City final

History 425
Second exam—December l4, 2011


Directions Part I: Prepare ALL THREE of the following questions, drawing on videos, lectures, readings and any outside research/reflection you have done. You will answer ONE of them on test day. You MAY get a choice, but then again, you might NOT, so be prepared either way! As always, the best essays are well-organized, clearly written and well-supported with specific names, dates, events, etc. Also, as before, it is fine to work with others on these questions, just make sure the work you turn in is your own.



a)You would never know it by listening to some politicians here, but Paris has numerous ties to America and Americans. Discuss two or three of these ties and indicate in general where you can find evidence of them on the landscape of the city.

b)Many buildings and structures in Paris, as in other cities, are sites of memory in the city’s history. What do the Eiffel Tower and the Arch of Triumph tell us about the history of Paris and France in the l9th and 20th centuries?

c)Clues to the northern Irish conflict—its past as well as its future—are numerous, particularly in the two largest cities, Londonderry and Belfast. What are some of the clues visitors can see, and what do they reveal about the way Catholics and Protestants view the “Troubles?”

The End, or WWII final exam...

History 386
Fall ’11
Second exam, due DECEMBER 14, 2011. Please bring your test to me here in hard copy between 4 and 6 pm on the l4th.

Two caveats: First, DON’T FORGET, THIS IS A TAKE-HOME EXAM. This means you have time, (and will be expected to) proofread/spellcheck, organize and think clearly. If you’re smart, you will have someone read, give you honest criticism and proofread, because you’ll have a better final product if you do. Second, it’s fine to consult online sources in the preparation of these answers, but be discriminating—avoid Wikipedia, for starters—and make sure the answers you compose are distinctly your own.

Directions Part I(60%): Answer the following question, taking care to support the points you make wherever possible with specific names, dates, events, from the readings, lectures, videos, and any outside research you have done.

With the successful completion of the Normandy invasion and the Soviet successes in the east, the Nazis must have known that the war was lost. The noose was tightening. Yet Nazi Germany, from the top military leadership through residents of small towns, supported Adolf Hitler to the bitter end, showing few signs of defeatism even with the Russians at the approaches to Berlin. Why did they “go down in flames” with Hitler, even though he had brought total apocalyptic disaster to them and their country? You should use aspects of Hans Fallada’s Every Man Dies Alone as part of your answer to this question, since this is a work of fiction that addresses the concept of resistance and/or non-resistance and draws heavily on actual people and events.


Directions Part II(40%): YOUR CHOICE. Answer ONE of the following questions, doing the same careful work as on Part I:


1)On its way to Berlin, the Red Army was the first to liberate Majdanek, Sobibor, Treblinka and Auschwitz. It was praised by the world’s press and hailed by surviving camp inmates as liberators. Yet its commander-in-chief, Joseph Stalin, had distinctly less altruistic plans for Poland and the other states bordering the Soviet Union. What were those plans, and what did they portend for the post-war world?


2) The placard above the text on this exam hangs in Auschwitz today. It refers to two specific incidents but hints at a wider truth. Write an essay in which you explain its micro and macro meanings for Poland in World War II.

Exam 386...

With much fanfare, the exam for 386:

History 386
World War II in Europe
Midterm exam…for Wednesday, November 2

An all-you-can-eat challenge, a smorgasboard of tasks, one might say…


Directions part I(20%): Objective questions. You will either answer two or three objective questions and/or look at a map from a period just prior to or during the early months of World War II and answer a couple questions based on that map. This part will hit the highlights—it’s not intended as a “gotcha” exercise.

Directions part II(30%): Document analysis. Each person will receive a document or memoir excerpt covering some aspect of the European war to the summer of l941, and then compose a brief answer to a question on it. Here again, the document will not come from outer space. It will be similar to the other documents you have seen up to this time.

Directions part III(50%): Essay. Prepare the following questions, bringing as much relevant and specific evidence as you can in formulating your answer. You will do ONE on test day, but you won’t know WHICH one, so prepare them all unless you are clairvoyant. Feel free to work with others, just make sure that the essay you write is in your own words.


A)Much of the recent scholarship on Nazi Germany in World War II has focused on two words: “race and space.” Write an essay in which you discuss the role these concepts played in the planning and launch of the second global conflict 20 years after the conclusion of the first, the war to "end all wars(!)." You do not need to address anything beyond the invasion of the Soviet Union in this question.


B)After years and years of fulminating against Soviet Russia as a nest of Jewish/Communist menace—and stating his intent to invade that country—Hitler changed his tune in l939 and signed the infamous Nazi-Soviet pact with his fellow tyrant, Joseph Stalin. Why did the two dictators decide on this apparently unlikely step, and what advantages accrued to both men prior to June 22, 1941?


C)The “Holocaust by bullets,” or “Holocaust before the Holocaust” is one of the lesser-known aspects of the Second World War. Explain briefly what is meant by this term, then write an essay in which you make clear how it became possible, some of the consequences for participants and bystanders and its role in the “real” Holocaust of the death camps.

Clarification!! Please Read!!

The 425 exam will be WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER l9, not l7th...I typed the l7th and meant l9th. exam is WEDNESDAY, WEDNESDAY, WEDNESDAY!!!

Links! for 425

The Triangle Shirtwaist fire link is here. Let's see if this works...okay, it apparently did, so moving on, Triangle Fire PBS is here. And going for batting average .1000 and the win, the American Experience New York Center of the World site, here.

Triangle fire link...

I can't seem to link to the Cornell University Triangle Fire site, or the PBS American Experience--Blogger is not cooperating with me this morning--so the best thing is to Google both of these, as follows: Cornell University Triangle Fire site, and PBS American Experience Triangle Fire site. That should take you directly to the relevant sites.

425 midterm

Without further ado, the fall 2011 425 midterm...



History 425
Midterm exam
For October 17, 2011


Directions part I(50%): Prepare BOTH of the following questions, using material gleaned from lectures, videos and any outside reading you have done. Be careful to structure your essay in an organized way and provide specific names, dates, facts, etc., to support the points you make. You are encouraged to work together in formulating answers, but each person should be sure the essay he/she writes is his/her own work. You will do ONE of these, but you won’t know WHICH one until test day, so prepare both unless you are clairvoyant!



a)It is often said of great cities that geography is destiny. Write an essay in which you discuss the impact of geography on the development of New York from its inception to the present day. Be sure to be specific and take into account man-made geographical features as well as natural ones.



b) Immediately after the September 11 attacks, New Yorkers mourned the demise of the World Trade Center towers as if they had always been a beloved part of the city’s landscape. The reality is more complicated. Why were they built, and who was for and against them? Why? What accounted for their “catching on” in the difficult years after their construction? Finally, what made them a tempting target for 21st century extremists?



Directions part II(50%) Mystery question. Here you will answer a question based on David von Drehle’s book on the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. I will NOT ask you about the contents of page 225 or anything like that—it will be something with which you should have no trouble if you know the background of the fire generally and are familiar with the major players in the book.

History 425 tier III

History 425
Tier III project instructions



History 425 is a Tier III course, which means you must complete a longer writing assignment in order to finish the course. You can choose EITHER of these two options:



1) Since this is the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, and New York has a new memorial complex plus the beginnings of a new office building at the site where the Twin Towers once stood. Taking advantage of the free access to newspapers and magazines that the WSU Library affords you, you should read a minimum of two articles per week from sources like the New York Times, The New York Daily News, Time, The Economist(NOT the TriCity Herald!) concerning New York and/or the country as they relate to this anniversary. You can go back to July, August and September if you wish, and/or look for new articles as time goes on. Bottom line, you must read TWO articles per week minimum, SUMMARIZE each in a paragraph or two and keep the summaries in a folder. When you finish with the reading and summaries, write up your findings(it goes quickly if you have the summaries) in a 5-7 page paper. If your reading leads you in a particular direction, e.g. the lives of survivors, the legacy of those who perished in the attacks, how America and/or New York has changed in the intervening decade, focus on that theme. Otherwise, write a general essay on what you learned from your reading.



2) Read two articles per week on aspects of contemporary New York City in the New York Times, the New York Daily News and/or the New York Post and then write an essay summarizing your findings. If you choose this option, you should diversify your readings, looking for a wide spectrum of readings, e.g. sports, fashion, geography, immigration, architecture, real estate, religion, anything that particularly interests you. The point is to learn more about New York than we can cover in class. You should summarize each article that you read in a paragraph or two, and keep the summaries in a folder. Then, towards the end of the assignment period, write up your findings in a 5-7 page paper.



Whichever option you choose, you will turn in your article summaries, complete with citations, and your paper in hard copy to me on November 28, the day after Thanksgiving vacation. That way, you will not have this hanging over your head during dead week and finals...

Europe in l9l4

...And this is the World of Yesteryear, Europe prior to World War I. A vivid contrast here with the postwar map...it was about to be a great time to be a cartographer.

Europe l9l9-38

This is the map of post-Versailles Europe...it has changed quite a lot from that of l9l4. Can you count the ways?!

Charlie football

This is German Shorthaired Pointer number 2, Charlie McKinney...he's Annie's cousin and sidekick.

This is German Shorthaired Pointer number 1, Annie. She's a skilled and determined counter cruiser and food thief, a smooth criminal.

History 425 syllabus...(drum roll)

(Image at left is the statue of George Washington, near Jena square, in Paris)

History 425
City in History
WSUTC
Fall ’11
B. Farley


The basics: My office is along Faculty Row, in the west building, somewhere on the left hand side. You can EMAIL me either at bfarley@tricity.wsu.edu or brigitf2001@yahoo.com. I prefer email…it was made for me, and I will always try to get back to you by the next day if at all possible. You can also call me at my ancestral estate in Pendleton, Oregon(541-276-6962), but try to avoid calling before 9 am or after l0 pm. In any case, feel free to get in touch however you prefer.
My office hours face-to-face are 3:30-4:15 pm, Mondays and Wednesdays and whenever else you can catch me on campus. Virtual office hours are 24/7. I will always try to answer emails as quickly as possible, emphasis on the TRY part of that equation.

The lowdown: Welcome to History 425, City in History. This is a course that can be done two ways, either concentrating on the role of the city in history or the role of history in a given city. I’m a fan of historical travel, so I lean to the latter rather than the former. This term, we will do an overview of four cities—New York, Paris, Londonderry and Belfast—and focus on one or two defining events or moments, events that shaped or made that city what it is today. In the case of New York, the Triangle Shirtwaist fire and 9-11 are an obvious touchstone. In Londonderry and Belfast, the long-running conflict between Catholic and Protestant citizens of northern(British)Ireland has literally shaped Londonderry and divided Belfast into ethnic enclaves worthy of Iraq. And for Paris, the influence of the United States on Paris and two very visible buildings that define the city skyline and were built in opposition to one another. We will read about, and discuss all these places and the force(s)that shaped them in the modern age.
We will have two texts this term: for New York City, David von Drehle’s Triangle: the Fire that Changed America, a history of one of two signature tragedies in New York history, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911. There will be additional readings, topical ones, about the World Trade Center, whose downing at the hands of Al-Quaeda occurred ten years ago this month(September 2011). Then, Jill Jonnes’ book on Paris’s best-known monument, the Eiffel Tower. The tower was the subject of an ongoing French culture war, a counterpoint to a large basilica on the hill, a secular icon The two buildings were always, to put it mildly, star-crossed. For Londonderry and Belfast, no readings; I will do the heavy lifting for you.

Evaluation: We will have two exams, one midterm and one final. Each will be worth 25%. This being a capstone course, you will also have a substantial writing assignment, which I will describe for you in the coming days. It will be due before Thanksgiving, and will be worth 50 big percentage points.
Course objectives: To get to know three major world cities and how recent history has affected them. To look beyond the buildings and boulevards and learn something of how the history of their respective countries is or is not reflected in them. To think about what makes a great city. To become convinced of the virtues of visiting cities as certified residents of very small towns…
Course rules: Class attendance is not required, but strongly encouraged—get the most from your tuition money! Avoiding cheating of any kind, particularly plagiarism, IS required and any violations will land you in the University disciplinary system, which is NOT where you want to be. Plagiarism is theft of intellectual property.

A Note from Disability Resources: Reasonable accommodations are available for students who have a documented disability. Classroom accommodation forms are available through the Disability Services Office. If you have a documented disability (even temporary) make an appointment as soon as possible with the Disability Services Coordinator Cherish Tijerina room 269 West Building. You will need to provide your instructor with the appropriate classroom accommodation form from Disability Services during the first week of class. Late notification may mean that requested accommodations might not be available. All accommodations for disabilities must be approved through the Disability Services Coordinator.



Schedule

Part I : New York, New York

The beginnings—New Amsterdam, then New York

New Amsterdam becomes New York

The immigrant city

Catastrophe no. 1: Triangle Shirtwaist Fire and its aftermath

The vertical city, the city in the sky

The twin towers

Catastrope no. 2: September 11, 2001

The legacy of the 9-11 attacks.

Required readings: City in the Sky: Rise and Fall of the World Trade Center.
Recommended readings: Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. It’s kind of a kids’ book—I read it in 7th grade—but it gives all readers a real flavor of what life was like in Irish/immigrant New York circa l900. It is not a work of glowing nostalgia; it has the ring of authenticity and truth. Bernard Malamud, who died recently, wrote many works chronicling Jewish life in New York, such as The Chosen. Very worthwhile. Also, David Halberstam, Firehouse, one of the best books about 9-11, profiling the ten firefighters lost from the house closest to Halberstam’s home on the upper West Side
Recommended films: Where do you start? King Kong, Midnight Cowboy, Out-of-Towners, Odd Couple, Moscow on the Hudson, Radio Days (actually, almost anything starring Woody Allen), Once Upon a Time in America, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull (almost anything starring Robert DeNiro, who owns an expensive restaurant in lower Manhattan), The Apartment, Breakfast at Tiffany’s…and the list goes on.

First exam after conclusion of New York

Part II: Paris

The basics: Paris in the history of France

The French-American relationship and the City of Light

Two buildings, two Parises.


Part III: Londonderry and Belfast, cities shaped by war

Origins of Catholic and Protestant conflict

1968: beginnings of the Troubles

London-Derry, divided city in a divided country

Belfast, “Titanic town” and ethnic enclaves

1972: Bloody Sunday, Bloody Friday

Evolution of the Troubles

Londonderry and Belfast, a decade after Good Friday

Required readings: TBA
Recommended readings: Eamonn McCann, War and an Irish Town, about life in Londonderry as a Catholic; Geoffrey Beattie, Protestant Boy, the life and education of a Protestant youth from Belfast.
Recommended films: “Michael Collins,” with Liam Neeson; “Patriot Games,” with Harrison Ford. Both deal with the Irish Republican Army and the Catholic perspective on the struggles; both are excellent.

Paper due date TBA after Thanksgiving. Second exam during finals week at the appointed time.

World War II syl...

Here it is...the lowdown on WW II/Europe...the picture you see above is Langemark German Cemetery near Ypres, Belgium, where Corporal Adolf Hitler was wounded during his service with the Kaiser's army.



History 386—World War II in Europe
Washington State University
Fall ’11
B. Farley


“Let this tale live forever
In our hearts, forever heard!
Lets its memory be our conscience.”

Yuri Voronov


CONTACT INFO: My office is along Faculty Row in West Building—I can never remember the letter or number. It IS along the left hand side, that much I can tell you. When I am not here, I am at the ancestral estate in Pendleton, Oregon. phone 541-276-6962. In cyberspace, I can be reached at bfarley@tricity.wsu.edu AND brigitf2001@yahoo.com SEND EMAIL TO BOTH ADDRESSES. You can call my ancestral estate in Pendleton, but leave that for emergencies—I hate the phone because it always manages to intrude on something important. OFFICE HOURS: 24/7 via email—I try to answer every email at least by the next morning. In person, Mondays and Wednesdays, 3:30-4 pm or just after second class at 7 pm. Feel free to get in touch however suits you.
Course Information: As a 20th century enthusiast, I have always been interested in the second world war. In many respects, it is the defining event of this century—just ask my dad, or any other veteran you can find—unless you count World War I, a major antecedent, if not cause, of the second conflict. I spent a semester between undergrad and graduate school in Leningrad,(now St Petersburg) USSR, one of the great symbols and survivors of this conflict; stories of defiance, courage and depravity told by people I knew there made a tremendous impression on me twenty years ago. Since that time, I have gone on to visit many of the key cities on the eastern front—Moscow, Kiev, Rostov-on-Don, Volgograd(Stalingrad), Debrecen, Budapest—and do most of my graduate work on the immediate origins of the war. So you could say it has left its mark on me.
Like its predecessor, World War I, World War II is a conflict that engulfed the entire globe. This course will, however, be limited to Europe, as it proved impossible to design a one-semester offering that would cover both. And it will necessarily focus on Nazi Germany, since without Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party, there would never have been a war. It was the lessons they drew from Germany’s defeat in World War I, indeed their refusal to accept that defeat, that drove them and informed all their actions from the foundation of the Nazi party in the l920s. They sought “space” for the German people and obsessed about “race,” what they termed “Aryan” and “non-Aryans.” The Aryans were to have the space at the expense of all the other “races.”

Objectives: Since this is pretty much a brand-new course, I have the most basic goals in mind. At the end, you should be able to discuss generally the primary and secondary causes of this conflict. You should know which countries were in the Axis camp and which in the Allied. You should be able to explain the objectives and strategies each side had/used from September l939 through May l945, with particular emphasis on the Nazi campaign against the Jews and “undesirables” inside and outside of Germany. Finally, you should be able to sketch the outlines of the Cold War that was to follow the Hot war. In other words, who spoiled the l945 peace?
At all times, we should remember what Curt Silberman, a distinguished lawyer and refugee from Nazi Germany, stressed in founding the Silberman seminar I attended at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum this summer: the dangers of a group of fanatics getting control of a major state apparatus. Silberman and his wife came to maturity in a democracy, only to see that democracy hijacked and smashed by Hitler and co., who never made a secret of their objectives. Democracy is fragile, something that requires vigilance and active defense.
Readings: The basic text, The Second World War, is written by my favorite Brit, Martin Gilbert. He did a fantastic survey of World War I, and so we are giving him a chance to do the same with WWII. His text is monumental and contains a lot of info about the war in the Pacific and elsewhere, but I don’t think that will hurt you. I chose the other readings before I had to redo completely this entire syllabus, but they will work anyway. First, Hans Fallada, Every Man Dies Alone. There is a tendency to think everyone embraced the lunacy of the Nazi regime and the war it started wholeheartedly. Here is someone who didn’t. Anne Frank’s diary is probably the first significant work about the murder of the European Jews and paved the way for a great many survivors to write their own accounts. Last time I looked, I didn’t know whether it was available, but How We Lived Then will give you some idea of what Great Britain endured during the Blitz and the remainder of the Second World War. Don’t forget that all of these nations had just endured what they believed to be their greatest trial 20 years previously in the Great War. It is almost unimaginable to realize that they had to go through the fire again when not even a generation had passed. I have listed some recommended reading for those wishing to go into greater depth on one or other topics covered in the course. This is a selective list, drawn from books I have found most useful and/or interesting.
Essential website: Since so much of the war focuses on the Nazi campaign in eastern Europe, you won’t be surprised to discover that the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has an excellent website full of essential info and resources. We will be using it quite a lot in class, but you should explore it on your own, too: ushmm.org
Evaluation: Again, rather basic since this is the first offering of 386. We will have one in-class midterm exam after the conclusion of part II(40%) and a second during finals, at the regularly scheduled time(60%). Each exam will feature a documentary component, a few multiple-choice items and a choice of essay questions, some of which you will see in advance. A little shake-up of the exam routine this term, for those of you who were here last year.
Class rules: Not very many. Attendance is strongly urged, but not required…only you can determine how best to get maximum value for that tuition money. I will do my best to give good value for money, but you have to do your part, too. One hard and steadfast rule is Don’t cheat. This means don’t take advantage of your classmates, don’t pass off others’ work as your own and above all, DON’T PLAGIARIZE. Taking material off the web or other sources is the same as stealing other people’s property, even worse since this is CREATIVE property. Cheating WILL land you in the University disciplinary system, a place you really do not want to be, so DON’T DO IT.

A Note from Disability Resources: Reasonable accommodations are available for students who have a documented disability. Classroom accommodation forms are available through the Disability Services Office. If you have a documented disability (even temporary) make an appointment as soon as possible with the Disability Services Coordinator Cherish Tijerina room 269 West Building. You will need to provide your instructor with the appropriate classroom accommodation form from Disability Services during the first week of class. Late notification may mean that requested accommodations might not be available. All accommodations for disabilities must be approved through the Disability Services Coordinator.

Schedule…this is tentative since WWII in Europe is fundamentally a new course. There is no timeline because I don’t know yet how long each section will go…you have to get through a course once to get a feel for this.


The beginnings: The “World War” and its aftermath


Snapshots from the meatgrinder

Armistice and peacemaking

Postwar: the “winners” l9l9-1933

The “losers,” l9l9-l933.

Decade of dictators: Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini

The not-so-odd couple: The Hitler-Stalin non-aggression pact and its aftermath


Readings: Gilbert, The Second World War, chapters 1- 15, German invasion of Poland through German Invasion of Russia; start Fallada and “How we lived then.”
Recommended readings: Winston S. Churchill, The Gathering Storm; John F. Kennedy, Why England Slept. That’s right, President Kennedy—this was his senior thesis at Harvard. Also, Ian Kershaw, Hitler, volume 1, “Hubris.” His bio is probably the most complete of all accounts of Hitler.
Recommended film: “Gallipoli,” the classic account of the Anzac slaughter in the Bosphorous, l9l5. It will tell you a lot about why no one outside of Germany could bear the thought of another war after l9l9.


The War, part I: The “Bad Boys’” interregnum, l939-41, and the launch of the struggle for “Lebensraum.”

T-4 program and the shape of things to come

The fourth partition of Poland, the “Sitzkreig” and the “blitzkrieg” of western Europe.

Their finest hour: Britain and the Blitz

Barbarossa: the invasion of the Soviet Union

The “Holocaust by Bullets”

EXAM #1 after this section.


Readings: Gilbert, chapters 17-38, “Terror in the East,” through “D-day, June l944.” Continue with Fallada and “How we lived then. “
Recommended readings: Death in the Forest, the grisly story of the Katyn forest murders; Joachim Fest, Hitler, probably the best of the one-volume Hitler bios; Jan T. Gross, Revolution from Abroad: The Soviet Conquest of West Ukraine and Byelorussia; Dmitrii Volkogonov, Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy. This is the best biography of Stalin we have to date.


The War, part II: Allies vs. Axis, Axis vs. Allies(and Jews)

USA, USSR, UK: the marriage of convenience and the grand strategy

What happened when the Nazis came: Russia, France, Amsterdam, Poland

The search for a second front in Europe: North Africa and Sicily

Stalingrad and the “turn of the tide.”

The “final solution:” debut of the death camps, l942


Readings: Finish Gilbert; continue with Fallada; finish “How we lived then;” read Anne Frank and finish it.
Recommended readings: Richard Overy, Russia’s War: Blood Upon the Snow; Harrison Salisbury, 900 Days: The Siege of Leningrad. All the heroism and depravity of that terrible time in one thick tome. You really should read at least part of it. There are dozens and dozens of great survivors’ accounts out there, accounts of the camps and deportations…see me if you are interested.
FILM: Au revoir les enfants(Goodbye, Children!).
Recommended films: “Enemy at the Gates,” the cinematic version of one deadly sniper confrontation in the bombed-out ruins of Stalingrad. It just came out on video August l5.
Alfred Hitchcock fans will want to revisit “Lifeboat,” with Tallulah Bankhead. It comes on AMC occasionally. You might understand it a lot better after this class…
Film: “Au revoir, les enfants(Goodbye, children)


The War, part III: Nazis go home!

The “Big four” and the peace conferences

Operation Overlord: Planning and execution of the invasion of Europe

Russians move west, as liberators and conquerors

The Road to Berlin: liberation of Paris, battle of the Bulge, the last weeks

The fall of Berlin, victory in Europe and the outlines of a new war.

The “gifts” Hitler gave us


Readings: Finish Fallada and any reading you haven’t yet done.
Recommended readings: Richard Overy, Why the Allies Won; Gerhard Weinberg, A World at Arms. That last is probably the best book ever written on this war, certainly the most comprehensive.
Film: “Europa, Europa”

Recommended films: “Saving Private Ryan,” of course,; also “Patton,” George C. Scott’s best-ever role, as the famous American general. the Bob Knight of the second world war. Alec Guinness in “Hitler: the Last Ten Days” is similarly impressive.


Final exam TBA at the appointed time

Good advice

...for Dead Week and then finals.

History 450 final exam 2011

Without further ado, the final exam for 450...should be pretty easy if you are alive and breathing and present at class these last few sessions. I will do the heavy lifting...


History 450
Spring ’11—final exam

Answer the following question, using readings, videos, lectures and/or any personal reflection you have done to support the points you make:


President John F. Kennedy once made a wise observation to the effect that those who make peaceful change impossible make violent revolution inevitable. Write an essay in which you apply that observation to the Catholic-Protestant conflict in northern Ireland. First, outline the reasoning behind the non-violent civil rights protests of the late l960s and early l970s. Then explain why the conflict turned violent and discuss in general terms measures taken by each side to fight the other. Conclude your essay by making clear how the violent conflict was brought to an end in l998.


The image at right is the Kelly brothers' tribute to the victims of the British army para shootings in Londonderry, 30 January 1972, "Bloody Sunday."

LibArts symposium website address

Attention 466 students: the Spring 2011 Liberal Arts Research symposium website is up and running and in need of your abstracts. You need to compose a few sentences on what your museum exhibit covers, and then submit that paragraph to the following address: http://www.tricity.wsu.edu/libarts/symposium.html

Deadline is APRIL 25, 5 pm. You WANT your name in the program, so please get this done now.

Also, PLEASE make sure that someone looks over the abstract before you submit it, because this abstract will go into the symposium program, and you may want to show this to prospective employers or grad school admissions committees. You definitely do NOT want to look illiterate in your own language....

CLASS, actual CLASS, on Monday!

Unbelievably, I DID return from the UK and there WILL be class in both Euro and Cold War on Monday, April ll(!). In Cold War, a special session since the following day, April l2, is the proudest day in the history of the Soviet Union, the day Iurii Gagarin made his historic manned space flight, beating the US to that milestone and getting the President's Irish up--it was shortly thereafter that he made his boast that the US would put a man on the moon before this decade(l960s)was out, etc., etc. So we will celebrate on Monday.

I had hoped to blog the London trip, but was chagrined to find out that the UK has yet to discover the charms of public wireless access. At WSUTC, we're so used to universal wireless access, it's hard to believe that other places might not have it. Cambridge University, for all its virtues, has exactly NO wireless access, public or otherwise...hard to believe, but it's true. I hadn't even brought my computer because I thought I could connect to my IPAD via wireless. Think again! Anyway, that's why the long radio silence...

The photo you see above is the back lawn of Trinity College, Cambridge, one of the many residential colleges there to enjoy its own centuries-old Gothic cathedral. If ever you get to London, you should visit, just to lay eyes on the greatest University town in all the world.

London calling...

While I'm sitting here watching the Cold Warriors write their midterm, let me remind everyone about next week: Euro class writes its test on Wednesday, March 30, while Cold Warriors work diligently on their Tier III/Liberal Arts Symposium project. No class on Monday, April 4 or Wednesday, April 6--we ALL will be back in class on April 11. Quiz on these details to follow(NOT!)...

Europe exam...

History 450
Midterm exam part II, spring ’11…for March 30, 2011

Directions Part I(70%): Prepare the following essays, using readings, videos, lectures and any outside reading or reflection to make your points. You need to prepare all three, unless you are clairvoyant, because you don’t know which one will be asked. On occasion, I as Benevolent Class Dictator will allow YOU to choose, but that doesn’t always happen, so be ready for any of them.

The United States and Great Britain expressed in the 1941 Atlantic Charter sa their hope that post-World War II Europe would reform on the basis of self-determination, each nation determining for itself what form of government it wanted. Yet by l948, Europe was divided into two hostile camps, with a Communist east and a democratic west. Write an essay in which you explain how this unfortunate turn of events came to pass.

The Berlin airlift marked a dramatic escalation in an argument that had started before the end of World War II, namely: what should be done with defeated Germany. What did the Allies decide to do with that state, and how did the old Nazi capital, Berlin, bring the US and Great Britain to serious confrontation, even brinksmanship with the Soviet Union?

When(not if) you take your friends to Paris, you will all go inspect the Arch of Triumph on the Champs Elysees, the main street of the French capital. You all find near the tomb of the Unknown Warrior from World War I several additional commemorations, including two dedicated to Frenchmen who fell in Indochina and Algeria in the l950s. As someone who knows something of contemporary France, what will you tell them when they ask you why there were French troops in those nations in the l950s, and how will you describe the outcome of those campaigns?

Directions Part II(30%) Identify, briefly discuss and GIVE THE SIGNIFICANCE of the following in a paragraph or two. You will do THREE of FOUR on test day.

Marshall Plan, Nuremberg Trials, Operation Overlord(“D-day”), “Iron Curtain.”

P.S. For those who went down in flames on the geo midterm, there will be a chance to redeem yourself, rise from the ashes, Phoenix-like, after I get back from England on April 6(didn’t get an invite for the Wales-Middleton nuptials, regrettably).

Essay writing, installment #1

Now hear this...it might help you with more than history tests...

How to write an effective essay, part I—making a case.

Lots of exams require you to make a case for something, argue for or against, or argue degrees…like degrees of responsibility in the case of one of the Cold War questions. What you do here is first, decide how you will argue—choose the side you want to take(if you’re given a choice!). Then assemble all the evidence you have for your argument, and craft two or three paragraphs, taking care to include at least ONE specific piece of evidence for each one. Step three is writing the appropriate intro and conclusion…in the intro, you tell people what side you are taking and what they can expect to read, and in the conclusion, you tell them what they just read, in case they missed it(or, in the words of my grad advisor, Barbara, “in case you were too stupid to catch what I just said”).


So here’s an sample/example…Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln are considered two of the most influential American Presidents. Which of them had the greatest impact?

I want to argue Franklin Delano Roosevelt, on the following grounds:

1) He had longevity as President. He served four terms; Lincoln, only one term plus a few months.
2) He steered America through its worst political and economic crisis to date, then helped the country confront aggressive, meglomanaical totalitarianism abroad.
3) He is responsible for the emergence of a middle class in America, through the creation of such anti-poverty measures as social security during the depression, and the GI Bill afterwards.


So now I can write the essay. First, I introduce it….


Many American historians have ranked Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt among the greatest US Presidents. I believe Franklin Delano Roosevelt had the greatest overall impact, because he served nearly four terms rather than one, he had to face two major threats to the nation rather than one, and was able to do more to put the nation on a firm footing for the future in the years following World War II.


Then I write up the three points I have chosen, as follows. Note how I work in at least one piece of evidence, a name of a person or thing, a date, SOMETHING that proves the point to the reader. You have to have evidence to convince a jury in a courtroom; same thing applies in a good essay. The operative words are, SHOW ME or PROVE IT!!!

Longevity isn’t a virtue in and of itself, but it helped Franklin Roosevelt. He had nearly two decades in which to affect the course of the nation, l933-l945. During his nearly four terms, he made seven appointments to the US Supreme Court, making possible the votes for Brown Vs. Board of Education, which gave legal foundation to those challenging Jim Crow laws and therefore facilitated the de-segregation of the south in the l960s. And he had the time, opportunity and skill to lead the nation through two serious crises, the depression and World War II. Serving only four years and three months, Lincoln lacked the time to compile a record of achievements to rival FDR’s.

While it is true that Lincoln had a unique achievement in leading the country through a terrible, divisive civil war, Franklin Roosevelt saw his countrymen through two serious crises, both of which threatened the existence of the nation. The Great Depression nearly plunged the nation into chaos, and while FDR did not solve the problem, he mitigated it, kept the country going with palliative measures like the Civilian Conservation Corps and Works Progress adminstration as well as reform projects like the SEC. He then confronted the challenge of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan l941-45, partnering with friends and former opponents to defeat them, very important since both aimed at world domination. It is hard to argue against a President that successfully negotiated not one, but TWO existential threats to the nation.

Finally, Franklin Roosevelt was able to do more to prepare his country to meet the challenges of the future. President Lincoln had sketched the outlines of a generous program of Reconstruction, but was unable to implement it. President Roosevelt compiled an enviable record of achievement, including creating Social Security, the “most successful antipoverty program in US history,” and the G.I. bill, which sent an entire generation of veterans to college, fueling its future prosperity and creating one of the highest standards of living in world history.

Now for the conclusion, where I say again what I just said:

It is hard to compare Presidents across the centuries, but I believe Franklin Roosevelt had the greatest long-term impact on the United States. He had four terms rather than one, allowing him to get more accomplished, two serious crises to negotiate rather than one, and had more time and opportunity to prepare the country for the future.


And voila! You have a pretty successful essay. You don’t have to be Tolstoy, or any other kind of beautiful, skilled wordsmith to do this: what is required is some clear thinking, disciplined presentation and EVIDENCE. You can achieve this if you practice following this formula.

Cold War exam...

You will write this exam, then I will "get" to grade it on the long flights to and from the UK...a perfect antidote to Airplane Boredom.

History 466
Cold War
Midterm exam…for March 28, 2011


Directions Part I(100%): Prepare the following questions, taking care to support your answers with specific names, facts, dates, etc. On test day, you will answer ONE, but you do not know WHICH one, so prepare them both.


A)In the recent Ken Burns documentary covering World War II, “The War,” viewers learn about the titanic struggle between the US, Great Britain and the USSR on the one hand and Germany, Italy and Japan on the other in World War II. Victory was a team effort, requiring a common strategy, coordination and millions of casualties. How did it happen that this “marriage” ended in divorce, with victorious allies becoming bitter enemies, glowering at each other across barbed-wire borders, just a couple of years after that happy meeting in Berlin? In other words, how did we get a nasty, antagonistic Cold War after the successful conclusion of the Hot War?

b)Historians have argued since the beginning of the Cold War about which side started it. Residents of United States tend to believe the Soviet Union was most responsible, while citizens of the Soviet Union/Russia pin the blame squarely on their former allies, the United States and Britain. In a modern twist on the Twilight Zone, you are suddenly and unexpectedly transported across time and space to in the Court of History, with an interesting assignment. You have the brief for the Soviet Union, meaning you must argue before the Court that the United STATES bears the greatest share of the responsibility for the peace gone bad after l945. So do it!

c)Unlike many wars, the mathematics of the Cold War is not addition or subtraction, but DIVISION. Write an essay in which you address the role of division in US-USSR relations in Asia and Europe between l945 and l950.


No identifications this time, you will cover everything in these essays…

The image you see above is the Kremlin, where Stalin plotted and schemed throughout this period in question. Note the high walls...it says all you need to about the transparency, or lack thereof, of the Soviet and Russian governments.

ANOTHER quality hint for the geoquiz...

...and this is Annie's cousin, GERMAN Shorthaired Pointer CHARLIE, shortly after his arrival last summer.

Geoquizhint

I can't provide a picture of an Ibizan hound, but i can give direct evidence of the kurzhaar...this my GERMAN shorthaired pointer, Annie, and me in May 2010.

Another key Cold War question

Here's another question "they" always ask you about the Cold War: exactly who started it? Who gets the blame for divided Europe? The Soviet Union always believed it was the United States, and the United States always blamed the Soviet Union. Who do you believe is most responsible? On what basis would a former Soviet citizen declare the US the cause of the Cold War, and ditto for an American citizen vis-a-vis Russia.

It's not as easy a question as you might think...

Focus! Focus!

For both 466 and 450 people, the events of World War II and the postwar, in which Europe becomes divided after coming together in the defeat of Hitler, can be really confusing--especially since most of us don't get any systematic history instruction in high school. So here is a way to try to make sense of the narrative. This is one of the fundamental questions of the Cold War, and I always ask it on the midterm in one form or another:

A)In the Ken Burns documentary “The War,” viewers learn about the titanic struggle between the US, Great Britain and the USSR on the one hand and Germany, Italy and Japan on the other in World War II. Victory was a team effort, requiring a common strategy, coordination and millions of casualties. How did it happen that this “marriage” ended in divorce, with victorious allies becaming bitter enemies, glowering at each other across barbed-wire borders, just a couple of years after that happy meeting in Berlin? In other words, how did we get a nasty, antagonistic Cold War after the successful conclusion of the Hot War?

In other words, how do we get an acrimonious divorce so soon after this spectacularly successful partnership??

Eurogeo

Here's your first test in History 450...date TBA. You will always have at least two weeks' advance warning of any exam or test. BTW, the image at right is a great feature of central European geography: the Danube as border between Hungary and Slovak republic at Esztergom, northern Hungary. You can walk down the hill from here and over the bridge and be in the Slovak republic...or maybe you can swim it, but I don't recommend that. The Danube isn't blue, it's brown and it stinks in summer. You might not survive an encounter with it.


Here comes the fabled(notorious?!)History 450 geography midterm. You will need to be able to locate and identify the capital of all the countries on the European continent, including Turkey, which isn’t altogether on the continent but which might be in the European Union one day. THEN you will have to answer a certain number of the following fun questions…not all, but you won’t know which ones, so you will need to know all of them.



What European regional capital is known as “Titanic town?”


Match the European country with its homegrown alcoholic beverage:
Calvados:
Ouzo:
Shlivovitz:
Palinka:
Bushmills:
Pilsner:
Dom Perignon:

What central. European country is home to the Lippizaner stud farm?


Where is Dracula's castle? Name the country AND region


Where is the Cotentin peninsula and why is it important to you and me?


Which central European country is famous for gulyas and paprika?


What east European city is the location of the Lenin ship
Yard, famous for its role in the l980s? What country was it in before l945?


What defines the states we know as the “Baltics” and the “Balkans”? Name the three Baltic states, their capitals and at least two Balkan states and THEIR capitals.


What country’s capital has been the head of two major religious empires?


Where is the home base of the Ibizian hound, one of the biggest, skinniest dogs you will find? How about the celebrated hunting dog known as the “Kurzhaar?”


What accounts for both French and German being heard on the streets of the eastern French city of Strasbourg?


What is the Camino de Santiago de Compostela and where does it take place? You will begin to understand about it if you go to this site-- http://mscamino.blogspot.com


Identify the countries to which these Olympic cities belong:
Turin:
Lillehammer:
Athens:
Grenoble:
Sarajevo:
Munich:
Barcelona:
St. Moritz:

Which city is lucky enough to have Schipol as its airport, one of the most user-friendly in the world? Conversely, which is cursed with the world’s worst airport, Sheremetevo I and II?

Cartographic confusion: What are these cities called today, and where are they?
Take one of them and explain how its name got changed.
Koloszvar:
Caporetto:
Breslau:

Which countries are connected by the Oresund bridge?

What is Kaliningrad, what did it used to be known as and why is it an anomaly in today’s Europe?

How could someone be born, educated, married and then die in three or four different European countries and never move away from his hometown?

Great map sites

For 450ers and anyone else who's interested, there is a great map of Europe with interactive features just waiting for you. You can click on many of the larger countries for a more detailed look at major cities, rivers, etc. I've been playing with it for a half hour! Then, go here and bookmark, so that you will have a map to practice with when you get the geoquiz questions. Don't forget that half the midterm will be geographical...

Cold War 466 syllabus...

A second drum riff for the rollout of syllabus 466...and the person you see in the picture, atop the Chrysler mini-van, is me. I'm in exhibit guide mode, talking to Soviet visitors about leisure time in America, during our exhibit's tour in Rostov-on-Don, USSR. That was MY cold war...

History 466
Cold War
History 466/spring 2011/WSUTC/B. Farley


Welcome to 466! First, the essential contact info: Office 207 J West Building 332-7257. Reality-based, up-close and personal office hours: 3:30-4pm Monday and Wednesday; virtual office hours 24/7 by email at brigitf2001@yahoo.com or bfarley@tricity.wsu.edu. I always will try to get back to you as soon as possible—email is my favorite means of communication. For emergencies, my ancestral estate in Pendleton, Oregon may be reached at 541-276-6962.

Now, some non-essential info: By way of introducing myself, I once played “how well do you know your friends” games during the break and answered a short questionnaire from the internet this way(note: some responses have been modified to reflect Cold War themes):

Four schools you have attended: Pendleton High School, Georgetown University, Indiana University, Leningrad University. I studied THE cold war language, the language of the “enemy” at all of these places.

Four Cold War-related jobs you've had in your life: exhibit guide/propagandist, translator, transliterator, subject for “linguistic researchers."

Four Cold War movies you could see over and over: Saving Private Ryan(early Cold War issue), Dr. Strangelove, Goodbye Lenin, The Russians are Coming.

Four Cold War-related places you've lived: Washington, DC, Moscow, Russia, Leningrad, USSR, Kiev, USSR

Four Cold War TV shows you love to watch: MASH(Korean conflict), Twilight Zone(lots of Cold War themes), Outer Limits(lots of would-be alien invaders with Russian accents), All in the Family(a mini-Cold War waged each episode between conservative Archie Bunker and his “meathead” son-in-law, a real classic). None of them very new…

Four places(Cold War or non) you've been on vacation: Maui, Hawaii, Moville, Co. Donegal, Ireland, Solovetskii Islands, Russia, northern France and Belgium

Four of your favorite Cold War foods: Hungarian stuffed cabbages, borshcht, khachapuri(Georgian stuffed cheese bread).

Four favorite Cold War cities: London, Paris, Budapest, Ljubljana


The Lowdown: Welcome to Cold War, a study of the 50-year “cold” conflict between the Soviet Union and its allies and the United States and its allies that began in the closing days of World War II and ended with the collapse of Communism in eastern Europe, which was followed by the implosion of Communism in the USSR in August l991. I should amend that to read, “mostly cold.” There was quite a lot of “hot” action, as the thousands of casualties in the Korean, Vietnamese and Afghan conflicts would tell you, even if these were officially “proxy wars.” I don’t think you are any less dead for being killed in a “proxy” rather than a direct conflict between the superpowers.
We will be trying this term to determine what caused this conflict, beginning way before l945. We want to trace the course of the “hostilities,” exploring how the war shaped domestic events anc culture in the two superpower “belligerents,” that is, US here in America and THEM in the USSR. We won’t get too much farther than l962, because it takes that long to cover the early part of the Cold War, and people tend to have a lot of comments. However, we will do what we can to cover what happened later.
In between, we will try to get acquainted with some of the most interesting people and events from this odd war. Some of you will find them more familiar than others, especially if you are old enough to remember “ducking and covering” to protect against nuclear annihilation. Some of us, including me, are actual Cold Warriors. I spent l987-88 in the soviet Union as a guide for the United States Information Agency’s traveling exhibit, “Information Technology in American Life.” Some people called that position “propagandist.” Anyway, we were there to demonstrate computer technology and how it helps at home and at work AND advertise American life. Some Soviet people invariably took issue with our presentation and engaged us in verbal combat, e.g. “why do Americans want war with the Soviet Union?” “Why do you kill your Presidents?” “Why do you let people own guns,” “How many volts do you give them in the electric chair? After l4 months of that, I really felt like a veteran of the Cold War. Certainly the issues that preoccupied the policymakers also preoccupied the people in the “trenches.”
Readings: Our basic text is Martin Walker’s Cold War: A History. This will help you follow the basic narrative of events, which can get complicated at times. Then, Robert Dallek, JFK: An Unfinished Life. JFK witnessed or participated in all the most crucial episodes in the Cold War, and Dallek’s biography is one of the latest and best. Victor Grossman’s Crossing the River tells the unusual story of an American on the other side of the Cold War, not a perspective you get every day when looking at this period. And Michael d’Antonio’s book on the drama of the late l950s and 60s—the sputnik/space race—is an entertaining look at Nikita Khrushchev’s obsession with being first in space(if nothing else!)…
Class Procedures and Evaluation: 466 is one of those great Tier III courses, which are designed to bring together knowledge and perspectives from several disciplines and which require a thoughtful writing assignment. It also lends itself particularly well to the new WSUTC undergraduate research exposition: the Liberal Arts symposium. Everyone in this class will participate in this end-of-semester extravaganza. You will fulfill this requirement and make your symposium debut(or return, if you did it before) by choosing an individual or phenomenon(animal, vegetable, or mineral?) that played a big part in the Cold War and design a small museum exhibit dedicated to that person, place or thing. One part of the exhibit is the script, an introduction to your subject plus a narrative making clear how he/she/it influenced the course of the cold war. You should not assume much knowledge on the part of your visitors—this would be a big mistake. This part should be between 4-7 pages. Then you will sketch out the exhibit-- choose illustrations/ photographs/ivideos/attractions that make your subject clear, make it come alive, to people v. In part III, you will actually build/establish your exhibit in the designated room for the symposium and greet the people who come to see it.
This assignment will be worth 50% of your grade. You will turn in your script in mid-April, maybe on Tax Day, and then you will present your exhibit at the symposium during finals week, IN LIEU of the final. I will base your grade on quality of script, originality of presentation and attention to detail throughout.
Some of the people/places/things you might consider making the subject for your exhibit: Berlin Wall, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Harry S. Truman, “containment,” theory and practice, Marshall Plan, Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, John F. Kennedy, nuclear weapons, Los Alamos, Hanford, Josip Broz Tito/Yugoslavia, Hollywood Blacklist, Joe McCarthy, Ho Chi Minh, Korea in the fifties, US-Cuban relations and Castro, Cold War “nightmare” cinema, e.g. Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Cold War and American l950s, etc. etc. You are limited only by your imagination and the parameters of the Cold War.
Besides the Big Assignment, you will have a midterm after Part II(40%).
Caveats: Come to class and listen—you know what Woody Allen says, 90% of life is just showing up—start the Big Assignment right away and keep up on the not-too-labor-intensive readings. If you do all these things, you’ll have a good time in the course and maybe even learn a thing or two as well.

Schedule

Part I: Beginnings

America and Russia, l9l7

Soviet Russia: a short intro

The first skirmish

Two visions of the ideal world, l9l9

Self-determination or world socialist revolution?

America: the view from the Soviet Union

The Soviet Union: the view from America

Dictators’ rendezvous: the Nazi-Soviet pact, l939

The big doublecross and the new team, l941: USA, USSR, Great Britain

The marriage of convenience

Wartime conferences

Endgame: the race to Berlin

Readings: Walker, Cold War, pp. 1-27. Dallek JFK: An Unfinished Life, pp. 3-135 Grossman
Featured film: Mission to Moscow(l943)…very controversial in its day.
Recommended readings: Orlando Figes, A People’s Tragedy: A History of the Russian Revolution. This will tell you all about the revolution and establishment of Russian Communism,. Also, Louis Auchincloss, Woodrow Wilson. That’s the best short bio of Woodrow Wilson, our own drum major for democracy

Part II: Cold War follows hot, l945-53

Outlines of a divided Europe

The United States and the Bomb

Outlines of a Cold War

Dueling speeches

Containment and Marshall Plan

The “Iron Curtain” in eastern Europe and the state that escaped

The Berlin Crisis, round I

Stalin gets the bomb

Cold War turns hot and goes global: the “police action” in Korea and revolution in China

The Cold War and the home front: US and USSR

Readings: Walker, pp. 27-82; Dallek, pp. 134-266; continue with Grossman; start D’Antonio
Recommended readings: Milovan Djilas, Conversations with Stalin. This is a great insiders’ view of what Stalin was REALLY like, behind the all-knowing, all-wise Uncle Joe façade. It wasn’t pretty. Also, David McCullough, Truman. McCullough is an eminently readable biographer and he brings Harry S. to life very effectively.

Midterm exam after this section, or perhaps partway through part III—TBA.



Part III: Hope, Confusion and (Near)Apocalypse: The Khrushchev years, l953-64

The death of “Uncle Joe” and the rise of Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev

Korean armistice

Khrushchev’s bombshell

Revolution in Poland and Hungary

Khrushchev woos the developing world

The ascent of John F. Kennedy: “bearing any burden”

Bad beginning: Castro’s revolution and the Bay of Pigs

K2: Kennedy and Khrushchev .

The Berlin Crisis, round II: The Wall

Missles in October

Looking down the abyss: confronting nukes off the American mainland

“The other fellow blinked:” the end of the crisis

Nuclear non-proliferation

The end of an era: the end of Kennedy and Khrushchev and the course of the Cold War

Readings: Walker, pp. 82-182; finish Dallek; finish Grossman; d’Antonio, Ball, Dog, Monkey.
Recommended readings: William Taubman, Khrushchev: A biography. This is chapter and verse on Nikita Khrushchev, a great book, also a demanding one. If you can get Roy Medvedev, Khrushchev, that one is shorter and written from a Russian perspective. On Kennedy, the classic study is Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. A Thousand Days. Schlesinger was the “court historian” of the JFK administration.


LIBERAL ARTS SYMPOSIUM PRESENTATION takes the place of your final.

History 450 syllabus

To imaginary drumroll accompaniment, the syllabus for Europe since l945:




History 450—Europe since ‘45
Spring ‘11
WSU/Tri-Cities
B. Farley

Contact Info: 207j West Building/372-7357(office), 541-276-6962(home). Face-to-face office hours: Monday-Wednesday,3:30-4 pm and by appointment, Virtual office hours 24/7 via email, bfarley@tricity.wsu.edu or brigitf2001@yahoo.com. Email was made for me—I don’t like talking on the phone and I always try to answer any communiqué I get that same day. Please feel free to get in touch anytime.

If you are here, you’ve already found it, but in any case, make it a point to visit the class blog—brigitsbulletinboard.blogspot.com for updates, syllabi, test questions and miscellaneous information and opinion. If you’ve forgotten or lost something, you can find it here, and you are always welcome to leave comments, using your real name or a pseudonym…

The Lowdown

I always have to think hard about what to do with this class, because the time period is so difficult. In l9th century Europe, it’s Napoleon, nationalism, revolution, socialism, imperialism and the Great War. The Great War is, well, the Great War…you can go year by year and watch the “horrors creep across the floor.” Europe l9l9-39 is basically a long, depressing, between-the-wars armistice that climaxes in the outbreak of World War II. Then, you reach l945, and suddenly there is not a lot of coherence any more. Europe is allegedly united, but divided into more and less “established” camps of states. It supposedly saw the light and renounced war and violence after the horror of the Holocaust, yet was wracked by some of the worst genocide and ethnic cleansing of the century in the territories of the former Yugoslavia in the l990s. It touts itself as modern, tolerant and accepting, yet has ongoing problems with Islam, language issues, church/state separation and immigration. There is no grand national narrative, no unifying theme, that we can lean on in studying the contemporary history of this region. Therefore, unless we want to recite a cross-continental chronology, we have to opt for the big-picture approach, taking a promising theme for each decade. This time, we will look first at Germany’s struggle to dig out of the rubble of the war, de-Nazify its leadership and then adapt to its status as the front line of the Cold War. Then we shift focus west to France, where its struggle to re-establish itself as a great power leads to several disastrous wars with former colonies Algeria, Tunisia and Indochina. The ferment within the Soviet Union’s east European satellite states, especially Czechoslovakia, comes next as we move into the l960s. The development of a vicious, prolonged conflict between Protestants and Catholics in northern Ireland begins in l969 and takes us well into the l980s. We will finish with the story behind the reunification of Europe in l989, the year that everything seemed to become possible.
Since we will be concentrating on four or five key episodes in European history, it seems reasonable to work in some crucial films highlighting some singular aspect of each. The first will be “Judgment at Nuremberg,” Hollywood’s take on the Nazi War Crimes tribunals. 1956’s “Battle of Algiers” is a great companion piece to France’s depressing campaign to impose its will on colonies it should have let go. Next comes “Oratorio for Prague,” a film that began to chronicle the miraculous “Prague Spring” of l968 before something went terribly wrong.
“Bloody Sunday,” a re-creation of the worst day of the northern Irish conflict, will be the third offering. Closing out the term will be “Goodbye, Lenin,” an hilarious comment on the end of Communist Europe and maybe the funniest movie I’ve seen.


Readings


As for readings, we have one of the best books of modern times in Tony Judt’s Postwar. It is a triumph of narrative and interpretation, a very tough thing to achieve, especially with a continent and period as vast as postwar Europe. A lifelong student of France, Ted Morgan has an unusually personal perspective on the l950s and the colonial wars in that country. He shares it My Battle of Algiers. Heda Kovaly’s memoir, Under a Cruel Star, demonstrates how cruel and unforgiving the Communist regimes were, and how dreadful it was to get Communism as soon as the Nazis were vanquished. It is very useful background to the events of l968 in Czechoslovakia. With respect to the Irish conflict, people tend to forget that one of the most tragic events of the postwar period in Europe took place in Londonderry, northern Ireland, on January 30, l972—the civil rights march that turned into a massacre known to history as “Bloody Sunday.” I’ve always been intrigued with the 14 people who died so tragically on that day, so I included a book concentrating on their lives, called Before Sunday. I will carry the ball on the last topic, the end of the Soviet empire in eastern Europe, the signature event of the l980s.

Assignments

History 450 is an M class, meaning writing across the curriculum. It is impractical for everyone to write a term paper, so we will resort to an old warhorse: the semester-long reading and writing assignment(40%). We will take a thematic approach in the class, meaning that many European countries will not make the “cut” into the class narrative. What you will do is to choose a country in this category— Spain, Portugal, Italy, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Poland, any of the Baltic states, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium—and do some reading from online or offline publications over about l2 weeks, 2-3 articles per week. You can select articles that reflect a sort of general acquaintance, or narrow your focus to something specific, like the economy, tourism, political challenges, minority rights issues, etc. You will summarize each article in a paragraph or two, then store the summaries in a folder. About two weeks before the end of the semester, you will write a 3-5 page paper summarizing your findings for a business that is seeking to establish itself there. Both your summaries AND your final paper will form the basis for your grade on this part of the course, since this is a “writing across the curriculum” offering.
The writing exercise will be worth 40% of the final grade. Other than that, we’ll have a midterm with geography component(!)(40%) and a final, really a second midterm(20%).

Students with Disabilities: Accommodations are available for students with a documented disability. See Cherish Tijerna, Disability Resources Coordinator, as soon as possible to seek information or to qualify for accommodations. To make an appointment, please call 372-7352. Translation from Officialspeak: If you have a learning disability, you can find people and resources to help you.

Schedule

Part I, Introduction, then postwar Germany: out of the ashes

Background to May 9, l945, victory in Europe.

The “big three” and planning for the postwar: two Europes or one?

Europe and the Marshall Plan: Recovery, retribution, reconquest

Europe divided

Score-settling in Germany and elsewhere.

Berlin in crisis, part I: l948

Berlin, Germany and Europe divided.

Readings: Judt, Postwar, 1-196.
Recommended readings: Norman Naimark, Russians in Germany, l945-49; Anthony Beevor, Paris after the Liberation, l945-49.
Featured film: “Judgment at Nuremberg.”

Midterm part I after this section: GEOGRAPHY!!. Yes, you will finally have to learn the map of Europe, with all those brand-new countries in it, like Slovenia…or is it SLOVAKIA?!

Part II, The l950s: Reaction/revolt

The east in crisis: Berlin(part II), Warsaw, Budapest

The west in crisis: France, the struggle to remain a “great” power and the colonial wars: Indochina, Algeria, Tunisia

Featured film: “The Battle of Algiers(l956).”

Readings: Judt, l96-324, Morgan, My Battle of Algiers, all.
Recommended readings: Roy Medvedev, Khrushchev: a Biography. Bernard Fall, Street without Joy, Hell in a Very Small Place; Robert Dallek, JFK: An Unfinished Life(new bio of President Kennedy).
Recommended film: “Indochine,” starring Catherine De Neuve

Midterm Part II, garden variety midterm, after this section…

Part III: Europe in the l960s

Detour to the USA: ferment, war, crisis

The French l968

The Czechoslovak l960s and the Prague Spring, January-August l968

Featured film: “Oratorio for Prague(l968).”

Readings: Judt, 324-453; Kovaly, Under a Cruel Star, all.
Recommended readings: William Shawcross, Dubcek; Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., RFK: His Life and Times; James Simon Kunen, The Strawberry Statement: Notes of a College Revolutionary; David Maraniss, They Marched into Sunlight

Part IV: Sixties to Seventies: the “Troubles” in Ireland

Prelude to a crisis: Catholics and Protestants in northern Ireland to l967

Catholics and the “Civil Rights movement,” l968-69

“Battle of the Bogside” and the coming of the British Army

Playing hardball with the British: Bobby Sands and the Irish hunger strikers

The road to Good Friday

Featured film: “Bloody Sunday(2003).”

Readings: Faus, Before Sunday, all.
Recommended readings: David Beresford, Ten Men Dead; John Conroy, Belfast Diary; Tim Pat Coogan, On the Blanket.

Part V: Europe re-uniting, l985-89

Ferment in the east: Gorbachev, Reagan and nuclear Europe

Gorbachev and the “satellites”

The “Sinatra doctrine.”

The end of the Berlin wall and the “German problem.”

Featured film: “Goodbye, Lenin(2003)!”

Readings: Finish Judt, others TBA.
Recommended readings: : David Remnick, Lenin’s Tomb: the Last Days of the Soviet Empire; Slavenka Drakulic, How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed.

Final exam-- second midterm, actually-- at the scheduled time


About the instructor: I believe the photograph accompanying this syllabus tells you all you need to know: it's me communing with gargoyles at Notre Dame cathedral, Paris, this past December.

Welcome!

Whether you're a new or returning history student, welcome! This is the place to come for syllabi, class announcements, copies of exam questions, random musings from me, links of interest, anything that will help you make the most of class. I wish I had some grand, sweeping statement to make about this term, but just now I am fresh out of soaring rhetoric, so I will leave that for later...anyway, WELCOME!!

The image at left is the Arch of Triumph, which anchors the Champs-Elysees. the grandest of the grand boulevards in Paris. It was built to commemorate Napoleon's victories, but now is the final resting place of the French unknown soldier from World War I, and doleful tributes to those who fell in succeeding wars, which were uniformly disastrous.