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.

Thursday, January 1, 2015

Week 1 - The Birth of the Modern World

Monday through Friday, January 5-9, 2015
Happy New Year
& Welcome Back! 

TAP begins on Thursday, 1/8.
Long Periods: Meet in classroom; come prepared to start the independent research process in the library and classroom collections. 

Day 1: Introduction.
In-class: Review 2014 Fall Semester Final Exams; go over syllabus handout; and chronicle current events.

Homework: For Day 2, begin to read the handout packet from class: Lynn Hunt, "'There Will Be No End Of It.' The Consequences of Declaring," in Inventing Human Rights. A History, pp. 146-160 (up until the section on "Free Blacks, Slavery, and Race"). Prepare notes on the key terms and persons that correspond with the reading, and prepare the questions for class discussion (see below). *Homework notes will be checked in class.

Key Terms and Persons: Natural, civil, political, and human rights, "the logic of rights," Edict of Nantes, Edict of Toleration of 1787, The Friends of Blacks, Toussaint-Louverture, Condorcet, Olympe de Gouges, and Mary Wollstonecraft.

Homework questions for Day 2:
#1: What is Lynn Hunt's argument? 
#2: What is her evidence?

Day 2: "There Will Be No End To It": Inventing Human Rights.  
In-class: Discuss the first part of the handout from Lynn Hunt, "'There Will Be No End Of It.' The Consequences of Declaring," in Inventing Human Rights. A History, pp. 146-160; go over key terms and persons, and review the ambivalent legacies of the French Revolution.

Homework for Day 3: finish reading the handout from Lynn Hunt, "'There Will Be No End Of It.' The Consequences of Declaring," in Inventing Human Rights. A History, pp. 160-175, and answer the following question (*Homework notes will be checked in class):

Homework question for Day 3:
#1: Do you agree with Hunt's argument? Do you see any problems, limitations or alternative explanations for the rise of human rights in the 19th century? Explain and support.
 
Day 3: The Logic of Human Rights.
In-class: Discuss the, and the reading question from Lynn Hunt, "'There Will Be No End Of It.' The Consequences of Declaring," in Inventing Human Rights. A History, pp. 160-175. 

Homework for Day 4: Follow the links to the articles below and read them:
Article#1: The New York Review of Books Online, Helen Epstein, "Ebola in Liberia: An Epidemic of Rumors", December 18, 2014 Issue.

Article#2: The Economist Online, "Ebola's Legacy: After the Passing", January 3, 2015.

Prepare notes on the following questions, key terms and persons (*Homework notes will be checked in class):

Homework questions for Day 4:
#1: What does Helen Epstein argue was the cause of why this recent Ebola outbreak was so devastating?
#2: What according to the editors of The Economist will be the long term effects of this recent Ebola outbreak?

 




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