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History of Europe
From Renaissance to the End of the Cold War
- Rohit Majumdar - Professor of Liberal Arts at Karnavati University and Independent Research Scholar in History and Anthropology
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August 2020 | 584 pages | SAGE Texts
A concise textbook on the history of Europe viewed through the lens of economy, technology, information politics and war.
History of Europe helps students, teachers and enthusiasts of history to gain an understanding of the genesis of modern Europe. The book has been structured in an unconventional yet logical manner, keeping in mind the difficulty students face while relating facts and time periods in history. It is segregated into four modules, which bring in multiple angles to provide an all-encompassing perspective of European history along with a parallel understanding of world history, thus establishing a holistic framework of the events. The modules cover Renaissance to pre-Napoleonic era, holocausts to consolidation of global sustainability, Cold War era, and the conflict and culture in European globalization since 1989.
Thorough integration maps, illustrations and special vignettes make the textbook interactive, informative and illustrative for students to easily internalize and recollect the major events and their causes and consequences.
Key Features:
• A unique learning experience of history through extensive chronological detailing and multiple parallels of events
• Includes forty-one maps, which act as visual guides to the geography of politics, campaigns, battles and expansion of empires
• Commentary sections summarizing the key themes and examining global and comparative developments going beyond the geographic framework
• First-hand notes and commentaries of the First and Second World Wars and eyewitness accounts
• Extensive source citations along with weblinks and suggestions for further reading
History of Europe helps students, teachers and enthusiasts of history to gain an understanding of the genesis of modern Europe. The book has been structured in an unconventional yet logical manner, keeping in mind the difficulty students face while relating facts and time periods in history. It is segregated into four modules, which bring in multiple angles to provide an all-encompassing perspective of European history along with a parallel understanding of world history, thus establishing a holistic framework of the events. The modules cover Renaissance to pre-Napoleonic era, holocausts to consolidation of global sustainability, Cold War era, and the conflict and culture in European globalization since 1989.
Thorough integration maps, illustrations and special vignettes make the textbook interactive, informative and illustrative for students to easily internalize and recollect the major events and their causes and consequences.
Key Features:
• A unique learning experience of history through extensive chronological detailing and multiple parallels of events
• Includes forty-one maps, which act as visual guides to the geography of politics, campaigns, battles and expansion of empires
• Commentary sections summarizing the key themes and examining global and comparative developments going beyond the geographic framework
• First-hand notes and commentaries of the First and Second World Wars and eyewitness accounts
• Extensive source citations along with weblinks and suggestions for further reading
To My students: How I Look at European History
Acknowledgements
CHRONOLOGY: 55 AD TO 1788
MODULE I: THE EUROPEAN EXPANSION AND WAR POLITICS: RENAISSANCE TO PRE-NAPOLEON
Introduction
Background I: Towards the Christian Consolidation
Background II: The Genesis of Modern Europe
Background III: The Islamic–Christian Detachment: Sacred Battles and Sacrileges and Turks
Background IV: The Renaissance: Baptistery of Florence Cathedral to High Renaissance
First Parallel: Explorations, Wars and Capitalistic Society: 1490s to 1789
Theme 1. Renaissance Reformation and Sciences
Theme 2. Reforming War Technology: Battle for Supremacy
Theme 3. The Renaissance of Global Militarization Eurasian Expansion (1500–1750)
Theme 4. The Ottoman Empire (1453–1699)
Theme 5. Warfare in Africa (1415–1570)
Theme 6. The Final Frontiers of the European Renaissance Empires: Southeast Asia and India
Theme 7. The Thirty Years War (1618–1648)
Theme 8. The Capitalistic Wars, Commerce and Deconsolidation in Europe
Theme 9. American Revolution and Europe’s De-centralization of Power
Second Parallel: Renaissance of the Dominion States: Growth of Information Matrix till Napoleon
Theme 1. Technological and Informational Dominion in the West
Theme 2. The Hundred Years’ War in Europe and After
Theme 3. Rise of Information Highway in Europe
Theme 4. Scientific Secularism and the Italian Parallel
Theme 5. The Matrix of Informational Growth in Post Naval Expansion
Third Parallel: The French Dominion on European States: Renaissance to Pre-Napoleon Politico-Social Orders Suprématie Française
Theme 1. The Sanctuary of European Dominion
Theme 2. Hugh Capet and French Dynastic Power
Theme 3. French–British Fragility and Disasters
Theme 4. The Renaissance and the Rise of the Monarchy
Theme 5. The Wars of Religion and Collaterals
Theme 6. The Age of Absolutism
Theme 7. The 17th-Century French Politics
Theme 8. French Monarchial Regression during the 18th Century
Theme 9. Eighteenth-Century Foreign Policy: France, England, Europe
Theme 10. Influence to Precipice
Fourth Parallel: War of Ideas: European Enlightenment
Theme 1. The Race for Intellectual Superiority
Theme 2. Intellectualism and Knowledge Theorists
Theme 3. The Enlightened Monarchs
Theme 4. The English Enlightenment
Theme 5. Science in the Age of Reason
Theme 6. The Russian Enlightenment
Theme 7. The German Enlightenment
Theme 8. Voltaire’s Enlightenment: The French Controversies
Theme 9. Italy Reborn
Theme 10. Coffeehouses and Salons
Theme 11. The Printed Word
Theme 12. Societies
Theme 13. A Woman’s Place in Academic Revolution
Theme 14. Enlightening the Arts
Theme 15. Music in the Enlightenment
Theme 16. The Post-Enlightenment World
Fifth Parallel: War of Ideas: American Enlightenment
Theme 1. Americanization of European Ideas
Theme 2. Benjamin Franklin/ Theme 3. Thomas Jefferson
CHRONOLOGY 1788 TO 1945
MODULE II: HOLOCAUSTS TO CONSOLIDATION TO GLOBAL SUSTAINABILITY
Sixth Parallel: Révolution Française
Theme 1. The Estates General vs Louis XVI
Theme 2. The Reign of Terror
Seventh Parallel: Le Général Entrepreneur to Führer The Political Deconstruction of Europe for Global Conflict
Theme 1. The Era of Napoléon Bonaparte
Theme 2. The July Monarchy
Theme 3. The Second Republic
Theme 4. The Second Empire
Theme 5. Social, Economic, and Foreign Policy of Second Empire
Theme 6. The ‘Iron Chancellor’ and Franco-Prussian Policies
Theme 7. The Third Republic
Theme 8. International Relations—1871 to 1914: First World War
Eighth Parallel: Le Général Entrepreneur to The Business of Wars
Section A. Napoleon to Global Conflicts: The Build-up to Second World War
Theme 1. Contexts for War
Theme 2. Political Contexts
Theme 3. Social Contexts
Theme 4. Economic Contexts
Theme 5. Ideological Contexts
Section B. The Industrial Expansion and Mass Production of Armies
Theme 1. Commerce, Industry and War
Theme 2. Armies and Mass Society: Industry, War and the Nation-State
Section C. Warfare in Europe, 1815–1914
Theme 1: The Crimean War, 1853–1856
Theme 2. Italian Unification, 1848–1860
Theme 3. Prussia and German Unification, 1864–1871
Theme 4. The Austro-Prussian Conflict, 1866
Theme 5. The Franco-Prussian Conflict, 1870–1871
Theme 6. Conflict in the Balkans, 1876–1878
Theme 7. Copying Germany till 1914
Ninth Parallel: Informational Science and Utilitarianism
Section A. Informational Utilitarianism: The New Definitions of Humankind
Section B. Utilitarianism and Progressive Apathy of Scientific Growth
Section C. Bureaucracy Religion and Science
Theme 1. Waning Religion and Evolutionary Science and Information
Theme 2. Telecommunication and Capitalistic Domination
Theme 3. The World is not Enough for Science Fiction
Tenth Parallel: Bureaucratic Politics, Treatise and Criminal Psychology of Pre-First World War
Theme 1. The Public and the Press
Eleventh Parallel: The War away from Battlefields: Global Revolutions —1905 to Second World War
Theme 1. The Russian Context
Theme 2. Bipolar Russia and the Economic–Military Crisis till WWI
Theme 3. 1905 Russian Revolution and Its European Consequences
Theme 4. The February Revolution
Theme 5. The July Days
Twelfth Parallel: First World War: The Birth of Global Conflict The Beginning of the Holocaust: The Cauldron
Section A. General Commentary: 1700–1914
Theme 1. Industry and Nationalism
Theme 2. Corollaries: Warfare
Theme 3. Corollaries: Military Histories
Theme 4. First World War: Memory Themes
Section B. Background Extents: A note Why Did the War Happen?—Analysis of Events
Section C. First World War: Land Campaigns
Theme 1. The Opening Campaigns
Theme 2. The Western Front
Theme 3. Other European Fronts
Theme 4. The Non-European War
Section D. First World War: Sea Campaigns
Theme 1. Warfare on Water
Theme 2. Submarines and Changing Face of War
Section E. First World War: Air Campaigns
Section F. The Total War and Homefront
Section G. The War Endings
Theme 1. Formative Years of Adolf Hitler
Theme 2. Rise of Winston Churchill to World Politics
Theme 3. The Importance of Mesopotamia
Theme 4. Role of Women
Theme 5. The Spring Offensive of 1918 and Wilfred Owen
Theme 6. The Raid on Zeebrugge
Theme 7. The Coalition War
Theme 8. Waking the Sleeping Lion Part 1: The American War Cause
Theme 9. The Final 100 Days
Theme 10. The Armistice
Thirteenth Parallel: The Inter-War Machinations: Chaos Build-up, 1918–1939
Section A. Challenges
Theme 1. Sustaining Imperial Control
Theme 2. Peace? No Peace: Fighting Civil Wars
Theme 3. When the Stock Markets Bled
Theme 4. Italian and German Definition of Fascism
Fourteenth Parallel: Second World War to Global Europe The Fallen Greatness and Total War and the Soldiers of Fortune
Section A. Blitzkrieg in France
Section B. Grand Strategy and Resources
Theme 1. Ideology
Theme 2. The Eastern Front: Operation Barbarossa
Section C. The Soviet Defense through Offensive
Section D. The Mediterranean
Section E. America in Europe
The Land War in Asia
Section A. Japan and China
Theme 1. Forces and Grand Strategies
Section B. Jungle Warfare: ‘Monkeys in the Forest’
Section C. The Pacific Domination
Theme 1. Grand Strategy
Theme 2. Opening Moves
Theme 3. The American-Led Offensive
Second World War at Sea
Section A. Surface Warfare
Section B. Submarine Warfare
Theme 1. The Battle of the Atlantic
Theme 2. Submarines in the Pacific
Section C. Air and Sea
Theme 1. Carriers and Combat at Sea
Theme 2. The Amphibians in War: ‘Island Hopping’ in the Pacific
Theme 3. Amphibians at War in Europe The Battle of Midway, June 4–7, 1942: Special Note
The Arial Expeditions
Section A. Tactical Airpower
Section B. Strategic Bombing in Europe
Section C. The Endgame and Birth of Nuclear Cold War
Perspectives of Second World War
Section A. The Home Fronts
Theme 1. War and Society
Theme 2. War and Ideology
Theme 3. Success and Morale
Section B. Military Lessons
Theme 1. Historiography
Theme 2. Resources, Industrial Capacity and Military Skill
Theme 3. Leadership, Production and Changing Capabilities
CHRONOLOGY 1946: PRESENT GLOBALIZATION/ MODULE III: COLD WAR: 1945–1989
Section A. Post-Second World War Global Context
Theme 1. The American Stand
Theme 2. Origins of the Cold War and the ICBMs ‘Who Was to Blame for the Cold War?’: Special Note
Theme 3. Mutual Assured Destruction: MAD and Arms Race
Section B. Decolonization
Section C. Decolonization Meets Cold War: Vietnam, 1954–74, American Mistake
Author’s Note: What the Cold War Did
MODULE IV: CONFLICT AND CULTURE EUROPEAN GLOBALIZATION SINCE 1989
Section A. Political Contexts
Theme 1. Postcolonial Coloniality
Theme 2. The End of the Cold War
Section B. Economic Contexts
Theme 1. Global Inequalities and Resources
Theme 2. Drug Economies
Theme 3. The Global Arms Trade
Section C. Cultural Contexts
Theme 1. The Conflict Architype
Theme 2. Identerest Conflict
Theme 3. Lopsided History
History to Be Continued …
Appendix: Suggested Questions by Themes of European History
Select Bibliography
Index
The book is well written with an easy & lucid language suitable for the UG students. The coverage from Renaissance to the end of Cold war makes it a text for all the 3rd Semester till the 5th Semester students. The way of interpreting the text is different from the other regular books available in the market
Faculty of History, Jogesh Chandra Chowdhury College, Kolkata