European Civilization, 1648-1945
Modern Europe from the end of the Thirty Years' War to the aftermath of World War II, taught by Yale's John Merriman across 24 lectures recorded in Fall 2008. The course covers the French Revolution and Napoleon alongside the experience of ordinary people during upheaval, treating the period through demographic change, political revolution, and culture rather than a march of great men. Weekly discussion sections, a midterm, a final, and a 6-8 page paper structure the work, and the syllabus pairs textbook chapters with Zola's Germinal, Orwell's Homage to Catalonia, and Christopher Browning's Ordinary Men. Full video lectures, transcripts, and reading lists are free through Open Yale Courses. You come away with a working sense of how nationalism, industrialization, and total war reshaped the continent.