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Iron & Gold: Europe in the Era of Upheaval and Ascendancy  
   
   
 

 


Social Science 217
Tues., Thurs., 2:00-3:20
FPH 101

Jim Wald, 559.5592

contact instructor

Off. Hrs. G-15 FPH (sign-up)
Mon., Thurs. 12:00-2:00
Wed. 12:00-1:00
(and by appointment)



syllabus
assignments
online readings
research center


course description
course requirements
reading list




 

syllabus and course guide

     
1789
1804
1871




announcements


announcement text will follow as needed

 

 

 

 


 

course description

The "long" 19th century, stretching roughly from the political ascendancy of Napoleon Bonaparte to the outbreak of the First World War, was one of drama and contradictions. Europe was rocked by revolutions, and yet it attained unprecedented prosperity and secured its hold over colonial empires. New categories and loyalties arose: the nation began to supplant the dynasty, and ties between individuals were increasingly based on market relations rather than traditional obligation. Capitalists and socialists alike declared their faith in the power of industry, science, and progress. It was in every sense the century of both Darwin and Marx.

Course goals:
To provide students with a foundation in history, which should prove pertinent to a wide variety of pursuits in the social sciences, humanities, and cultural studies. Many of our institutions, world views, and social and symbolic practices arose in the ninteenth century. Unless one understands that world, one cannot really hope to understand the present.


Students will gain not only a solid grasp of principal events, social movements, and intellectual currents, but also an introduction to the historiography of the era. That is, they will come to locate their understanding of the past in the context of traditions of interpretation. (For example: How has our thinking about the causes and con-sequences of the Revolutions of 1848 evolved? How have subsequent generations appropriated history for their own purposes?)




 

course requirements

• regular attendance
• participation in classroom and web-based discussion
• one or more oral presentations

written work (tentative):

• several short essays and/or source analyses
• a research paper (details to be negotiated with the instructor)

Students will also attend several evening screenings of films/videos outside of class. In some cases, we will view documentaries. In others, we will turn to adaptations of literary works of the period under study. In still others, we will view fictionalized treatments—some involving a good deal of poetic license—of historical figures and events. Even these latter films should be instructive, for these appropriations of the past indicate which of its elements have entered our own cultural consciousness and remind us that the study of history is, after all, about interpretation and debate.

 


reading list

The following texts will be available on reserve and for purchase in the College Store:


T.C.W. Blanning, ed., The Nineteenth Century, Oxford Short History of Europe, ed. Blanning (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000)

Robert Gildea, Barricades and Borders: Europe 1800-1914, 2nd ed., The Short Oxford History of the Modern World, ed. J. M. Roberts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996)

Daniel R. Headrick, When Information Came of Age: Technologies of Knowledge in the Age of Reason and Revolution, 1700-1850 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000)

Heinrich Heine, Poetry and Prose, ed. Jost Hermand, Robert Holub; intro. Alfred Kazin, The German Library,
ed. Volkmar Sander, 32 (NY: Continuum, 1982)

George Sand, Indiana, trans. Sylvia Raphael, ed. Naomi Schor, World's Classics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001)

Carl E. Schorske, Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture (NY: Random House, 1981)

Eugen Weber , France Fin de Siècle (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988)

Other, shorter texts will be available on reserve or the web.


 

 

 


class schedule

* designates a primary source

 

Meeting 1: Thursday, 5 September
Introduction
The nineteenth century as an epoch in European history

Readings
none

Images

Mme. Récamier (1805)
Les desmoiselles d'Avignon (1907)

Study Guide

 

return to overview


Meeting 2: Tuesday, 10 September
A Dawning Age of Capital; the "Globalization" Process of the Early Nineteenth Century

Readings
• Robert Gildea, Barricades and Borders: Europe 1800-1914, 2nd ed., The Short Oxford History of the Modern World, ed. J. M. Roberts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), chapter 1, "The Quickening Pace," 3-33
• T. C. W. Blanning, ed., The Nineteenth Century, The Short Oxford History of Europe, ed. Blanning (Oxford: OUP, 2000), 1-9

Recommended
Try at least to sample the following primary sources, but only if you have first worked through Gildea and Blanning. We can in any event examine some of these texts together in class, in the course of discussion.

* Thomas Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population [1798; 1803](excerpt; full text)
*David Ricardo, "The Iron Law of Wages" [1817]
*Friedrich List, A National System of Political Economy [1841] (excerpt; full text)
* "A Rhinelander" [Karl Marx], "Debates On the Law On Thefts of Wood," Rheinische Zeitung, 1842
* Note: Two poems by Heinrich Heine, which we will read later in the course, deal with some of the issues raised here: "The Silesian Weavers" and "The Slave Ship," in his Poetry and Prose, ed. Jost Hermand, Robert Holub, The German Library, ed. Volkmar Sander, 32 (NY: Continuum, 1982), PP. 52-53, 84-93

Video (in class)

from subsistence crises to the petroleum age: excerpts from "Feast and Famine: The Limestone Legacy," and "Coal, Blood, and Iron," Parts 4-5 of "The Birth of Europe" (A&E-BBC, 1991)

Study Guide
The text here is in many ways rather dense and makes for slow going. Don't be discouraged! As you will see, Gildea actually has a good style and sense of humor. In any case, one of the goals of the course is to teach you to develop strategies for dealing with works containing a multitude of "facts." Begin by assuming that both the author and you are talented and intelligent. He has a point to make and you can grasp it. What are the principal ideas the author is trying to get across? How does his evidence support them?

Further resources:

* The Corn Law Debate
* Malthus on the "Corn Laws" [1814]
*David Ricardo (biographical thumbnail sketch; works [will open in PDF format])
• If you'd like to get a sense of the American experience in the transitional era between agrarian and industrial economic orders, visit ("virtually" or in real life), Old Sturbridge Village, in central Massachusetts: a living-history museum of rural life circa 1790-1840
*Friedrich Engels, The Conditions of the Working-Class in England (1845)
• On the Irish Potato Famine (sites include information on Irish immigration to the US)
"Interpreting the Irish Famine, 1846-1850," from the University of Virginia
"The Great Irish Famine": comprehensive long-term portrait of Irish social history, from the curriculum guide of the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education
• Explore the history of "The Industrial Revolution and the Railway System," a website designed and based on original research by Mount Holyoke historian Robert Schwartz

return to overview

 



Jacques-Louis David, Distribution of Eagles by Napoleon

Meeting 3: Thursday, 12 September
The Spectre of Revolution and the Ghost of Napoleon

Readings

• Gildea, chapter 2, "Napoleonic Europe," (pp. 34-54)
*
Heinrich Heine, Poetry and Prose, ed. Jost Hermand and Robert Holub, The German Library, ed. Volkmar Sander, 32 (NY: Continuum, 1982), Foreword and Introduction (vii-xix), "The Grenadiers," pp. 2-4

* French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (1789) (from Avalon Project; Yale)
* Johann Gottlieb Fichte, "Address to the German Nation" (1806) (from Fordham)
* Ernst Moritz Arndt, "The German Fatherland" (from Fordham)
myths of identity, from the exhibits in the new German Historican Museum (Berlin)

Musical documents (possible selections; in class)

* Robert Schumann (1810-56), setting of Heine's "The Two Grenadiers" for voice and piano, Romances and Ballads, op. 49 no. 1 (1840)

Visual resources

France in 1789 (by Monin, 1832)
Central Europe in 1815 (by Cary)

• political martyrs:
-Louis XVI and the French royal family (c. 1815-20)
- Napoleon (early 19th century)



Further resources:

• Overview of the history of the French National Assembly, 1789-present
* The Decree Abolishing Feudalism, 1789
* The Civil Constiution of the Clergy, 1790
* Debates in the French National Convention on the abolition of the monarchy, 1792
* Napoleon's Account of the Internal Situation of France in 1804
* Napoleonic Code Civil (in English) (in French)

 

Study Guide

As you read the assignment, think about the legacy of the Revolution and Napoleon. For one thing, why does Gildea make this his next topic? Is it a matter of chronology (the narrative begins with 1800, after all), or are there other reasons?

What were the fundamental differences between "Old Regime" and Revolution? What were the similarities? What is your impression of Napoleon's character and beliefs? Why was he such a powerful symbolic figure? After all the upheaval caused by a generation of revolution and war, just what had changed?

What was the nature of nationalism? How did it relate to both Old Regime and new order?

return to overview

 

Prince Metternich
 
Louis-Philippe, the "Citizen King"

Meeting 4: Tuesday, 17 September
The Restoration World (I)

 

Readings
• Gildea, chapter 3, "Metternich's Europe" (pp. 55-79)

• Robert Tombs, "Politics," in Blanning, ed.: just 10-31
* Heine, selections from his his Poetry and Prose:
--
"The Silesian Weavers," "Hymn" ("I am the sword, I am the flame"), 52-55
-- Ideas—Book Le Grand, chapters 6-12 (pp. 185-206)


Foundations of the Restoration era:
* Prince Metternich's Political Confession of Faith (1820)
* French Constitutional Charter of 1814
(from Napoleonseries)
* The French Constitution of 1830 (from Fordham)
* The Carlsbad Decrees (1819)(from Hannover)

* Thomas Babington Macaulay, speech in favor of the Reform Bill, 1831(excerpt, from Fordham;full text, from Birmingham. Note: read at least the excerpt)

Study Guide
Let us extrapolate from the question that we asked in the previous session. Gildea's first two chapters in essence set forth the twin forces that served to weaken the old order and bring about a new one. Just what did the Revolution and Napoleonic Empire accomplish?

To put the question another way: We tend to speak of a "Restoration" after 1815. Just what, if anything, was "restored"?

This period is also the birthplace of our modern notions of liberalism and conservatism. What do those concepts mean? Where does nationalism stand in relation to them?

What was the significance of the Revolution of 1830? Consider, for example, the changes in French government or constitutions; unresolved social issues; international repercussions.

Further Resources

* French Press Laws and Ordinances of the Restoration (1819-27) (from Napoleonseries)
* Mary Shelley congratulates Lafayette on the results of the July Revolution, 11 Nov. 1830 (facsimile; facsimile2; transcription); from the Lafayette Papers in the collections of Cornell University
* Letter from James Madison to Lafayette, 12 Dec. 1830, on the latter's support for the creation of a new monarchy (facsimile; transcription); from the Lafayette Papers in the collections of Cornell University

* Tsar Nicholas I, Imperial Manifesto on Poland, March 25, 1832 (from Fordham)
* two American newspaper articles criticizing French persecution of Polish revolutionaries under the new regime (1833) from the
Lafayette Papers, Cornell University

Gallery: images of authority and revolution

 

return to overview

 

Heine as modern political and cultural hero: East German commemorative stamp (1972). This depiction empha-sizes the political radical, reproducing the opening words of his "Hymn": I am the sword, I am the flame. (Poetry and Prose, 55)

Meeting 5: Thursday, 19 September
Romanticism and its Critics

Readings

• Gildea, Chapter 5, "Hierarchies of Culture" (pp. 126-34)
• James Sheehan, "Culture," in Blanning, ed.: just 126-30
*Heine, selections from his Poetry and Prose:
--Alfred Kazin, Foreword; Jost Hermand, Introduction, vii-xix
-- "The Harz Journey": concentrate on pp. 115-19, 126-30, 140-59, 168-73;
--selected poems:
the early love poems on pp. 5-13; middle poems, 23-27; "Course of the World," "Retrospective," and "Cooling Off," 75-79; "Forget the holy parables," "How slow is time," "I'm not allured," 95-99; "Song of Songs" and "Lotus Blossum," 107-11;

Recommended

Concentrate on working through Gildea and Heine in detail. If you have time, however, at least sample the following fundamental manifestos of Romanticism:

*William Wordsworth, Preface to the Second Edition of the "Lyrical Ballads" (from UPenn)
*Victor Hugo, Preface to Cromwell,(from bartleby.com
)

*Heine,
--"The Gods of Greece," "Enfant Perdu," "The Slave-Ship," "The Wander-Rats," 15-21, 83-93, 103-7

--time and interest permitting, examine the previously unassigned portions of Book Le Grand

in class: musical examples:

settings of Heine's poetry from Schumann's song cycle, "Dichterliebe" (Poet's Love), 1840

Study Guide
Of all the cultural movements of modern Europe, Romanticism may be the most difficult to define. It aroused strong passions among both adherents and opponents. Although it at times assumed the air of an exclusive cult, it also made universal claims and was not averse to being all things to all people. Part of the problem derives from the fact that Romanticism (not unlike the Reformation) unfolded in several phases and assumed different forms in different countries. What grounds do we have for calling it a unified movement or phenomenon? Why (to use Gildea's terms) was aesthetic revolt such a popular tendency?
(Note: I find Gildea's description of the origins of German Romanticism somewhat questionable in its details, but his general assessment can serve as a useful point of departure for our discussions.)

What does Alfred Kazin (Foreword, vii-viii) mean when he says that Heine has not been considered sufficiently "modern"? Is Heine old-fashioned? Too modern? To what extent does Heine preserve the values and conventions of Romanticism? To what extent does he mock or subvert them?
How do Heine's views and poetics compare with those of Coleridge and Hugo?

return to overview

Sunday, 22 September
8:30 p.m., FPH 101


Video screening

"Waterloo" (Italian-Russian; 1970)

The film depicts Napoleon's career from his abdication and exile in 1814 through the "Hundred Days" and his defeat at Waterloo. It places particular emphasis on the character and personalities of Napoleon and Wellington. Among the notable features of the production are the extended epic battle scenes, which effectively convey both the spectacle and the horror of early modern warfare.

 

Between controversy and canon. Heine's grave in its second form (Montmartre cemetery, Paris) as pilgrimage site.

Meeting 6: Tuesday, 24 September
Poetic Masterpiece and Poetic Engagement

Readings
[NOTE: continue discussion of Heine from last time: "Harzereise" and "Le Grand" ]

*Heine, "The Message," and the verse epic, "Germany: A Winter's Tale" in his Poetry and Prose, pp. 47-49, 231-97
• NOTE: As an aid to preparation, identify at least 4 passages (stanzas or other sections, however you wish to define them) in the "Winter's Tale" that particularly caught your attention. Bring to class a list indicating, in several sentences or a paragraph each, which passages you chose, and why. Turn in your responses at the end of class.

Recommended
(but only if you've had time to work through Heine properly) skim Gildea, 105, 107-10, 113-22 (Note: We will in any case return to this material later in the term.)

Study Guide

As Jost Hermand observes in the introduction to the Poetry and Prose (p. xviii), the "Winter's Tale" is Heines's "poetic masterpiece," "journalism and poetry, politics and fiction, detached irony and unrestrained involvement all at once." One could also see it as extended commentary on the issues raised in our historical text. Proposition: Heine is offering a critique of precisely the sort of disciplined society that Gildea describes. Not only that: Heine is at the same time attacking those of his fellow-critics of that society whom he regards as inferior poets and intellects.

Heine's poem is on one level very accessible because of the power of its imagery and argument. On another level, it is very difficult because the specific references will be obscure to the modern reader. It is unfortunate that our edition contains no annotations. I will do my best to explain the references and allusions in the course of discussion. (It just requires time.)

Further resources

return to overview

 

Meeting 7: Thursday, 26 September

[NOTE: continue discussion of Heine]

return to overview

 

Meeting 8: Tuesday, 30 September
1848: Marianne Returns to the Barricades

Readings

• Gildea, Chapter 4, "The Revolutions of 1848"
• Colin Heywood, sections of "Society" on liberalism and conservatism, in Blanning, ed., 47-61, 70-77

*François Guizot on the Condition of the July Monarchy, 1830-1848
*Alexis de Tocqueville on the February Days
* Documents of the Revolution of 1848 in France

* Heinrich Heine, "October 1849," in his Poetry and Prose, pp. 79-83* Carl Schurz recalls the outbreak of revolution. From the reminiscences of the German revolutionary (1829-1906) who went on to immigrate to the United States, where he served as an officer in the Union Army, a senator from Missouri, and Secretary of the Interior.

* Frantisek Palack´y to the Frankfurt Parliament (1848)
* Johann Gustav Droysen and Friedrich Wilhelm IV on the question of monarchy in 1848-49 (two brief paragraphs)
* Sandor Petöfi, "The National Song of Hungary" (from HNet)

Gallery: View Representations of Authority and Revolution, Circa 1848

Recommended

* At least take a look at the Introduction and Part I of Karl Marx's "Class Struggles in France"
* Although the "Communist Manifesto" is perhaps the most famous document to come out of the upheavals of 1848, it had little influence at the time. We cannot devote our detailed attention to the work, but if you have never read this fundamental text, you should now at least examine portions of it. Consider, for example, the following aspects: the elucidation of a theory of history; the assessment of the historical role of the bourgeoisie.
—English version. From the Marx-Engels Internet Archive. This site will also provide you with access to Marx's other writings on the events of 1848-49.
—German version.
Resources on the 150th anniversary of the Manifesto.


Study Guide
How do you account for the wave of simultaneous revolutions that Gildea, like many other commentators, calls the greatest such phenonmenon prior to 1989? In 1989, for example, the countries of the Eastern Bloc revolted against a common political system.
What does Marx
mean when he says that the defeat of the revolution was really the defeat of "prerevolutionary traditional appendages"? that the main achievement of the revolution was
"the creation of a powerful, united counterrevolution"? (Introduction, "Class Struggles in France"; see also his remarks at the end of Part I).

Much of the popular and scholarly literature alike has tended to view the revolutions through the lense of contemporary political interests. Accordingly, the picture has looked very different at different points in history: for example, after the creation of new so-called successor states at the end of World War I, in the aftermath of the Nazi conflagration, and after the fall of communism.

A standard view on the left (beginning with such figures as Marx and Heine) has been that the German revolutionaries, in particular, were too moderate or lost their nerve. The issue has been particularly contentious in light of subsequent developments and the resultant theory of a supposed German "separate path of development" and lack of democratic tradition. Indeed, on every front, the authorities made concessions or capitulated. And yet, by 1849, revolution had decisively ended everywhere on the continent. What happened? To what extent do ideology and external circumstances play determining roles? Is it true, for example, that the failure of the revolutions in effect discredited all political ideologies and left the lesson that only force mattered in society? Can we say that the middle classes simply traded freedom for security in order to blunt the threat from below?

What were the roles of class and nation in these revolutions? At first sight, one might expect to find a simple opposition between nationalities struggling for self-determination, on the one hand, and oppressive, antiquated empires, on the other. One might also expect that a movement of national unification would have sought to include all German-speakers in a common state. As our readings show, the situation was rather more complicated. What was going on?

More generally, how do we define a revolutionary movement? Is there a general standard here? For example, should we take the French case as the norm? Or do local conditions play a larger role? How do we assess the success or failure of a revolution? Are we talking here about a series of distinct national revolutions or a common phenomenon?



Tip: Keeping all the events and personalities straight can be a difficult task. You may find it helpful to consult the following resources:

• Biographical Dictionary of Major Figures (e.g., Marx, Mazzini,
Palack´y, Thiers, Kossuth) in Gildea, pp. 459-68
Chronology of 1848 Revolutions (a very brief overview, from University College, London)
• map of the German Confederation in 1848 (from 1848 Flugschriften im Netz)

further resources

Encyclopedia of 1848 Revolutions (from Ohio State University)
* Bibliography of pamphlets and periodicals of the French Revolution of 1848 (from the ARTFL project at the University of Chicago): facsimiles of original documents (NB in French). Great research tool for projects. Even if you can't read the language, you may find useful images.

* 1848 Flugschriften im Netz (from the University of Frankfurt am Main): German pamphlets, broadsides, posters, and other print ephemera of the Revolution. Includes serachable list of individuals, biographical sketches, other resources. (NB: in German). Equivalent to the collection of French pamphlets and journals listed above. Great research tool for projects. Even if you can't read the language, you may find useful images.
The France of Victor Hugo: created by Professor Robert Schwartz and his students in History 155 at Mount Holyoke College
* Documents on Hungary in 1848-1849 (from HNet): (1) Proclamation of Ferdinand to Jellacic and the Croats (June 1848); (2) Archduke Stephen to the Hungarian Diet (July 1848); (3) Hungarian Diet to King Ferdinand (Sept. 1848); (4) Hungarian Declaration of Independence (April 1849); (5) Kossuth's letter to the people of the US (1850); Kossuth at a Congressional Dinner in Washington (1852). Note: Concentrate on nos. 1, 4. Skim the beginning of 5. Read the rest to the extent that time permits

return to overview

 

Meeting 9: Thursday, 3 October
Knowledge and Power (I)

Readings
Daniel R. Headrick, When Information Came of Age: Technologies of Knowledge in the Age of Reason and Revolution, 1700-1850 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), Preface, Chapters 1-3

Study Guide
Among the many issues the book raises: Why did information suddenly become so important in the 18th and early 19th centuries? To put it another way, who needed it and who produced it? Can we relate the desire to organize (and generally, systematize) information to other trends that we have studied, or was it rather, just a matter of a need to control the flood of data?


Sunday, 25 October
8:30 p.m.
FPH 101

"Impromptu"
Fictionalized treatment of the relations between George Sand and Frédéric Chopin, Franz Liszt, and Alfred de Musset. Another twentieth-century take on the lives of avant-garde artists—scandalous in their day, canonical in ours. Note: You may find it helpful to review Gildea (133-34) and the chronology of Sand's life in Indiana (xxvi-xxviii)

 

No class Tuesday, 8 October: Advising-Exam Day (read ahead!)


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Meeting 10: Thursday, 10 October
Knowledge and Power (II)

Readings
Headrick, Chapters 4-7

Study Guide
text to followxx

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No class Tuesday, 15 October: Fall Break (read ahead!)

 

Meeting 11: Thursday, 17 October
"Race, Gender, and Class?"

Readings
George Sand, Indiana, trans. Sylvia Raphael, ed. Naomi Schor, World's Classics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001)

Study Guide
It has become such a commonplace to talk of "race, gender, and class" that it is in turn easy to make fun of the reduction of the phrase to a mindless mantra (especially in the case of European history). The present novel is a work that actually does employ these three fundamental categories in an integrated interpretation of contemporaneous society. It was arguably among the first to do so.

Obviously, there is much to talk about here. Even though we cannot undertake a thoroughgoing literary analysis of the work, we can respect its literary integrity. Rather than treating the work as a "mere" document or description of reality, we can take seriously and interrogate Sand's notion of realism: "let society be blamed for its inequalities and fate for its whims. The writer is only a mirror which reflects them, a machine which traces their outline" (Preface of 1832; p. 5).

Consider, for example, her frequent references to the concepts of "law" and "restraint."
How does one judge Sand's view that politics and love are inextricably intertwined? (see, for example, p. 116, and the editor's introduction, p. xxi) Can we establish, for example, a parallel between Raymon's vacillating romantic strategies and his opportunistic political doctrines?

What do you make of the critics who accused Sand of "making unwise attacks on the institution of marriage" (Preface of 1842, p. 10)? Sand explicitly raises the issue of feminism, which has until now featured mainly implicitly in our readings. Like our other readings, though, the novel treats the situation of women as distinctive but not distinct from the structures and strictures of society as a whole. Her cause, she says, "is the cause of half the human race, it is that of the whole human race; for the distress of women entails that of men, as the distress of the slave entails that of the master" (Preface of 1842, p. 13).

resources

* electronic English-language edition of Indiana, replete with kitschy turn-of-the-century illustrations (from UPenn)
* text of Indiana in French (from the
Gallica project of the Bibliothèque Nationale)
Friends of George Sand web page (Hofstra U.)
entry on George Sand from the
Encyclopedia of 1848 Revolutions (from Ohio State University)

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Meeting 12: Tuesday, 22 October
Becoming One (I): Nation-Building and External Enemies

Readings
• Gildea, Chapter 7, "Nationalism and Unification" (pp. 165-205
)
• Paul W. Schroeder, "International politics, peace, and war, 1815-1914," in Blanning, ed.: just 158-83 for now
* Joseph Mazzini, An Essay On the Duties of Man Addressed to Workingmen: Chapter I (pp. 5-14, 18-20), Chapter V (pp. 57-63) (from Hanover)
* Documents of Italian Unification, 1846-61 (from Fordham)
* Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Preface of 1869, Parts I, VII
* Count von Beust, "Memoirs of the Ausgleich, 1867" (from Fordham)
* Otto von Bismarck, Memoirs, excerpts on the end of the war in 1866 and the beginning of war in 1870 (from Hanover)
* A War Correspondent in the Franco-Prussian War, 1870 (from Fordham)

further resources (recommended):

* The Austrian Constitution of 1867 (from HNet)
* King Victor Immanuel, Address to Parliament, 1871 (from Fordham)
* map of Franco-Prussian campaigns

Study Guide

Why was revolution defeated across Europe? What does Gildea mean by the triumph of "reaction": Was this an attempt to turn the clock back, or were there modern features to the new repressive regimes? To put the question another way, is it safe to say that nationalism proved more attractive than liberalism or political movements further to the left?
Can we discern different types of generic nationalism?
Did the national unification processes in the various countries follow similar patterns?
As for the results, would it be fair to extend Marx's generalization about France under Napoleon III (Eighteenth Brumaire, Pt. VI): namely, that "Industry and commerce, hence the business affairs of the middle class, are to prosper in hothouse fashion under the strong government"?


assignment:
prepare for midterm essay (30 Oct., with option of extension to 4 Nov.)

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new prosperity and confidence: medal celebrating Viennese economic, technological, and cultural achievement at mid-century

Meeting 13: Thursday, 24 October
Building on Profits

Readings
Carl E. Schorske, Introduction (skim) and "The Ringstrasse, Its Critics, and the Birth of Urban Modernism," in his Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture (NY: Random House, 1981), pp. xvii-xxx, 24-115
• Gildea, Chapter 6, "Mid-Century Prosperity" (pp. 137-64)
(skim; devote particular attention to 137-48, 154-58, 160-64)
• Niall Ferguson,"The European economy, 1815-1914," in Blanning, ed.: just 78-84, 89-96, 102-4 (more if you wish or can, of course)

Study Guide

We are here taking something of a leap, or at least a more extended chronological exploration (we'll look ahead to the end of the century).

If population growth, urbanization, and faster communication were eroding the foundations of the old social and cultural order, how did cities and their place in society change? (Note, by the way, that cities cannot be considered in isolation from the surrounding countryside.) To what extent did political vs. aesthetic considerations shape urban planning?

Hint: We'll start our discussion with Gildea and Ferguson and then move on to a more detailed discussion of Schorske's essay (which is long but also contains many illustrations).

The chapters from Gildea and Ferguson are rich in detail, but you should by now be getting a feel for what is essential. I've tried to suggest some emphases above. Consider, in addition: The period between the suppression of the 1848 revolutions and the Great Depression of 1873 was one of unprecedented economic growth. What were the bases of this expansion? Who were the "winners" and "losers"? (Incidentally, you may wish to consider some of the phenomena in light of today's debates over free trade and globalization; see, e.g., Gildea, 144-48, Ferguson, 82-84) Was this just a case of new growth, or had something fundamental changed? Consider, for example, the roles of technology and finance. Why do historians speak of a "Second Industrial Revolution" in this era? Think back to the material covered at the start of the course.

We have hitherto drawn our reading material from Gildea's synthetic history and numerous primary sources. Schorske's book enables us to see an intellectual historian turning to topics in greater detail. What is Schorske's method? For example, what does he mean when he takes issue with historians "content to use artifacts of high culture as mere illustrative reflections of political or social developments, or to relativize them to ideology"? (xxi)
Why does Schorske place such emphasis on liberalism and its critics? (Hint: review Gildea on the Compromise of 1867, pp. 200-5, if you feel the need.) What does he mean when he argues that modernist culture:
(a) seems hopelessly fragmented, because the old "sweeping descriptive categories"—"rationalism and romanticism, individualism and socialism, realism and naturalism" (with which, we, too, have so far been working in this course)—now lose their power? (xix)
(b) was born in a "hothouse, with political crisis providing the heat"? (xxvii)

Why was the issue of historicist culture suddenly so charged? How and why did an urban development zone—the "Ringstraße"—come to stand for an era in the same way as such terms as "Victorian" or "Gründerzeit"?

Hint: You should be able to figure out how to read Schorske efficiently (in the case of the dense later portions of the chapter, for example). Above all, just be sure that you understand the nature of the debate over development and historical vs. modern styles. Similarly, you need not absorb every detail about every architect and thinker, but you should at least be able to identify the fundamental beliefs of figures such as Sitte and Wagner.

In the course of discussion, I'll introduce some additional material on European cities other than Vienna.

further resources
Georges Haussmann : descriptions and images of the rebuilding of Paris under Napoleon III
the Champs Elysées: the main artery of the new Paris (official site; many pictures and short captions; longer descriptions in French)
The History of Vienna (from the City of Vienna)
Earlier Architecture in Vienna (from the City of Vienna)

The Ringstrasse (Viennaslide Imagefile)
Photos of the the Ringstrasse... (from the City of Vienna)
maps of fin-de-siècle Vienna, Budapest, Prague (from this site)

The Industrial Revolution and the Railway System: original research by Mt. Holyoke Professor Robert Schwartz (includes primary sources)
• Immigration: examine Ellis Island records

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socialist optimism

Meeting 14: Tuesday, 29 October
Becoming One (II): Nation-Building and Internal Enemies

Readings

• Gildea, Chapter 8, "Revolution Contained"
• Ferguson, "European economy," in Blanning, ed., 85-89, 104-10, 118-25
• Heywood, "Society," in Blanning, ed., 61-70 (and review 47-50)
* "Inaugural Address of the International Workingmen's Association," London, 1864;[also browse, if you wish, further history, image, documents] (from the Marx-Engels Internet Archive)
* Critique of the Gotha Program, 1875 (from the Marx-Engels Internet Archive)
* Mikhail Bakunin, "The State and Marxism," chapter 3 of his Marxism Freedom and the State (from the Anarchy Archives)
* John Leighton, "One Day Under the Paris Commune," 1871 (from Fordham)
• browse some of the materials in The Siege of Paris: images, posters, periodicals, and other primary sources (Northwestern University)

Study Guide

further resources

*Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, "What is Property" (from Virginia Electronic Text Center)
Social Democratic Party of Germany
* International Workingmen's Association Archive
* Marx, The Civil War in France (from the Marx-Engels Internet Archive)
* The "Sozialistengesetz" (German antisocialist law) (from documentarchiv.de)

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Richard Wagner:
"If you honor your German masters, then you will conjure up good spirits."

Meeting 15: Thursday, 31 October
Of Apes and Men (I):
Education, Philistinism, Religion, and the Cult of Art

Readings
• Gildea, Chapter 9, "Mid-Century Culture" (concentrate on pp. 236-54)
• James J. Sheehan, "Culture," in Blanning, ed., 126-34, 140-46
* selections from Richard Wagner's prose works:

--selections from Art & Revolution (1849): skim the introductory material to the extent you find necessary, then read pp. 47-57 (scroll down using the blue numbes in square brackets as your guide).

--selections from The Art-Work of the Future (1849): I, Parts 3-4,on the Folk and art; II, Parts 6 (on reuniting the humanistic arts), IV (outlines of the art of the future)

* Pope Pius IX, Encyclical "Quanta cura" (Condemning Current Errors) (from The Catholic Pages)
* Pope Pius IX, "Syllabus of Errors" (from The Catholic Pages)
* Ernest Renan, The Life of Jesus (from Internet Infidels)
read chapters 15 ("Commencement of the Legends Concerning Jesus—His Own Idea of His Supernatural Character"), 26 ("Jesus in the Tomb"), 28 ("Essential Character of the Work of Jesus").
Time and interest permitting, read around in other parts of the work. You might wish, for example, to skim parts of the Introduction, Chapters 1 "(Place of Jesus in the History of the World"), 2 ("Infancy and Youth of Jesus—His First Impressions"), and 16 ("Miracles").

* examination of the popular middle-class periodical, Die Gartenlaube (in class)

Study Guide

Why does general education suddenly become so important in this era? What is meant by the concept of "philistinism"? What does it mean, for example, to say that the middle class was educated but not cultivated (Gildea, 241)? Is this portrait fair? Why were both the right and the left apparently so bothered by the "intrusion" of commerce into art? Were their complaints similar? How does one account for the cult of the artist? This was a time of resurgence of religion, and yet also a time when religion was under attack on multiple fronts. What were the issues? How does one draw up a balance sheet of losses and gains for religion? Can we connect the renewed debates about art and artists with religion?

further resources

Multimedia from Wagner to Virtual Reality (from artmuseum.net)
* Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy (from UTEL, Univ. of Toronto)
* Pope Pius IX, Encyclical "Ubi primum" (on the Immaculate Conception) (from The Catholic Pages)
* Decrees of Church Councils: see under Vatican I (from The Catholic Pages)
2001—Verdi in the World (resources for the anniversary year 2000-2001


Gartenlaube, cover



Gartenlaube, masthead

 




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Charles Darwin, Origin of Species (fourth edition, 1860)

Meeting 16: Tuesday, 5 November
Of Apes and Men (II): Religion, Science, and Social Theory

Readings
• Gildea, Chapter 9, "Mid-Century Culture": 246-59
• Sheehan, "Culture," in Blanning, ed., 134-40, 147-51


* writings of Charles Darwin

* On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection... (first edition; from Talk.Origins):
Preface to the third edition
—Introduction (skim);
— Chapter 3, "Struggle for Existence" (read approximately the first half);
—Chapter 4, (read: opening [approx. first 8 paragraphs;Illustrations of the action of natural selection; Summary)
—Chapter 6, "Difficulties on Theory" (read: opening; subsections "On the absence or rarity of transitional varieties" [skim]; "On the origin and transitions of organic beings with peculiar habits and structure"; "Organs of extreme perfection and complication"; "Summary")
—Chapter 14, "Recapitulation and Conclusion"

additional electronic versions:
Evolutionary Classics from University of Bergen
Botany Online from University of Hamburg
from infidels.org
from human-nature.com

* The Descent of Man:
—Introduction;
—Chapter XXI: "General Summary and Conclusion" (read at least the opening and concluding pages)

several electronic versions:
Evolutionary Classics from University of Bergen
Botany Online from University of Hamburg
from infidels.org
from human-nature.com



* Friedrich Engels, Speech at the Grave of Karl Marx, 1883 (from the Marx-Engels Internet Library)
* Walter Bagehot, "The Use of Conflict," Chapter 2 of his Physics and Politics (1869; from Fordham)
text to follow

Study Guide

further resources

The Talk.Origins Archive: Exploring the Creationism/Evolution Controversy (resources and mainstream scientific responses to frequently asked questions about the origins of life and the world); includes links to creationist sites. Note: See the welcome page for information regarding standards of materials submitted by readers.)
• A counterpart of the preceding is the Discovery Institute, which seems in many ways to represent the survival of the Victorian spirit by virtue of its advocacy of technology, free markets, and religion.

Evolution, from University of California Museum of Paleontology
* Ernst Haeckel, "The Confession of Faith of a Man of Science" (1892) (from Fordham)

 

Sunday, 3November
8:30 p.m.
FPH 101

[Films on Darwinism and Creationism]
x

 

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Meeting 17: Thursday, 7 November
Daily Life and Deadly Dangers

Readings
Eugen Weber, France Fin de Siècle (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988), Introduction, Chapters 1-3 ("Decadence?","Transgressions," "How They Lived"), 1-82
• Ferguson, "European economy," in Blanning, ed., 104-25 (skim parts you read earlier)

recommended

• Gildea, Chapter 10, "The Struggle for Economic Supremacy," 267-99 (as needed)

Study Guide

further resources

return to overview

 

Meeting 18: Tuesday, 12 November
Nation-States and National Minorities

Readings
• Gildea, Chapter 11 "Problems of National Integration": pp. 314-19; Chapter 13, "The Management of Society": pp. 353-56
• Weber, Chapter 6, "A Wolf to All," 130-41
• Schorske, "Politics in a New Key: An Austrian Trio," 116-80

Study Guide

further resources

* overview of and documents on the Dreyfus Affair (from Georgetown)
* There is no readily available text of the essay on the nationalities question by the distinguished Austro-Marxist Otto Bauer, but you can read Lenin's rather dismissive remarks on "Cultural-National Autonomy" (1913).
• More information Bauer and Austro-Marxism from the Bauer web site
* Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State, 1896 (from the Jewish Virtual Library). You might start by examining the introduction and conclusion.
• overview on the centenary of the publication of Herzl's manifesto, from the Central Zionist Archives: includes images of manuscript pages

 

return to overview

 

Meeting 19: Thursday, 14 November
Nation-States, Manhood, and the "Woman Question"

Readings
• Gildea, Chapter 11 "Problems of National Integration": pp. 319-25
• Weber, Chapter 4, "Affections and Disaffections," 83-104
* August Bebel, "Woman in the Future," from his Woman and Socialism (1879)
* Alexandra Kollontai, Introduction to the Book, The Social Basis of the Women's Question, 1908 (from the Kollontai Archive)

Study Guide

return to overview

 

assignment:
prepare for essay (due 4 Dec.)

 

Meeting 20: Tuesday, 19 November
Discipline

Readings
• Gildea, Chapter 13, "The Management of Society," pp. 344-65
• Weber, Chapter 5, "The Endless Crisis," pp. 105-29
• Roland Barthes, "The Eiffel Tower," in his The Eiffel Tower and Other Mythologies, tr. Richard Howard(NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1979), pp. 3-17 (reserve)

Study Guide

resources
* Gustave Le Bon, "The Future of Socialism," Book 6, Chapter 2 of his The Psychology of Socialism

 

Gallery: The Eiffel Tower (coming)

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Meeting 21: Thursday, 21 November
Europe and Empire

Readings
• Gildea, Chapter 12, "The Race for Empire," 326-43
• A. G. Hopkins, "Overseas expansion, imperialism, and empire, 1815-1914," in Blanning, ed., 210-40
• Thomas Babington Macaulay, "Minute on Indian Education" (1835) (from Univ. of Minnesota)
• "Léopold de Saussure as an Opponent of Assimilation" (translation from his Psychologie de la colonisation, 1909), in Imperialism, ed. Philip D. Curtin, Documentary History of Western Civilization, ed. Eugene C. Black and Leonard W. Levy (NY: Harper & Row, 1971), pp. 85-92 (reserve)
• "Jules Harmand on the Morality of Empire and the Policy of Association" (from Domination et colonisation, 1910), in Curtin, ed., Imperialism, pp. 291-307 (reserve)

Study Guide
text to followxx

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Meeting 22: Tuesday, 26 November
Culture in Transition: Between Mass Entertainment and Modernism

Readings
• Sheehan, "Culture," in Blanning, ed., 152-57
• Weber, Chapter 7, "The Old Arts and the New," 142-76
• Schorske, "Politics and the Psyche: Schnitzler and Hofmannsthal," 3-23

Study Guide

 

No class Thursday, 28 November: Thanksgiving Break

 

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French enter-tainment, from Die Jugend, 1899

Meeting 23: Tuesday, 3 December
Culture in Transition: Leisure and Consumption

Readings
• Gildea, Chapter 14, "Culture at the Turn of the Century": 366-77
• Weber, Chapters 9-11: "Curists and Tourists"; "La Petite Reine"; "Faster, Higher, Stronger," 177-233

Study Guide

Was there something qualitatively new about the rise of "entertainment" and commercialized leisure activity? Why were both conservatives and leftists so alarmed by the rise of a new popular culture?

Weber suggests that the theater was to the fin de siècle as the film is to the twentieth century. Explore the comparison. Can we add: as the book was to the early nineteenth century?

Was tourism exploration, edification, relaxation, or escapism? If escapism, what were the tourists escaping? Both Gildea and Weber connect the rise of leisure with the decline of religiosity, e.g., "In the nineteenth century holy days turned into holidays" (Weber, 177). What are the implications of this view?

What does Weber mean when he says, "The very notion of comfort was a foreign novelty. For the wealthy, luxury had preceded comfort"?

Was the fin de siècle marked by a new sense of time?

According to Weber (229), sport and politics were very similar. What do you make of his analogy?

culture of the body, cultivation of the body as national regeneration

medal of the Sokol ("falcon") patriotic gymnastic movement
"light cavalry": humorous view of women cyclists, Die Jugend, 1899. A mischievous reader has added a beard and mustache to the face of one of the women in the larger image

 

return to overview

 

assignment:
essay due 4 Dec.

 

Meeting 24: Thursday, 5 December
Science, Symbols, and the Unconscious

Readings

• Gildea, Chapter 14, "Culture at the Turn of the Century": pp. 377-88
• Schorske, "Politics and Patricide in Freud's Interpretation of Dreams" and "Gustav Klimt: Painting and the Crisis of the Liberal Ego," 181-278

Study Guide

resources:

The first new museum of our new century in New York City opened in 2001. The Neue Galerie is dedicated specifically to German and Austrian art of the period c. 1890-1940.


Sunday, 8 December
8:30 p.m., FPH 101


Video screening

"Colonel Redl " (Hungarian-German, 1984; Dir. István Szabó)

"A sweeping historical epic of power, intrigue, love and lust set in Austria during the turbulent years before the start of World War I.
'Colonel Redl' is the story of Alfred Redl, the son of a poor railway worker who, through driving ambition, became the head of military intelligence and commander of the 8th Army in Prague. This drama vividly recreates Redl's life from his childhood in military school to his mysterious end amidst rumours of deceit and adultery."

Winner, Jury Prize, Cannes Festival 1985

Although the film (by the maker's own admission) takes many liberties with the historical facts of the case, it does so in order to portray a more general historical truth about the society and the epoch.


assignment:
prepare for essay (due 14 Dec.)

 

 

return to overview

 

Meeting 25: Tuesday, 10 December
Apocalypse Now?

Readings
• Gildea, Chapter 15, "The Break-Up of Nineteenth-Century Europe," 389-420
• Blanning, Conclusion (241-47)
• Weber, Chapter 12, "The Best of Times," pp. 234-45
• Schorske, "Explosion in the Garden: Kokoschka and Schoenberg," pp. 322-64

Study Guide
Gildea and Schorske stress the crises and coming disaster during the fin de siècle. Weber seems to detect a positive mood: was it illusion? delusion? What is Blanning's view?

Just how do we draw up a balance sheet for the century?

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