131-123 The Making of Modern Europe: Reason and the State

Credit Points

Coordinator

Prerequisites

No prerequisite, but 166-110 The Making of Modern Europe (1): Managing Identity in Contemporary Europe is strongly recommended.

Semester

Contact

Subject Description

The subject examines the ways in which modern Europe emerged from complex historical processes. It seeks to build understanding of the rise of the modern and its replacement by the post-modern, and also the creation of the modern nation-state and the origins of the European movement.

The end of World War II marked the end of European world hegemony and, for many intellectuals, the end of the promise of Enlightenment, the idea that the agency of human reason could improve the lot of the individual and society itself. This idea was enshrined in the nation states that emerged out of the crucible of the Napoleonic Wars. France, Germany, and Italy all developed liberal democratic constitutional regimes. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the future appeared to be one of unlimited progress.

World War I, Fascism and the Holocaust, the failure of the democratic states and the use of the atom bomb all gave rise to a new pessimism, a sense that Europe had been on the wrong track. Europe was therefore forced not only to confront a society in ruins, but also to re-examine those Enlightenment ideals that had promised so much. Europe was thus ushered into a time now referred to as post-modernism.

Assessment

Written work comprising 4000 words.