Course info

This module covers the period 1914-1933, one of the most dramatic, intriguing, and troubled eras in modern European history.  Opening with an account of the First World War, students will examine in detail the great European crisis that began in 1914.  This included not only the physical destruction wrought by the war itself, but also the economic depression that followed the war, the wave of political instability that accompanied the Russian Revolution, and the long-term consequences of the much-maligned peace settlement of 1919.  We will then investigate how each of Europe’s great powers dealt with these difficulties.  Students will be asked to consider why liberal democracy managed to survive these challenging times in countries like Britain and France while Russia, Italy, and eventually Germany all succumbed to the new forms of totalitarianism represented by Bolshevism, Fascism, and National Socialism.  They will also gain an understanding of why the international system, set up after the war and underpinned by the League of Nations, ultimately fell apart.  This failure cleared the way for a much deadlier world war just a few years later, a topic to be covered by this course’s joint module, Appeasement and War.