Fall/Winter Timetable

POL324H1S L0101

Themes in European Politics

Themes

Designed largely for students with some background in European politics and history (but above all for those fascinated by Europe), the course adopts a thematic and (broadly) chronological approach to explore a set of issues that have defined Europe’s institutions, culture, and identity. The focus is on Europe’s ‘big three,’ with particular focus on Germany, the country that defined in all possible manners Europe’s last century. Beginning with the major World War II leaders’ (and the German resisters’) visions for a post-victory Europe, the course will focus on and account for the origins, nature, and implications of defining moments in postwar Europe: the morality of war, denazification, the start of the cold war, democratization in West Germany, resistance, collaboration and postwar France, British imperialism and the death of empire, British welfare and British economic decline, Thatcherism, the end of the cold war and German reunification.

Texts

Gerhard Weinberg, Visions of Victory (Cambridge University Press, 2005/2007); Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945 (Penguin, 2005).

Format and Requirements

Class participation, essays, test and exam.

Prerequisites

EUR200Y1Y or 1.0 POL credit

Exclusions
POL324Y1