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.

Friday, February 14, 2014

Week 7 – Modern Life and the Culture of Progress


Tuesday through Friday, February 18-21

Presidents’ Day, Monday, 2/17
Long periods: Work in library/classroom on independent research.
Parents' Drop-in Day, Friday, 2/21
Independent research topic proposals DUE, Friday, 2/21.
Book review revisions DUE a week from their return to students; must include original with instructor's comments.
Quiz#3 on Friday, 2/21; covers the materials from nationalism in Week 5 through Week 7.

Day 1: Imperial Domination.
In-class: Discuss the last reading from the previous week in Sherman/Salisbury, pp. 609-623.
Homework: Read "Modern Life and the Culture of Progress: Western Society, 1850-1914,” in The West in the World, eds. Sherman/Salisbury, pp. 625-639, and answer the follow key questions:
Key terms: The Second Industrial Revolution, The “solid” middle class, the “other half”: working classes, and Victorian morality. 
Key question #1: Why did industrialization so quickly doom traditional society in the West? 
Key question #2: How did people adjust to the opportunities and challenges of life in the West’s modernizing cities?

Day 2: Modern Life.
In-class: Discuss the homework reading, key terms and questions.
Homework: Review for the quiz, and finish work on the independent research topic proposals.   
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