Assignments This page will provide you with detailed instructions regarding essays and other required learning activities.   Date Assignment 1. (shifting) various short responses (details to be provided) 2. 30 October (option: 4 Nov.) midterm essay 3. c. 4 Dec. (tentative) second essay 4. 14 December final essay

Assignment 1

Due: shifting dates
Length: usually c. 1-2 pp.
Task: short responses to the readings, to be brought to class and used in discussion

Assignment 2

Due: in my mailbox (second floor of FPH) by 3:00 p.m., 30 October [Note: I'm using the original date as an encouragement to quick completion—but any paper that comes in by the afternoon of 4 November will be regarded as "on time."]
Length: c. 7 pages
Task:

According to historian Robert Tombs (in Blanning, ed., p. 15), "Crises came and went, but three universal and enduring issues brought people into politics and defined their solidarities and conflicts: the state, the land, and religion." Like Robert Gildea, he sees urbanization and a revolution in communication as major catalysts of change.

The monarchies of 1815 sought to turn the clock back after a generation of revolutionary upheaval. How successful were they? Discuss the fundamental characteristics of the Restoration era (for our purposes, defined as 1815-48). What were the restorers out to achieve? What were the objections of their critics?

Consider in particular the critiques offered by Heinrich Heine and George Sand, two of the most talented politically engaged writers of the day. Sand at least rhetorically rejected the charge "of having intended to write a dangerous book" (1832 Preface, p. 8), and yet she acknowledged that the novel, Indiana, was a summary of her ideas "about society's rights over individuals," an attack "on the injustice and barbarity of the laws which still govern the existence of women in marriage, in the family, and in society." Heine claimed that the "contraband" in his head was far more dangerous than anything in his suitcase, and indeed, as bad as anything to be found "On the bookshelves of the Devil" (Winter's Tale, I). In private, he called his verse epic "not only radical and revolutionary, but also antinational."

Sources to use: Your principal sources should be Gildea, Blanning, Sand's Indiana, and Heine's Winter's Tale. You should in addition make appropriate use of any additional assigned sources, from other writings in the Heine anthology to the many online primary sources that we have examined. There is plenty of food for thought here, so no outside research is required.

Citing sources : Document your essay using foot- or endnotes and a bibliography in accordance with standard scholarly form ("Chicago" style). (Consult online examples.)

Assignment 3

Due: c. 4 December [moved back from 20 November]
Length: c. 7 pp.
Task: This essay has two parts.

You are one of the following:

• a liberal
• a conservative
• a radical
• a nationalist

(Naturally, there may be some overlap between some categories. If you have any questions, ask me before you write the paper.)

Analyze your situation and the prospects for your beliefs and movement in the next three decades.

Note: Don't cheat. That is, try not to write with perfect hindsight from our perspective. Instead, do your best to reconstruct what a person of that place and time could have known: based on the actual conditions, available information, and appropriate worldview or ideology.

Part 1: It is 1849.

Part 2: It is 1879.

Be sure to use the maximum number of pertinent sources from the assigned and recommended readings (in particular, try to make use of the primary sources.)

Document your essay with foot- or endnotes according to standard scholarly practice (see assignment no. 1).

Assignment 4

Due: in my mailbox by noon, 13 December
Length: c. 7 pp.
Task:In a volume in a classic European history series early in the twentieth century, Frederick Artz described nineteenth-century Europe as the product of the interplay of twin influences: on the one hand, English inventions and institutions, and on the other, French concepts of liberty and equality.

For practical purposes, you can define liberalism as a belief in individualism, parliamentary government, civil liberties, legal equality, and property rights. (See, e.g., Blanning, 51-52;Gildea, 73, 86-87; and Schorske, 4-10).

Consider, then the following two propositions:

(1) By the dawn of the twentieth century, liberalism could be declared a success in Europe. Although monarchies and authoritarian states remained, even they were beginning to make concessions to parliamentary principle. All governments in some sense felt the need to justify themselves in the court of public opinion. Living standards, though unequal, were improving. Even the humbler classes enjoyed technological and material comforts that but scant decades earlier would have been confined to a small élite. Most people could look forward to improving living standards and personal security.

(2) By the dawn of the twentieth century, liberalism was everywhere in retreat in Europe. A veneer of parliamentary democracy notwithstanding, autocratic rule and domination by traditional and new élites remained the rule. Aristocrats and armies continued to wield great power. Most telling of all, liberalism no longer responded to the hopes and needs of the masses. They looked for salvation instead to new non-liberal or even radically anti-liberal movements and ideologies: nationalism, racism, socialism. Rationalism itself under assault by new ideologies.

Obviously, these are stark alternatives, and the truth may lie somewhere inbetween. But use them as a guide in formulating your response: Just how do you assess the situation or draw up a balance sheet?

Base your answer on Gildea, Schorske, Weber, Blanning, and the appropriate primary sources among the assigned and recommended readings.

Document your essay with foot- or endnotes according to standard scholarly practice (see assignment no. 1).