Course Description

Welcome! This site is for students, parents, teachers and anyone else interested in the tenth-grade World History 2 Course at Santa Fe Prep.

The overall course covers the history of the world from roughly 1500 to the present. The first quarter opens with the time when Asia was the center of world affairs, then traces European encounters with Asia and the Americas, and the complex interactions and consequences of the so-called "Columbian Exchange" between Europe, Asia, the Americas and Africa. The first quarter ends with a survey of the European Renaissance and Reformation, in both its local and global dimensions. The second quarter will focus on the rise of absolute monarchies and new ideas and practices, especially with the scientific revolution and Enlightenment. The second quarter ends with assessments of the legacies of the French Revolution, Napoleon and the emergence of the British Empire. The third quarter starts with the implications of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars in the wake of the Congress of Vienna, i.e., the discourse on rights, reaction, revolution and reform, the rise of new ideologies, in particular, Classical Liberalism, nationalism, and romanticism, and conservative reactions to the changes wrought by the American and French Revolutions. The course then examines the rise of industrialization and social change in 19th-century Europe, and the emergence of middle and working class cultures, followed by new iterations of liberalism and conservatism, the proliferation of more ideologies, e.g., socialism, communism, ultranationalism, social Darwinism, and antisemitism. Then the course examines the unification of the Italian and German nation states, and the creation of the modern welfare state. From there the course traces the rise of a new wave of Western imperialism, followed by the rest of the world's reactions to the rise of European empires and ideas, and in particular, the emergence of industrial Japan and their surprising victory over Russia. The third quarter ends with the outbreak of the First World War. The fourth and final quarter surveys the effects of the First World War, followed by the brief peak of classical liberal nation states and promises for peace, and the rapid rise of authoritarianism, in both communist and fascist variations, with a special focus on the rise of Nazism, the Nazi racial transformation of Germany and the Holocaust and Shoah of modern Europe. The fourth quarter concludes by looking at the causes and effects of the Second World War, the Cold War, the end of European empires in Asia and Africa, the emergence of the Modern Middle East and China, the end of the Cold War, history since 1989, all the way to the present, including current events.

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Week 7 - War and Revolution: 1914-1920

February 11-15
Faculty In-Service Day, 2/15

*Leading questions: What were the causes of the war, and who, if anyone, was to blame? How did people experience the war on the home fronts and battle fronts? Was the Peace of Paris a success or failure? Why is the First World War considered a dividing line between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries? Why did the Russian Revolution occur? How and why were the Bolsheviks able to gain and maintain power?

**Readings: Leila Ahmed, "The Discourse of the Veil," in: Women and Gender in Islam, pp. 144-155, Roberts, "The Great War 1914-1918," in A Short History of the World, 427-433, Sherman, "War and Revolution: 1914-1920," in Western Civilization, 203-216, Carolyn Forche, "The Armenian Genocide," and the war poets, in Against Forgetting. Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness, 53-93, and Samantha Power, "The Crime without a Name," in "A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, 17-29.

***Key Terms and Persons: The Schlieffen Plan, The Triple Entente, The Triple Alliance, Lenin, The Russian Revolution, The Soviet, The Russian Civil War, Wilson's Fourteen Points, Armistice, Paris Peace Conference

****Projects: IR: reading/research; submit formal topic proposal for independent research project.

Day 1: Global Responses to Europe, Part II: The Discourse on the Veil.
In-class:  
Secondary source: Begin to read and discuss Leila Ahmed, "The Discourse of the Veil," in: Women and Gender in Islam, pp. 144-155.
Question: Please prepare a written response to the following question, using Ahmed's piece on the veil (will be collected at the end of the week): How were women at the center of late 19th century debates about western imperialism in the Middle East, and why?
Homework: Finish reading Ahmed, "The Discourse on the Veil"; prepare for independent research during long periods.
***Key Terms and Persons: Edward Said, Orientalism, Qassim Amin, Capitulary system, shari'a law, Hanafi school, anthropology, feminism, Lord Cromer.

Day 2: 
In-class: Discuss the discourse on the veil.
Homework: Work on independent research topic proposal; Due Thursday/Friday, February 14/15 (see Independent Research guide handout or on blog).

 Day 3: The Approach to Disaster: The Origins of the First World War
In-class: Read the Secondary source, "The Approach to Disaster" in: Roberts, A Short History of the World, pp. 427-430, and begin to discuss the origins of the First World War.

Additional Resources:
The British National Archives: The First World War Sources for History 
A Multimedia History of World War One
PBS Portal to further resources on the Great War 

Question: Prepare a written answer to and discuss: What were the origins of the First World War?
Homework: Read (for Monday, February 18) "The Great War 1914-18," in: Roberts, A Short History of the World, pp. 431-433.
***Key Terms and Persons: Sarajevo, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Gavrilo Princip, Belgium Neutrality. 
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