This week we will begin to analyze the "Crisis of Europe - 1871-1914" setting up how that led to, what Eric Hobsbawm calls, "The Age of Catastrophe" or "Age of Extremes" (i.e. 1914-1991). This discussion will begin the most important of the term. This section begins with German Unification and the humiliation of France. We will examine the impact of extreme Nationalism in France and Germany, the Second Industrial Revolution, Imperialism and the Avant Garde.  In particular, we will begin to analyze the impact that the Second Industrial Revolution and Imperialism had on the stability of Europe - focusing on the destabilizing effect of International Competition among nations and also the effect that this had on domestic affairs and governmental policies. This will lead us to the  major questions for second half of the course:

1. What are the "Origins of the Great War?"

2. What impact did the Great War have on not just Western History, but also World History?

3. What are the origins of, not just the Holocaust, but also the mass violence of the 20th Century?

4. Tied to the last question is the question of "Why did the line between civilian and military become erased in the 20th Century"  Even George Will recently wrote: "We are all potential soldiers. And we all may be, at any moment, at the war's front, because in this war the front can be anywhere."

   1. In essence we will attempt to understand what changed about:

      "What was thinkable, what was imaginable about human brutality"  between 1914 and 1918, and how that shifting of perspective, made the worst events of the Second World War and the modern age, including 9-11, possible.

Watch this next video for a satirical look at Empire Building.