Contemporary History (20th Century) - 2nd semester
Objectives
a) Be able to acquire an overview of the short twentieth century having as chronological landmarks the Great War and the Russian Revolution, on the one hand, and the end of the Cold War in 1991, on the other
b) Be able to understand the dialectic relationship between the factors of change and permanence which shaped some of the key junctures of the 20th century, namely the inter-war period (1919-1939) and the Cold War era (1945-91)
c) Locate, both in chronological and spatial terms, some of the most emblematic crisis and transformations of the 20th century
d) Be familiar with some of the major historical perspectives related with the various topics of the course
e) Be able to write critical essays and deliver oral presentations on any of the topics of the course
f) Become familiar with the Contemporary era and be able to proceed to a higher level of academic studies
General characterization
Code
711051018
Credits
6
Responsible teacher
Pedro Aires Oliveira
Hours
Weekly - 4
Total - Available soon
Teaching language
Portuguese
Prerequisites
None
Bibliography
HOBSBAWM, E. J., A Era dos Extremos, Lisboa, Presença, 1998
HOLLAND, Robert, European Decolonization 1918-1981, Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1985
OVERY, Richard, Os Ditadores. A Alemanha de Hitler e a Rússia de Estaline, Lisboa, Bertrand, 2004
REYNOLDS, David, One World Divisible. A Global History since 1945, London, Penguin, 2000
WESTAD, Arne Odd, The Global Cold War. Third World Interventions and the
Making of Our Times, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005
Teaching method
A combination of lectures by the teacher and scheduled interventions by the students, followed by discussion among all the participants in the class. Occasional screening of documentaries or films. Tutorial meetings with students to help them with the drafting of their essays
Evaluation method
Exam (40%) and written essay (40%). Participation in some of the classes is mandatory (20%)
Subject matter
a) Total war: evolution and main characteristics of the Great War. The Paris Peace Conference and the new international settlement
b) The Russian Revolution: the crisis of the Tsarist regime. The February and October revolutions. The Civil War. Lenins succession. The Stalin years. The global impact of the Russian Revolution
c) Europe between the wars: the crisis of parliamentary democracy and liberal capitalism. European fascism: a typology. Nazi Germany: interpretative models. The League of Nations and the collapse of the Versailles settlement. The Second World War
d) The birth of the bipolar world: the eclipse of Europes preponderance and the rise of the superpowers. The UNO and the post-war international institutions. The first stages of the European integration process. The rebirth of parliamentary democracy and the new social contract in Western Europe. Real existing socialism in Eastern Europe
e) The Cold War: origins, characteristics and key phases of the global bipolar conflict
f) Europe from the Golden Age to the crisis decades. The end of the European colonial empires. Post colonial conflicts: the Middle East and Indochina. The transformations of global capitalism and the crisis of the social-democratic consensus. The 1989 revolutions, the end of the Cold War and the new international landscape.