AP Modern European History

Mr. David Lickey

apcentral.collegeboard.com

Why Study European History in the Modern Era?

• We are a product of the last 5 centuries of European History: economic, political, and social systems – PERSIA + G

• Most importantly (And this is my bias and the bias of this class): Intellectually European history produces the ideas that govern our lives:– “All men are created equal”– “No taxation without representation”– “The people united can never be defeated”– Freedom of press, Assembly, Speech, Worship, (and now Marriage…)– Limited government (English Experience[WOD “Enumerated Powers”])– Legal protections of the individual – right to trial by jurry of peers for ex.

• Not a racist celebration of white men, the intellectual tradition of the West are the ideas at center of world struggles for freedom and justice– Martin Luther King Jr.(Name, School, Dissertation on Paul Tillich, Movement, language [script. Shakes. Founding doc.], message)

– Gandhi & Ho Chi Mihn

• Class Addresses Many Really Big Questions:

MLK: Letter From A Birmingham Jail, 1963

• “Just as the 8th/c. prophets left their little villages and carried their “thus saith the Lord” far beyond the boundaries of their hometowns; and just as the Apostle Paul left his little village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to practically every hamlet and city of the Greco-Roman world, I too am compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my particular hometown…”

– Universal principals and messianic duty – principles of Judeo/Christian gospel that are the basis of our social contract: a “social gospel”?

• “Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must see the need to having nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men to rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood…” “to a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience…”

– Socrates and the Greek intellectual tradition that favors the individual man’s capacity for reason to elevate our lives - a central theme of this class

• “History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups are more immoral than individuals.”

– Reinhold Niebuhr 20th/c ethicist who is often quoted by George Kennan, Hilary Clinton, and Pres. Obama. He wrote about the Nazi’s and USSR– King suggesting here that History has principles that operate like other natural phenomena and can be revealed through rational inquiry to improve human

life; see the intellectual revolutions of the 17th and 18th Centuries.

• “I would agree with St. Augustine that “An unjust law is no law at all.”– St. Augustine, wow don’t lets go there today

• “To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law.”– St. Thomas Aquinas’ project. Natural law? Higher law? Big ideas that are still with us – take note future Con Team players

• “We can never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.” It was “illegal” to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany.”

– 20th Century history of Europe is awesomely powerful as a source of metaphor in our own political and ethical lives today

• “Consciously and unconsciously, he has been swept in by what the Germans call the Zeitgeist, and with his black brothers of Africa and his brown and yellow brothers of Asia, South America, and the Caribbean, he is moving with a sense of cosmic urgency toward the promised land of racial justice.”

– German philosophy of the early 19th/C. and the fact and legacies of European imperialism

• Was not Martin Luther an extremist? – Here I stand, I can do no other so help me God.”– King’s namesake, one of the great liberation figures in human history

Scope of this Class: Big Questions

Emergence of Europe from the so called “Dark ages” and its religious weltanschauung and the social hierarchy it implied

The Emergence of Nation States: The Fall of Nation States?

How did powerful centralized nation states replace decentralized agricultural princedoms of medieval Europe?

How and why did Science Knock a Blow to Superstition & Prejudice

How did science become the new source of Western peoples security?

What were the implications for political and moral philosophy of the scientific revolution?

How and Why did Absolutism Yield to Individual Liberty and Democratic Government?

How did the Europeans Capture Half the World Then Loose It? And Now Repents of

Her Sins

Why did Europe Produce Two Great Antagonistic Economic Systems: Capitalism

and Communism? And Do Either Address the

Needs of the Current Moment?

Why Did Europe Fight Two World Wars That Ended With Her As A Prize Between Two

Superpowers?

Characters:• God

• Thucydides

• Plato

• Aristotle

• Epicurus

• Cicero

• Lucretius

• St. Augustine

• Petrarch

• Machiavelli

• Erasmus

• Luther

• Calvin

• Elizabeth

• Francis I

• Louis XIV

• Hobbes

• Copernicus

• Galileo

• Descartes

• Newton

• Locke

• Fredrick the Grea• Voltaire• Diderot• Rousseau• Emmanuel D=Sieyes• Mary Wollstoncraft• Robespierrre• David• Marat• Louis & Marie• Napoleon Pt. I & II• Duke of Wellington• Klemens von Metternich• Abraham Darby• James Watt• Adam Smith• Malthus and Recardo• Sam Smiles• Burke• John Stuart Mill• Alexis De Tocqueville

• Charles Dickens/Darwin• Karl Marx• Disraeli/Gladstone• Alfred Dryfus• Theodore Herzl• Bismark• Nicholas II• Emily Davidson• Rasputin• John D. Rockefeller• Nietzsche• Freud• Gen. Brunhardi• Gavrilo Princip• David Lloyd George• Wodrow Wilson• Lenin• Stalin• Mussolini• Hitler• Chamberlin• Churchill• Onrad Adenauer• Charles du Gaulle• Ho Chi Mihn• Vaclav Havel

Structure

• Major Units/Topics– Pedistal: Continuity and Change to 1450

– Renaissance and Reformation

– Religiouse Wars of the 16th & 17th Centuries

– Early Modern Europe

– French and Industrial Revolution

– Restoration Europe

– 19th Century State Building

– Imperialism

– WWI

– Criminal States & WWII

– Postwar Europe

Summer Assignments• Discuss: With one to three neighbors-each person speaks-listen

carefully while others speak-ask clarifying questions-be specific-be consise:

– the purpose of Advanced Placement courses – according to the College Board and according to you

– The scope of the AP Exam

– The parts of the AP Exam

– Resources to help you succeed on the AP Exam contained in the “Course Guide”

• AP European History Course Home Page– http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/courses/

teachers_corner/2122.html

Review Summer Asignment #2

Discussion Questions:•What is the Thesis of Diamonds Book – be specific

•What are the social and academic difficulties in addressing this thesis?

•What is the nature and structure of evidence Diamond organizes to support his thesis?

•What is history? What can history be? What should it be/should not be? Historiography

•Howard Zinn vs. Diamond

Geography is Destiny: “Optimal

Fragmentation

Principle”(p.411)

Geography is Destiny

Affix map to your note book and add the following:1. Major Rivers, Bodies of Water, Peninsulas, Mountain

Ranges, Climate Regions.1. Rivers: Thames, Seine, Elbe, Oder, Danube, Tiber, Loire….2. Mountains: Alps, Pyrenees, Cambrian & Crampian Mts. (UK),

Apennines, Carpathian Mts.3. Georgraphic Features: Black Forrest, Bohemian Forrest, North

European Plain4. Seas: Mediterranean, Adriatic, Aegean, Ionian, North, Irish,

Black, Baltic, Norwegian Seas + English Channel, Straight of Gibraltar, Dardanelles

2. Label and color the political map of modern Europe 1. How many countries are in Europe?2. Where is the boundary between Eastern and Western Europe?

Geography is Destiny

Homework:

1. Finish Map Asn.

2. Start Reading Merriman Chapter #1 & look over the recommended readings in WC’s (after you check it out)

3. Get a notebook you will use exclusively for this class and put your “Unit Guide”, “Standing Assignments”, “Ruberic”, “Historical Thinking Skills”, & Map in it

4. Write me a note/letter telling me why your taking this class, what you feel you have to gain, and what you are hoping for this year.

Lesson #2: Contributions of the Hebrews to Western Civilization

1. Sources Intro: Read aloud

2. Reading Doc’s in Sources Book

3. APPARTS 3 Doc’s

4. Quick write: Significance of the Hebrews in the Western Tradition

1. Make a single claim

2. Support claim with evidence/passages from each document