History 420: History of International Politics, 1815-1932
This course is a survey of great power politics in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The class begins with the peace settlement at the end of the Napoleonic wars. The focus then shifts relatively quickly to the period dominated by Bismarck--i.e., the latter half of the nineteenth century. Most of the middle part of the course deals above all with the great historical problem of the origins of the First World War. The final part of the course is concerned mainly with the peace of 1919 and with its very rapid collapse.
The course will have two exams, a midterm and a final. The midterm, covering the period through the early 1880s, will be given in class on October 21, and the final, which will deal only with the part of the course not already covered by the midterm, will be held during the last scheduled class time on December 9. Both exams will be designed to test your command of the basic factual material covered in the course, as well as your basic understanding of the required readings (other than the Rich and the two Sontag texts)--that is, your grasp of what is distinctive about the argument of a given book or article or document, what the author's basic point is, what you should take away from your reading of that text. You will not be expected to memorize all kinds of obscure facts, but you are expected to have a decent command of the fundamental story covered in the course. It is very important that you learn the basic factual side of the story: your final grade for the course as a whole will not be higher than your average grade for the two exams. But if you do the readings and come to class regularly, you shouldn't have any problem with the exams.
You will also have to hand in three 7-10 page papers. There will be five paper options, but you only have to write three papers. You can, however, turn in four or even five papers, and it might be to your interest to do so, because that will allow you to do a kind of dry run--that is, to mess up without being penalized--because in computing your grade, only your three best papers will enter into the calculation. The paper assignments are outlined in detail in separate handout.
Papers are due in my box in the history department office on the dates noted in the calendar below. You might have trouble getting your paper in on time. If so, you should know what the policy on late papers is. The policy is fairly simple. You can have as much extra time as you need, and you don't need to get any special permission to hand in papers late, but to be fair to people who turn their papers in on time, there has to be a grade penalty for late papers. This rule does not apply, of course, if you are ill or if you have a family emergency; in such cases, there will obviously be no penalty. But let me or the t.a. know as soon as the problem develops, and we'll give you a note to attach to the paper when it is turned in, to make sure there is no grade penalty.
A number of books have been ordered for the course, and you should be able to buy these at the Pennsylvania Book Center on the corner of 34th and Sansom:
Norman Rich, Great Power Diplomacy, 1814-1914
Raymond Sontag, European Diplomatic History
A.J.P. Taylor, Bismarck: The Man and the Statesman
Arthur Link, Woodrow Wilson: Revolution, War, and Peace
The other readings are in the bulkpack prepared for the course and available at the Campus Copy Center on the 3900 block of Walnut Street. Other books--listed below as "recommended" or particularly useful for one of the papers--have been put on reserve for this course in Rosengarten.
The reading list might look a little daunting, but many of the selections given are pretty short. Altogether there are about 1300 pages of required reading--i.e., about 100 pages per week--and that includes some of the reading you will be doing anyway for the paper assignments.
Reading Schedule and Class CalendarWeek of:
September 9: Lewis Namier, "Basic Factors in Nineteenth Century Europe History," from his Vanished Supremacies: Essays on European History, 1812-1918, pp. 165-175. Recommended: E.L. Woodward, Prelude to Modern Europe, 1815-1914. (D359 W59 1972)
September 14: Rich, Great Power Diplomacy, chapter 1; extracts from Henry Kissinger, A World Restored, pp. 1-40, 144-190; Castlereagh to Rose (British ambassador to Prussia), December 28, 1815, from Mack Walker, ed., Metternich's Europe, pp. 39-42.
September 21: Rich, Great Power Diplomacy, chapters 2-8; Castlereagh's State Paper of May 5, 1820, from Temperley and Penson, Foundations of British Foreign Policy, pp. 47-63.
September 28: Rich, Great Power Diplomacy, pp. 184-221; Sontag, European Diplomatic History, pp. 1-7; A.J.P. Taylor, Bismarck: The Man and the Statesman, pp. 9-122; Gordon Craig, Germany, 1866-1945, pp. 11-27; Otto Pflanze, Bismarck and the Development of Germany, vol. 1 (1990 edition), pp. 446-469; [Lord Salisbury], "The Terms of Peace" (published in 1870).
October 1: Paper 1 due (for those choosing this option)
October 5: Sontag, European Diplomatic History, pp. 7-17; Rich, Great Power Diplomacy, pp. 221-233; Taylor, Bismarck, 123-230.
October 12: Sontag, European Diplomatic History, pp. 19-26; Rich, Great Power Diplomacy, pp. 233-242 and chapters 14 and 15; David Landes, "Some Notes on the Nature of Economic Imperialism" (published in 1961).
October 15: Paper 2 due (for those choosing this option)
October 19: Sontag, European Diplomatic History, pp. 27-33; Taylor, Bismarck, pp. 231-253.
October 21: Midterm Exam (in class)
October 26: Sontag, European Diplomatic History, pp. 34-64; Rich, Great Power Diplomacy, pp. 242-262, 370-377; "Memorandum by Mr Eyre Crowe."
October 29: Paper 3 due (for those choosing this option)
November 2: Sontag, European Diplomatic History, pp. 64-81; Rich, Great Power Diplomacy, pp. 378-401. Recommended: George Monger, The End of Isolation
November 9: Sontag, European Diplomatic History, pp. 82-150; Fritz Fischer, War of Illusions, chapter 22; Fritz Fischer, Germany's Aims in the First World War, chapter 2; and three documents that follow this selection in the bulkpack; E.L. Woodward, Great Britain and the War of 1914-1918, chapter one ("The Immediate Origins of the War").
November 12: Paper 4 due (for those choosing this option)
November 16: George Kennan, American Diplomacy, chapter four; Arthur Link, Woodrow Wilson: War, Peace, and Revolution; the five Wilson wartime speeches in the bulkpack.
November 23: Raymond Sontag, A Broken World, chapter one; Trachtenberg, "Reparation at the Paris Peace Conference," Journal of Modern History, March 1979.
November 30: Sontag, A Broken World, chapter 2-6.
December 3: Paper 5 due (for those choosing this option)
December 9: Final Exam (in class)