|
Essay Questions for Modern European History ( one hour)
1. Write an essay on liberalism in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, describing its origin, development, and the changes which have taken place in it during the past century.
2. After the Congress of Vienna no general war was fought until 1914, after Versailles a
new world war broke out 20 years later, Did this reveal the greater competence of those
who gathered at Vienna or had the triumph of nationalism and the national states in the
19th century made the task of those at Versailles far greater than that faced at Vienna?
3.Students of political thought insist that there is a great deal of difference between divine
right kings of the 17th century, enlightened despots of the 18th century, and dictators of the
20th century. Discuss what seems to you not only the differences but the similarities.
4.In the 17th and 18th centuries, there was not an apparent gap between the arts and the
sciences. The 17th and 18th century “literary” intellectuals, for example, show the direct
impact of scientific developments. Discuss this phenomenon, showing how it influenced
ideas about political and social institutions.
5.The idea of the contract binding lord and vassal, governor and governed, is one of the
most potent in western political theory. Show how it emerged and developed to about
1789.
6.Books have frequently had a significant effect on the period in which there were
published or on a subsequent period. Choose three (3) of the following, outline their
central thesis, and comment fully on their impact at homer and abroad at the time of
publication and later.
John Locke
|
Second Treatise on Civil Government
|
Jean Jacques Rousseau
|
Social Contract
|
Montesquieu
|
The Spirit of the Laws
|
Adam Smith
|
Wealth of Nations
|
Karl Marx & Frederick Engels
|
Communist Manifesto
|
Leo Tolstoy
|
Anna Karenina
|
Charles Darwin
|
Origin of the Species
|
Oswald Spengler
|
Decline of the West
|
J. S. Mill
|
On Liberty
|
7. What similarities can you point to between the Napoleonic Wars, on the one hand, and
World War I or World War II, on the other (Choose one of the World Wars) in respect to
the following points: (1) the part played by Russia, (2) the importance of sea power, and
(3) the role of nationalism?
8. Four famous names in German history are Luther, Frederick the Great, Bismarck, and
Hitler. What were the problems facing these men and how did they solve them? Is it
correct to say that all emphasized the power of the state at the expense of individual
liberty?
9. Frenchmen refer to Louis XIV as “the Great.” Nobody could call any Hanoverian king of England by that title. Yet, in balance, England was wealthier, stronger, and greater than France in the 18th and 19th centuries. How does one explain this?
10. To what degree should one consider Locke and the French philosophes responsible for
liberal political and social thought in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries?
11. The acquisition of colonial empire became a major preoccupation of the Great Powers
beginning in the 16th century. What objects did they thereby seek to gain? How successful
were they? What results did they bring about? Discuss for either the period 1500-1815 or
1815-1940.
051403
|