Coming to grips with the twentieth century started early and is a historical challenge that will probably stimulate interesting responses for a long time. This seminar will explore some of the first exemplary efforts to “understand” that pivotal century:

Barraclough, Geoffrey. An introduction to contemporary history. New York: Basic Books, 1964.

Von Laue, Theodore H. The world revolution of westernization: the twentieth century in global perspective. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.

Hobsbawm, Eric. The age of extremes: a history of the world, 1914-1991. New York: Vintage Books, 1996 [1994].

McNeill, John R. Something new under the sun: an environmental history of the twentieth-century world. New York and London: W. W. Norton, 2000.

Ferguson, Niall. The war of the world: twentieth-century conflict and the descent of the west. New York: The Penguin Press, 2006.

For MA and PhD students only.