Historical Perspectives on Crisis: The 30 Years' European Crisis

Catalog description

In the first half of the twentieth century, Europe was rocked by a 30 years' crisis characterized by the end of "traditional" society and the violent irruption of "mass" society. The course will examine the experience of the 30 Years' crisis and the forces that unleashed its unprecedented violence. It explores the causes and impact of the world wars, the relation between revolution and civil war, the Great Depression, the rise of new revolutionary and counter-revolutionary ideologies (Bolshevism, fascism and Nazism), the "decline" of Europe, as well as politicized artistic representations of the crisis, such as Dadaism and Surrealism.