Syllabus
* A student is required to read at least 6 items, equally distributed into three historical periods (2 items from each period).
LITERATURE
The Middle Ages (the 5th - 15th centuries)
Armstrong, K., A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. New York: Ballantine Books, 1994.
Bloch, M., Feudal Society 1-2. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961.
Le Goff, J., The Birth of Europe. Boston: Blackwell, 2005.
Le Roy Ladurie, E., Montaillou. Cathars and Catholics in a French Village 1294-1324. London: Penguin, 1980.
Riley-Smith, J., The Crusades: A Short History. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1987.
Aston, M., The Fifteenth Century: The Prospect of Europe. London: Thames and Hudson, 1969.
Pirenne, H., Medieval Cities: Their Origins and the Revival of Trade. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974.
Nicholas, D., The Later Medieval City: 1300-1500. London: Longman, 1997.
Peter Spufford, Power and Profit. The Merchant in Medieval Europe. New York-London: Thames and Hudson, 2002.
Dyer, Ch., Standards of living in the later Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
The Early Modern Period (the 16th - 18th centuries)
Kamen, H., Early Modern European Society. London: Routledge, 2000.
Braudel, F., Afterthoughts on Material Civilization and Capitalism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977.
Burke, P., Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe. London: Temple Smith, 1978.
McGrath, A. E., The Intellectual Origins of the European Reformation.
Oxford: Blackwell, 2004.
Elias, N., The Civilizing Process. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000.
Fischer, D. H., The Great Wave: Price Revolution and Rhythm of History. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Thomas, K., Religion and the Decline of Magic. London: Penguin, 2003.
Edelstein, D., The Enlightenment: a genealogy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010.
Burleigh, M., Earthly Powers: The Clash of Religion and Politics in Europe, from the French Revolution to the Great War. New York: Harper Collins, 2005.
Rémond, R., Religion and Society in Modern Europe. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999.
The Modern Period (the 19th - 20th centuries)
Hobsbawm, E. J., The Age of Revolution: 1789-1848. New York: Mentor, 1962.
Hobsbawm, E. J., Nations and Nationalism since 1870: Programme, Myth, Reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Miroslav Hroch, Social Preconditions of National Revival in Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
Cohen, G. B., The politics of ethnic survival: Germans in Prague, 1861-1914. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981.
Taylor, A. J. P., The Habsburg Monarchy 1809-1918: a history of the Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976.
Stearns, P. N., The Industrial Revolution in World History. Boulder: Westview Press, 1993.
Paxton, R. O., The Anatomy of Fascism. New York: Vintage Press, 2005.
Geyer, M., Fitzpatrick, S. (eds.), Beyond totalitarianism: Stalinism and Nazism compared. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Livi-Bacci, M., The Population of Europe: a history. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999.
Iggers, G. G., Historiography in the Twentieth Century: From the Scientific Objectivity to the Postmodern Challenge. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2005.
OPTIONAL TOPICS
(students select three topics from the following list for oral presentation)
THE MIDDLE AGES
Christianity, Judaism and Islam
Crusades of the 11th - 15th centuries
Everyday life in the medieval town
Long-distance trade in the Middle Ages
Principles of the feudal and estate systém
Symptoms of the so-called “crisis of the Middle Ages“
Transformation of the society in the Latin West during the 12th and 13th centuries
Travelling forms in the Middle Ages and in the early modern period
Typology of medieval towns
EARLY MODERN PERIOD
Main streams of the European Reformation
People on the fringes of society
Power, social and confessional transformations of Europe during the Thirty-Years´ War
Price Revolution
Reception of Antiquity in the Renaissance
Relation transformation between state and ecclesiastical power in European history
Relation transformation between elite and popular culture in European history
Renaissance attitude to the world
The “civilizing process“ (in connection with Norbert Elias´s theses)
MODERN PERIOD
Aftermath of World War II
Age of Enlightenment
Constitutional development and concepts of the 19th century Habsburg monarchy
Fascism and Nazism
Formation of modern European nations
History of modern historiography: main schools of historiography in the 20th century
Industrial Revolution
Prague Spring 1968
Revolutionary cycles of the long 19th century
Secularization from the French Revolution till the early 20th century: term definition, social and political connections, response of the churches
Transformations of Central and Eastern Europe in 1989
Treaty of Versailles, the origin and political system of inter-war Czechoslovakia
Annotation
Attention in this obligatory and comprehensive exam is paid to the ability to understand technical terms and history of the historiography, to cover main issues of the given topic and to put historical facts into broader time and space context. The students are required not only to demonstrate general knowledge of historical facts covered by the literature but also to be aware of the author and his methods and to differ information taken from the sources from its interpretation based on the methodical and theoretical historical work.
Organization: Students are required to read at least 6 books, equally distributed into three historical periods (i.e. 2 books from each period). During the first part of the exam, the students are asked about the chosen literature list. For the second part of the exam, the students choose three topics selected from the assigned thematic areas (see below) and prepare 5 minutes oral presentation for each of them. Examining commission then selects only one of these three to be presented. It is highly recommended to consult the choice of literature to particular topics with one of the guarantors of this exam.