1.
Breakdown of the Old Order
2.
National Assembly
3.
Revolt of the Poor and the Oppressed
4.
Limited Monarchy
Read Exerpts from:
Grievances of the Third Estate
Bourgeois Disdain for Special Privileges of the Aristocracy
Emmanuel Sieyes
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens
B. Republican France and the Second Stage
1.
Foreign Reaction
2.
Reign of Terror: Jacobins and the Mountain
Read Excerpt:
Republic of Virtue Maximilien Robespierre
C. Napoleon
1.
Rule of France
2.
Napoleonic Wars
Read Excerpt:
Leader, General, Tyrant, Reformer Napoleon Bonaparte
XI. Industrial Revolution
A. Industrial Revolution in Britain
1.
Eighteenth Century Origins
2.
First Factories
3.
The Problem of Energy
4.
The Steam Engine Breakthrough
5.
Railroads
6.
Economic Policy – Industry and Population
a. Malthus
XII.
b. Ricardo
Read
On the Principle of Population Thomas Malthus
DBQ Identify the issues raised by the Growth of Manchester and
analyze the various reactions to those issues over the course of the 19th
Century
B. Industrialization on Continental Europe
1.
National Variations
2.
Challenge of Industrialization
3.
Agents of Industrialization
C. Capital and Labor
1.
New Class of Factory Workers and Owners
2.
Working Conditions
3.
Sexual Division of Labor
4.
Labor Movements in Britain
Read Excerpt
The Condition of the Working Class in England Friedrich Engels
Ideologies 1815-1850
A. Congress Vienna
1.
The Balance of Power
2.
Metternich and Conservatism
Read Excerpt
Reflections of the Revolution in France Edmund Burke
The Odious Ideas of the Philosophies Klemens von Metternich
B. Radical Ideas and Early Socialism
1.
Liberalism
Read Excerpt
On Liberty John Stuart Mill
2.
Nationalism
Read Excerpt
Young Italy Giuseppe Mazzini
3.
Utopian Socialism
a. St. Simon
b. Fourier
c. Blanc
d. Proudon
4.
Marxian Socialism
Read Excerpt
Communist Manifesto Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels
C. Romanticism
1.
Tenets of Romanticism
2.
Literature
a. Wordsworth
b. Scott
3.
Art and Music
a. Delacroix, Turner and Constable
b. Liszt and Beethoven
D. Reforms and Revolutions
1.
Greece
2.
Great Britain
a. Corn Laws
b. The Reform Bill 1832
DBQ: Identify the issues raised by the growth of Manchester and
analyze the various reactions to those issues over the course of the
nineteenth century.
3.
Ireland and the Great Famine
4.
The Revolution of 1830 in France
E. The Revolutions of 1848
1. Democratic Republic of France
2. Austrian Empire 1848
3. Prussia and the Frankfurt Assembly
XIII. Urban Society in the 1800s
A. Urbanization
B. Bacterial Revolution
1. Edwin Chadwick
2. Louis Pasteur
C. Urban Planning and Public Transportation
D. Middle Class vs. Working Class
E. Role of women
Read Excerpts
Working Conditions for Women in Russian Factories M.I.Pokrovskaya
Why We are Militant Emmeline Pankhurst
On Female Inferiority The Goncourt Brothers
The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage
F. Changing Family
1.
kinship
2.
prostitution
Read Excerpt
Prostition in Victorian London Henry Mayhew
The Odyssey of a Prostitute Guy de Maupassant
3.
child rearing
G. Science and Thought
1.
Charles Darwin
2.
Auguste Comte
3.
Herbert Spencer
4.
Social Darwinism
H. Realism in Literature
1.
Theodore Dreiser
2.
Stephen Crane
3.
Ivan Turgenev
XIV. Age of Nationalism 1850-1914
A. Napoleon III
1.
Loius Napoleon Bonaparte
2.
The Second Empire
B. Unification of Italy
1.
Three approaches
a. Mazzini – centralized republic
Read Excerpt
Young Italy Guiseppe Mazzini
b. Gioberti – federation of existing states led by Pope
c. Aristocratic kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont
2.
Cavour
a. Lombardy
b. Garibaldi and the Two Sicilies
C. Unification of Germany
1.
Germany before Bismarck
2.
William I of Prussia
3.
Bismarck and the Austro-Prussian War
4.
universal manhood suffrage
5.
Franco-Prussian War 1870-1871
ESSAY: Compare and Contrast the foreign policy goals and achievements of
Metternich (1815-1848) and Bismarck (1862-1890)
D. Modernization of Russia
1.
The Great Reforms
a.
Crimean War of 1853-1856
b.
Serfs freed
c.
Mirs and zemstvos
2.
Industrialization
a.
private railroads
b.
foreign investment by Sergei
Witte
3.
Revolution of 1905
a.
Russo Japanese War
b.
Revolution of 1905
c.
Duma
E. Responsive Nation State 1871-1914
1. German Empire
a. Kulturkampf
b. Spread of socialism
c. William II – German Emperor
F. Republican France
1. cession of Alace-Lorraine to German
2. Gambetta and Ferry
3. Dreyfus Affair
4. Emile Zola
G. Great Britain and Ireland
1. Extension of Franchise 1832, 1867, 1884
2. Irish nationalist demand political
autonomy, Irish Protestants resist
H. Austro-Hungarian
I. Jewish Emancipation and Modern AntiSemitism
1. Herzel
2. Pogroms
Read Excerpts
The Semitic Versus The Teutonic
Race Hermann Ahlwardt
Jewish France Edouard Drumont
The Kishinev Pogrom
The Jewish State Theodor Herzl
J. Marxism and the Socialist Movement
1. The Socialist International
2. Unions and Revisionism
XV.
Western Imperialism
A. Global Inequality
B. The World Market
C. Opening of China and Japan
D. Penetration of Egypt
E. The Great Migration
F. Western Imperialism
1. Scramble for Africa
2. French Indo-China
3. Spanish-American War of 1898
4. Revolution in China
5. British Empire in India
XVI. World War I and the Russian Revolution
A. Bismarckian System of Alliances
B. Rival Blocs
C. Outbreak of War
1. origins
2. stalemate
3. home front mobilization
4. social impact
5. growing political tensions
6. Treaty of Versailles
Read Excerpt
All Quiet on the Western Front
Erich Maria Remarque
ESSAY: Analyze the impact of the First World War on European culture and
society in the interwar period (1919
D. Russian Revolution
1. Fall of Imperial Russia
2. Provisional Government and the
Petrograd Soviet
3. Lenin and the Bolsheviks
Read Excerpt
The Call to Power V.I. Lenin
4. Trotsky and the Seizure of Power
5. Dictatorship and Civil War
Read Excerpts
Petition to the Tsar George Gapon
and Ivan Vasimov
ESSAY: Compare and contrast the extent to which the French Revolution (17891799) and the Russian Revolution (1917-1924) changed the status of women.
XVII. Age of Anxiety
A. Modern Philosophy
1. Friedrich Nietzche
Read Excerpt
The Will to Power and the Antichrist
2. Henri Bergson
3. Empiricism
a. Ludwig Wittgenstein
4. Existentialism
a. Jean-Paul Satre
b. Martin Heidegger
c. Karl Jaspers
d. Albert Camus
5. Revivalism of Christianity
B. Physics
1. Marie Curie
2. Max Planck
3. Albert Einstein
4. Werner Heisenberg
C. Freudian Psychology
D. 20th Century Literature
1. Marcel Proust
2. Virginia Woolf
3. William Faulkner
4. James Joyce
Read Excerpt
The Trial Franz Kafka
E. Modern Art and Music
1. Architecture and Design
a. Bauhaus school
2. Modern Painting
a. superrealism
b. Cezanne
c. Picasso
d. Kandinsky
e. Surrealist
f. Dadaist
Read Excerpt
Dada Tristan Tzara
F. Film and Radio
G. Germany and Western Powers
1. Weimar Republic
2. Dawes Plan
H. The Great Depression
1. Scandanavian response and the Swedish Social Democratic
Party
2. Recovery and Reform in Britain and France
XVIII. Dictatorships and World War II
A. Conservative Authoritarian
B. Radical Totalitarianism
C. Stalin
1. Five Year Plan
2. “stamping out NEPs”
3. Great Purges
Read Excerpt
Liquidation of the Kulaks Joseph Stalin
Terror in the Countryside Lev Kopelev
D. Mussolini and Fascism
Read Excerpt
Fascist Doctrines Benito Mussolini
E. Hitler and Nazism
Read Excerpt
Mein Kampf Adolf Hitler
DBQ: Describe and analyze the ways in which the defenders of the Spanish
Republic represented their aims and their attitudes within and among the groups
presented by the documents.
F. WWII
1. Aggression and Appeasement
2. Hitler’s Empire 1939-1942
Read Exerpt
“A Disaster of the First Magnitude”
Winston Churchill
3. The Grand Alliance
4. Battles
5. Treaty of Paris
6. Holocaust
Read Excerpt
A German Jewish Doctor’s Diary Hertha
Nathorff
Memoirs of A German Jewish Woman Marta
Appel
Commandant of Auschwitz Rudolf Hoess
Concentration Camp Life and Death Y.
Pfeffer
XIX. Cold War Conflicts and Social Transformation 1945-1985
A. Origins of the Cold War
1. Tehran
2. Yalta
3. Potsdam
Read Excerpts
The Iron Curtain Winston Churchill
B. West vs. East
1. NATO
2. Truman Doctrine
3. Korean War
4. Chinese Civil War
C. European Unity
1. Treaty of Rome
2. Common Market
D. Decolinization
1. India
2. Asia
3. Egypt
E. Soviet Eastern Europe 1945-1968
1. Tito and Yugoslavia
2. Hungary
Read Excerpt
The Hungarian Revolution 1956
Andor Heller
3. De-Stalinization
a. liberalization
b. Solzhenitsyn
c. Khrushchev
Read Exerpt
Literature as Propaganda Yevgeny
Yevtsuchenko
Khrushchev’s Secret Speech Nikita
Khrushchev
G. Postwar Social Transformation 1945-1968
1. Science and Technology
a. “Big Science”
b. space race
2. Changing class structure
3. New roles of women
4. Youth and the Counterculture
H. Détente
I. The Women’s Movement
XX. Revolution, Rebuilding and New Challenges
A. The Decline of Communism
1. Soviet Union to 1989
a. Brezhnev
b. Gorbachev
i. perestroika
ii. glasnost
ESSAY: Compare and contrast the political and economic policies of Joseph Stalin
in the period before the Second World War and those of Mikhail Gorbachev
2. Solidarity in Poland
B. The Revolutions of 1989
1. Collapse of Communism
a. Poland
b. Hungary
c. East Germany
d. Czechoslovakia
and
Velvet
Revolution
C. Disintegration of the USSR
D. German Unification
E. Yugoslavia
XXI. Unity and Identity in Western Europe
A. The European Union
1. European Economic Community
2. Maastricht Treaty and the
European Union
ESSAY: Many historians have suggested that since 1945, nationalism has been on
the decline in Europe. Using both political and economic examples from the period
1945-2000 evaluate, evaluate the validity of this interpretation.
Summer Reading
One of the requirements of the class is to complete a summer reading and writing
assignment that I have summarized below. On the first day you return from the summer
vacation in September of 2006, you will be required to hand in a 3-page paper (#1
below). Flashcards are to be handed in and a test on the material from the text reading
will be given on the second day of class (#2). The grade that you receive on the paper,
the test and flashcards will be averaged into your first marking period grade.
1. Read The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli (1513). This book has not only
contributed to the development of modern government, it has served as a handbook
for some of the most extraordinary leaders in history. In The Prince Machiavelli
provides insight for governing based on strength and effectiveness as opposed to
personal morality and religious conviction. In essence he argues that in the game
of politics “the end justifies the means.”
Summer Reading
2. Current events will be an important aspect of this class. Therefore, you must read
the newspaper or watch the news everyday.
3. Read The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli (1513). This book has not only
contributed to the development of modern government, it has served as a handbook
for some of the most extraordinary leaders in history. In The Prince Machiavelli
provides insight for governing based on strength and effectiveness as opposed to
personal morality and religious conviction. In essence he argues that in the game
of politics “the end justifies the means.”
Using your knowledge of current events and the suggestions made by
Machiavelli, write a three (3)-page letter of recommendation to either Prime
Minister Tony Blair or President Vladimir Putin.
The purpose of this letter is to advise Tony Blair how to successfully resolve the
tensions in Northern Ireland with Sinn Fein or to advise Putin how to successfully
resolve the conflict in Chechnya. Your proposal must be based on the political
analysis of Machiavelli and the recommendations he makes in The Prince.
Be sure to emphasize actual historical events and to include at least four (4)
concepts (such as virtue, morality, money, taxes, treaties, military, human nature,
fear, cruelty, and fortune) discussed by Machiavelli in your letter:
NOTE: Give credit where credit is due. Cite Machiavelli, as well as newspaper sources you use.
You must therefore, include a bibliography
4. Please read Chapter 12 and 13 in A History of Western Society by McKay, Hill,
and Bucker.
5. On 3” x 5” index cards please create flashcards for the key terms on page 408 and
the key terms on page 446. I will collect these on the day you return. THE
READING AND CARDS ARE DUE ON THE SECOND DAY OF CLASS. A
TEST WILL BE GIVEN ON THE READING.