Introductory description

In the early twenty-first century, many commentators argue that European societies have broken politically, military, and culturally with a past long shaped by wars and military conflicts. Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the ensuing transatlantic dispute, many US conservative commentators argued with Robert Kagan that “Americans are from Mars and Module Summary Europeans from Venus” (Of paradise and power. America and Europe in the New World Order, 2003). In this view, Europeans would now be both both unwilling and incapable of using war and military power to ensure their security. More recently, historian James Sheehan invited us to rethink modern European history as the painful, cruel, and costly process whereby European societies redefined their relationship to war as an instrument of policy (Where Have All the Soldiers Gone? The Transformation of Modern Europe, 2008). These debates, like the history of warfare, raise a series of ethical, political, and intellectual issues of continuing import and relevance. This team-taught first-year optional module will introduce students to the history of war and conflicts in modern European history (1815-2015). It will consider how war, its conduct and experience, shaped states and societies in Europe. It will also investigate how the transformations of warfare reflected the evolutions of European societies.

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

1. Introduction: Why does war matter?
2. Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars
3. The wars of German unification
4. The birth of industrial warfare
5. Colonial warfare
6. Reading week
7. Pacifism in the nineteenth century
8. The causes of modern wars
9. The First World War and the totalisation of warfare
10. Home fronts and social mobilisation in WWI
11. Warfare and welfare in interwar Europe
12. Regulating and preventing war (1899-1939)
13. The Spanish Civil War
14. The Second World War: a “thirty years’ war”?
15. War and genocide in Europe (1915-1945)
16. Reading week
17. From war to civil wars: resistance, collaboration, and the aftermath of WWII
18. Cold War
19. Pacifism after Auschwitz and Hiroshima
20. Wars of decolonization
21. The dividends of peace
22. Yugoslavia and the return of war in Europe
23. Terrorism and the transformations of war

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Gain a broad understanding of the role of war & military conflicts in modern European history.
• Identify a range of related conceptual approaches and historiographical debates, including why scholars have now moved from military history to the history of warfare.
• Identify and engage with a range of relevant primary sources.
• Gain interpersonal and communication skills through the delivery of a presentation.
• Devise well-defined essay topics, collect relevant data from a variety of sources and present results in an effective fashion.

Indicative reading list

• T. C. W. Blanning (ed.), Europe, 1789-1914. The Nineteenth Century (Oxford ; New York, 2000).
• Manfred Boemeke, Roger Chickering, and Stig Förster (eds.), Anticipating Total War: The German and American Experiences, 1871-1914 (Washington, D.C.; Cambridge, U.K. ; New York, 1999).
• Stephen Broadberry and Mark Harrison (eds.), The Economics of World War I (Cambridge, 2009).
• Roger Chickering and Stig Förster (eds.), Great War, Total War. Combat and Mobilization on the Western Front, 1914-1918 (Cambridge - New York, 2000).
• Roger Chickering and Stig Förster (eds.), The Shadows of Total War: Europe, East Asia, and the United States, 1919-1939 (Cambridge, UK - New York, 2003).
• Roger Chickering, Stig Förster, and Bernd Greiner (eds.), A World at Total War: Global Conflict and the Politics of Destruction, 1937-1945 (Washington D.C. - Cambridge, 2005).
• Roger Chickering, Dennis E Showalter, and Hans J Van de Ven (eds.), The Cambridge History of War. Volume 4, War and the Modern World (Cambridge, 2012).
• Mary Fulbrook (ed.), Europe since 1945 (Oxford ; New York, 2001).
• Helen Graham, The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford ; New York, 2005).
• Mark Harrison (ed.), The Economics of World War II: Six Great Powers in International Comparison (Cambridge, 1998).
• Eric J. Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes. The Short Twentieth Century. 1914-1991 (London, 1994).
• John Horne (ed.), A Companion to the First World War (Oxford, 2010).
• Michael Howard, War in European History (Oxford, 2001).
• Julian Jackson (ed.), Europe, 1900-1945 (Oxford [England] ; New York, 2002).
• Edward H. Judge and John W. Langdon, The Cold War: A Global History with Documents (Boston, 2011).
• Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945 (New York, 2005).
• John Keegan, The Face of Battle. A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme (London, 1996).
• John Merriman, A History of Modern Europe. From the French Revolution to the Present, 2 vols. (New York - London, 2004).
• James J. Sheehan, Where Have All the Soldiers Gone?: The Transformation of Modern Europe (Boston, 2009).
• Odd Arne Westad (ed.), Reviewing the Cold War: Approaches, Interpretations, and Theory (London ; Portland, OR, 2000).

View reading list on Talis Aspire

Subject specific skills

See learning outcomes.

Transferable skills

See learning outcomes.