Videos at HIS 251: Koofers

49:57

Maximilien Robespierre and the French Revolution

Robespierre's ascetic personal life and severe philosophy of political engagement are attributed by some to his difficult childhood. As a revolutionary, one of his most significant insights was that t..

Author: John Merriman Views: 4

48:24

Napoleon

One way of understanding Napoleon's life is through attention to his Corsican origins. Although Napoleon himself would later disavow his earlier identification with the island in favor of French ident..

Author: John Merriman Views: 25

50:35

Middle Classes

The nineteenth century in Europe is, in many ways, synonymous with the rise of the bourgeoisie. It is misleading, however, to consider this newly dominant middle class as a homogenous group; rather, t..

Author: John Merriman Views: 4

36:19

Introduction to European Civilization

The course will concern European history from 1648 to 1945. The assigned readings include both standard historical texts and works of fiction, as well as films. Although the period in question encompa..

Author: John Merriman Views: 34

45:12

Absolutism and the State

The rise of absolutism in Europe must be understood in the context of insecurity attending the religious wars of the first half of the seventeenth century, and the Thirty Years' War in particular. Fac..

Author: John Merriman Views: 19

45:43

Peter the Great

Peter the Great's historical significance stems not only from his military ambitions and the great expansion of the Russian Empire under his supervision, but also from his efforts to introduce secular..

Author: John Merriman Views: 7

46:33

Dutch and British Exceptionalism

Several reasons can be found to explain why Great Britain and the Netherlands did not follow the other major European powers of the seventeenth century in adopting absolutist rule. Chief among these w..

Author: John Merriman Views: 1

47:59

The Enlightenment and the Public Sphere

While the major philosophical projects of the Enlightenment are associated with the names of individual thinkers such as Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Voltaire, the cultural transformation in France in t..

Author: John Merriman Views: 8

48:14

Industrial Revolutions

The Industrial Revolution was for a long time treated as a decisive break in which some countries, specifically England, innovated and progressed rapidly while others were left behind. This type of an..

Author: John Merriman Views: 7

47:16

Popular Protest

Collective violence, in the form of popular protest, was one of the principal ways in which people resisted the expansion of capitalism and the state throughout the nineteenth century. The nature of t..

Author: John Merriman Views: 1

42:29

Why No Revolution in 1848 in Britain

Revolutions occur when a critical mass of people come together to make specific demands upon their government. They invariably involve an increase in popular involvement in the political process. One ..

Author: John Merriman Views: 0

51:29

Nineteenth-Century Cities

The nineteenth century witnessed an unprecedented degree of urbanization, an increase in urban population growth relative to population growth generally. One of the chief consequences of this growth w..

Author: John Merriman Views: 3

50:50

Nationalism

In light of the many ethnic and national conflicts of the twentieth century, the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918 appears less surprising than the fact that it remained intact for so..

Author: John Merriman Views: 6

49:36

Radicals

Socialism in the nineteenth century can be divided into two different strains of thought: reformist and revolutionary. While reformist socialists believed in changing the State through legal activity,..

Author: John Merriman Views: 3

51:04

Imperialists and Boy Scouts

The boom in European colonial expansion in the second half of the nineteenth century, the so-called New Imperialism, can be seen to follow from three principle factors, in ascending order of importanc..

Author: John Merriman Views: 3

48:03

The Coming of the Great War

If the early years of the twentieth century were marked by a general consensus that a major war was impending, no similar consensus existed concerning the likely form that war would take. Not only the..

Author: John Merriman Views: 5

50:23

War in the Trenches

With the failure of Germany's offensive strategy, WWI became a war of defense, in which trenches played a major role. The use of trenches and barbed wire, coupled with the deployment of new, more dead..

Author: John Merriman Views: 3

46:29

Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning (Guest Lecture by Jay Winters)

As a result of World War I, Europe had a different understanding of war in the twentieth century than the United States. One of the most important ways in which the First World War was experienced on ..

Author: John Merriman Views: 2

46:58

The Romanovs and the Russian Revolution

The period between the Russian Revolution of February 1917, which resulted in the overthrow of the autocracy and the establishment of a provisional government, and the Bolshevik Revolution in October ..

Author: John Merriman Views: 4

44:34

Successor States of Eastern Europe

Contrary to the Great Illusion that the end of World War I heralded a new era of peace, the interwar period can be considered to form part of a Thirty Years' War, spanning the period from 1914 to 1945..

Author: John Merriman Views: 1