2023 entry
BA Ancient History and History
Study ancient, medieval and modern history for a wide range of career options.
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BA Ancient History and History / Course details
Year of entry: 2023
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Course unit details:
A Transnational History of Europe in the Short Twentieth Century, c.1917-1991
Course unit fact file
HIST21212
Teaching period(s)
Available as a free choice unit?
A Transnational History of Europe in the Short Twentieth Century explores the devastations of the short twentieth century in Europe and asks how Europeans experienced this rollercoaster century. The course's chronology is framed by events including the Russian revolution, the emergence of totalitarian dictatorships, the Second World War, post-war reconstruction, the Cold War, European integration and the fall of the Iron Curtain. Instead of simply offering a conventional narrative, the course highlights overarching themes in the history of Europe that cut across national boundaries, including migration, decolonisation, and globalisation. Exploring the close links between political ideas and social developments, the course surveys how changing and conflicting political ideologies – fascism, state socialism or the welfare state – and population movements caused by armed conflict have shaped European society at different times.
Pre/co-requisites
Restricted to History programmes and History joint honours programmes (please check your programme structure for further details).
The aims of this course are:
To introduce students to a broad range of relevant themes and historiographical debates associated with the political and social history of twentieth century Europe;
To introduce students to critical concepts relating to contemporary social history;
To encourage students to adopt a critical perspective to their own understanding of European political and social history;
Provide students with a range of background knowledge and tools that can be deployed at levels 3 and 4.
Knowledge and understanding
Demonstrate an increased capacity to examine and evaluate the interactions between social, political and economic processes
Demonstrate deeper and more accurate comprehension of key events, structures, and processes in the history of twentieth-century Europe
Intellectual skills
Evaluate the ways in which historians choose and use their sources
Hone skills of analysis and critical reasoning via a range of forms of written assessment
Understand ways in which theoretical perspectives influence historical research
Analyse the relationship between politics, economics and society in twentieth-century Europe
Extend and apply oral and group skills by participating in and leading seminar discussions
Write reflective, considered, and well-structured pieces of assessed work applicable to analytic and persuasive communication in a range of professional venues
Transferable skills and personal qualities
Work independently, both within seminars and through individual research
Experience and training in teamwork, argument and debate, as well as time management
Employability skills
As a second-year History course unit, the course provides expert training in - analysis and critical reasoning. - developing important transferable skills in communication and presentation; argument and debate; teamwork; research and time management. - developing concise and critical written analysis.
Written exam 50%
Written assignment (inc essay) 50%
Feedback methods
Feedback method
Formative or Summative
Written feedback and individual discussion (by appointment) for written assessment
Written feedback for exam
Eley, Geoff, Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).
Hobsbawm, Eric, The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914–1991 (London: Penguin, 1994).
Jarausch, K. H., Out of Ashes: A New History of Europe in the Twentieth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015).
Judt, Tony, Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945 (London: Penguin, 2005).
Kershaw, I., To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949 (London: Allen Lane, 2015).
Kershaw, I., Rollercoaster: Europe, 1950-2017 (London: Allen Lane, 2018).
Mazower, M., Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century (London: Penguin, 1999).
Scheduled activity hours
Lectures 22
Seminars 11
Independent study hours
Independent study 167
EWA OCHMAN Unit coordinator
Christian Goeschel Unit coordinator
Liam Stowell Unit coordinator
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