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 21, 2014

Week 8 – Descending into the Twentieth Century: World War and Revolution: 1914-1920


Monday through Friday, February 24-28
Long periods: Independent Research; ROUGH DRAFTS DUE Friday, March 7. 
Friday: Quiz #4 on Week 8 materials; REMEMBER: CLOSED NOTE AND CLOSED BOOK.

Day 1: Monday, 2/24: Modern European Intellectual History, Part 1. 
In-class: Read and discuss primary source handouts on Darwinism and Social Darwinism.
Homework for Day 2: Read "Science in an Age of Optimism,” in The West in the World, eds. Sherman/Salisbury, pp. 639-651, and answer the key question. 
Key Persons and Terms: Charles Darwin, Darwinism, Herbert Spencer, Social Darwinism, Louis Pasteur, positivism, realism, impressionism, Einstein, relativity, Freud, psychoanalysis, Durkheim, Nietzsche, and expressionism.
Key Question: Why do you think so much of the culture – especially the ideas, art and literature – of this period 1850-1914 remains influential and popular in today’s world?

Day 2: Modern European Intellectual History, Part 2.
In-Class: Discuss the readings and homework question on European intellectual history.
Homework for Day 3: Read “Descending into the Twentieth Century: World War and Revolution, 1914-1920,” in The West in the World, eds. Sherman/Salisbury, pp. 655-665 (up until "The War Spreads Across the Globe"), and prepare answers to the key questions.
Key Terms and Persons: The Schlieffen Plan, The Alliance System, The Triple Entente, The Triple Alliance, Crisis in the Balkans, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, Germany’s Blank Check, Trench warfare, and total war.
Key question#1: What were the causes of the war, and who, if anyone, was to blame? 
Key question#2: How did people experience the war on the home fronts and battle fronts? 

Day 3: World War
In-class: Discuss the homework readings and questions on the First World War.
Homework: Prepare for the final quiz of the marking period; in preparation for this last quiz, please also read this article, "10 Interpretations of who started WWI," BBC Online (February 14, 2014 (also available as a handout in class)); make note of each historian's arguments concerning the causes of the First World; note commonalities, differences and new interpretations.
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