Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | 18th-Century Competition (Lecture 10)
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Lecture 10: This lecture, which covers the period 1740–1795, explores how the paradoxes of the Age of Enlightenment affected international relations. Did new ideas produce a more rational and harmonious diplomatic order, as well as increased respect for human rights? On the one hand, thinkers of the Enlightenment crafted plans for a permanent international peace based on reason, tolerance, and international law, while at the same time, military and diplomatic competition achieved a new level of cut-throat intensity and cynicism. This was most evident in the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748), with Frederick “the Great” of Prussia attacking the Austria of Maria Theresa without provocation. This conflict was followed by a diplomatic revolution engineered by Maria Theresa and her ministers, the global Seven Years’ War (1756–1763), and the brutal carving up of an independent country, the partitions of Poland-Lithuania by Russia, Prussia, and Austria. Ironically, precisely this period of rivalry also enshrined new patterns of diplomatic practice.
Essential Reading:
M. S. Anderson, The Rise of Modern Diplomacy 1450–1919, pp. 41–102 and 163–74.
Supplementary Reading:
Gerhard Ritter, Frederick the Great.
Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | Foundations of Diplomacy (Lecture 1)
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War, Peace, and Power: Diplomatic History of Europe, 1500–2000
36 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture
Taught by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius
University of Tennessee
Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania
For much of the past five centuries, the history of the European continent has been a history of chaos, its civilization thrown into turmoil by ferocious wars or bitter religious conflicts—sometimes in combination—that have made and remade borders, created and eliminated entire nations, and left a legacy that is still influencing our world. Is there an explanation for this chaos that goes beyond the obvious: political ambition, religious intolerance, the pursuit of state power, or the fear of another state's aspirations? Can we discover a hidden logic that could possibly explain the Thirty Years' War, the Napoleonic Wars, two World Wars, and other examples of national bloodletting? Is it possible to formulate a meaningful rationale against which to order a history as tumultuous as Europe's, gaining insights that enrich our understanding of Europe's past and future, and perhaps even of ours as well?
In War, Peace, and Power: Diplomatic History of Europe, 1500–2000, Professor Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius answers these questions and more as he offers everyone interested in the "why" of history a remarkable look into the evolution of the European continent and the modern state system. In 36 provocative lectures, he allows us to peer through the revealing lens of statecraft to show us its impact on war, peace, and power and how that impact may well be felt in the future—an approach that historians have been using for thousands of years.
Lecture 1: This first lecture lays the essential groundwork for our exploration of European diplomatic history by introducing key concepts and debates in international history. We seek first of all definitions for important terms of the debate, such as “power,” “reason of state,” and the “balance of power.” Next, important debates are presented that will later recur in historically specific situations: primacy of foreign policy versus primacy of domestic policy, Realism versus Idealism as competing schools of thinking about diplomacy, and the question of who or what (leaders, elites, public opinion, ideologies, or other imperatives) steers states in the foreign policy choices they inevitably must make.
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Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | Europe in 1500 - Ancient & New Monarchies (Lecture 2)
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Lecture 2: With this lecture, we set the historical stage of early modern Europe in 1500. Europeans were on the move, encountering a wider world. These encounters took the form of trade and diplomacy, clashes with the brilliant and expanding Ottoman Empire in the south and east, and voyages of exploration to the distant Americas. In the political realm, change came in the form of “New Monarchies” establishing more efficient centralized kingdoms in France, Spain, and England and challenging older authority, especially in the form of the venerable, centuries-old Holy Roman Empire, with its claims to universal rule. We also chart the changing fortunes of important states in the east: Hungary, Poland-Lithuania, and far-off Muscovy. We outline the embryonic state of diplomacy evolving between these competing states, blending older traditions with innovations.
Essential Reading:
M. S. Anderson, The Rise of Modern Diplomacy, pp. 1–40.
Supplementary Reading:
Jonathan Wright, The Ambassadors: From Ancient Greece to Renaissance Europe, The Men Who Introduced the World to Itself.
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Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | Renaissance Statecraft in Italy (Lecture 3)
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Lecture 3: The sparkling city-states of Renaissance Italy saw not only a rebirth of culture and the arts but also pioneered patterns of modern diplomacy that were of lasting significance down to our times, including representation by resident ambassadors. The complicated rivalries between Milan, Venice, Florence, the Papal States, and Naples produced a key example of the balance of power until the disaster of 1494, when invasions by other outside powers battered the Italian system. The controversial political teachings of diplomat Niccolò Machiavelli sought to restore what had been lost, and in the process paradoxically broke with earlier doctrines of international politics and morality.
Essential Reading:
Machiavelli, The Prince.
Supplementary Reading:
Garrett Mattingly, Renaissance Diplomacy.
Maurizio Viroli, Niccolò’s Smile: A Biography of Machiavelli.
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Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | Religion and Empire (Lecture 4)
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Lecture 4: This lecture examines the period of 1500–1618, and the battle to rule the European continent that started to shape the modern European state system and its diplomacy. Key features of this contest were the intense rivalry between the Habsburg dynasty of Austria and Spain and the Valois royal family of France, as well as the challenge of the Protestant Reformation. We examine the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and his bid for universal empire under the Habsburgs, which was ultimately frustrated by converging factors, internal and external. King Philip II of Spain renewed the bid for supremacy, but likewise failed. The French kingdom itself also underwent a crisis and then a remarkable renewal, setting itself on a new path, with the talented Cardinal Richelieu as chief minister and diplomatic architect of shocking alliances.
Essential Reading:
Ludwig Dehio, The Precarious Balance: Four Centuries of the European Power Struggle, pp. 19–42.
Supplementary Reading:
M. S. Anderson, The Rise of Modern Diplomacy 1450–1919, pp. 149–54.
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Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | The Thirty Years’ War (Lecture 5)
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Lecture 5: The trauma of the Thirty Years’ War from 1618 to 1648 was profound. Intertwining explosive elements of religion and politics, the conflict (touched off by a diplomatic incident in Bohemia) raged for a generation across the center of Europe, devastating and depopulating many German lands. When it seemed that the Holy Roman Emperor might establish durable power, the war was internationalized and drew in even more major European powers, with intervention by Denmark, Sweden, and France. Even as the war raged, ongoing diplomatic negotiations changed its character, and political imperatives soon displaced original religious loyalties. The result of this devastation was ultimately exhaustion, which would produce an epochal change in how international politics was understood and practiced.
Essential Reading:
Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, pp. 31–72
Supplementary Reading:
Stephen J. Lee, The Thirty Years War.
Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | The Peace of Westphalia, 1648 - A New Era (Lecture 6)
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Lecture 6: The pivotal 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, closing the ordeal of the Thirty Years’ War, is the first of the great diplomatic peace conferences of modern times, negotiated in two cities in western Germany. One of its results was the creation of the European system of sovereign states asserting their independent status, overthrowing earlier ideals and claims of universal authority. A practical outcome of the new realities was also the rise of France as a superpower, displacing Spain’s preeminent status in Europe by the 1659 Peace of the Pyrenees. In the realm of ideas, important new concepts of international law set out to codify the new power politics, establishing a legacy that lasts down to our own times.
Essential Reading:
Philip Bobbitt, The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of History, pp. 502–19.
Supplementary Reading:
Treaty of Westphalia online at www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/westphal.htm.
Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | French Superpower (Lecture 7)
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Lecture 7: Displacing earlier Spanish primacy, the kingdom of France now took on the role of the strongest European power, in turn worrying neighboring kingdoms, who seized on coalition diplomacy to contain French power. This lecture covers the period from 1648 to the death of the preeminent figure of the age, “the Sun King,” Louis XIV, in 1715. We examine the vast claims of absolutism as an ideology of royal power in the Baroque age. We consider the skilled diplomatic maneuverings of the successor to Cardinal Richelieu, Cardinal Mazarin and survey the endless wars of Louis XIV in search of glory for himself and his realms. Finally, we study how coalitions of powers, led by Britain, sought to hem in France in order to assert a European balance of power, ratified in the important 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, the second of the great peace conferences of the age.
Essential Reading:
Ludwig Dehio, The Precarious Balance: Four Centuries of the European Power Struggle, pp. 65–90.
Supplementary Reading:
M. S. Anderson, The Rise of Modern Diplomacy 1450–1919, pp. 154–63.
Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | The Great Powers (Lecture 8)
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Lecture 8: In this lecture, spanning 1648 to 1740, we survey the development and diplomatic interaction of the other Great Powers of the day, having examined French superpower in the previous lecture. First we focus on the evolving profession of the diplomat. Next we consider in turn the Dutch Republic and its Golden Age of commerce; Great Britain and its rise to naval supremacy; Austria and the new power base the resilient Habsburgs constructed for themselves in Europe’s southeast (in battle against the Ottoman Empire); the spirited smaller German kingdom of Prussia, a military prodigy; and finally the decline of once-mighty Spain. In the process, we also trace the distinctive styles and approaches of each of these states to the dangerous international scene of the time.
Essential Reading:
Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, pp. 73–139.
Supplementary Reading:
M. S. Anderson, The Rise of Modern Diplomacy 1450-1919, pp. 41–102 and 163–174.
Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | Northern Earthquake (Lecture 9)
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Lecture 9: In the period from 1648 to the 1770s, tremendous seismic political convulsions took place in northern and eastern Europe, bringing new dynamic players into the European state system as new factors in diplomatic calculation. We examine the “Baltic Question”: Which power or powers would dominate the commercially important Baltic Sea? Our lecture then surveys the rise and fall of Sweden as a great empire, led by the “Lion of the North,” Gustavus Adolphus, and then Charles XII. We trace the decline of the once mighty Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania and the linked phenomenon of the rise of Russia with an expansive imperial identity from the Great Northern War (1700–1721) under Tsar Peter “the Great” and later the formidable Empress Catherine “the Great”.
Essential Reading:
Ludwig Dehio, The Precarious Balance: Four Centuries of the European Power Struggle, pp. 93–131.
Supplementary Reading:
H. M. Scott, The Emergence of the Eastern Powers, 1756–1775.
Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | Revolutions (Lecture 11)
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Lecture 11: We turn next to examine a crucial period of upheaval: the era of the American and French Revolutions. Historians describe this period as pivotal in the transformation of European politics. New ideological energies of nationalism and mass politics were unleashed on Europe. The French Revolution of 1789, announcing liberty, fraternity, and equality, also touched off a quarter-century of war in Europe, which redrew the diplomatic map and reordered politics. We observe the dramatic collision of traditional regimes with dynamic revolutionary forces and see how the ultimate diplomatic survivor, French Foreign Minister Talleyrand, managed to profit by the chaos as an insincere servant of successive regimes.
Essential Reading:
Paul Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics 1763–1848, pp. 1–230.
Supplementary Reading:
Michael Hochedlinger, “Who’s Afraid of the French Revolution?: Austrian Foreign Policy and the European Crisis 1787–1797,” German History, Vol. 21, No. 3 (2003), pp. 293–318.
Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | Napoleon’s Glory and Defeat (Lecture 12)
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Lecture 12: Napoleon Bonaparte made himself the master of revolutionary France, and his military genius allowed him to reorder the European map and to abolish the ancient Holy Roman Empire. A series of coalitions of other European powers sought to contain his bid for hegemony in the form of a Grand Empire. This lecture follows the emperor Napoleon’s remarkable career to his ultimate defeat in 1815. Bestriding the European mainland, Napoleon established both his Grand Empire and a system of allied states linked in the Continental System. At the same time, guerrilla war in Spain portended trouble for Napoleon’s new order. His invasion of Russia in 1812 turned to disaster, and in the wake of his retreat from the snowy wastes, a new coalition, the Grand Alliance, finally coalesced to defeat him and force him into exile. In a brief but dramatic return, Napoleon rallied French forces for a last stand at Waterloo.
Essential Reading:
Ludwig Dehio, The Precarious Balance: Four Centuries of European Power Struggle, pp. 132–80.
Supplementary Reading:
Paul Johnson, Napoleon.
Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | The Congress of Vienna (Lecture 13)
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Lecture 13: As our course turns to examine the period of Europe’s classical balance of power (1815–1914), we begin by exploring the drama and significance of the pivotal international Congress of Vienna in 1815, presided over by the brilliant Prince von Metternich of Austria (called “The Coachman of Europe” for his diplomatic ability). Amid balls and festivities, the Congress gathered the powers that had triumphed over Napoleon (joined by the restored French kingdom) to construct an order founded on conservative solidarity and the values of legitimacy and opposition to revolution; this so-called Concert of Europe would enjoy remarkable success over the next decades. In fact, general war in Europe was avoided for nearly a century after its establishment. At the same time, subtle diplomacy by the French diplomat Talleyrand achieved unexpected gains for defeated France.
Essential Reading:
Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp. 78–102.
Supplementary Reading:
Harold Nicolson, The Congress of Vienna: A Study in Allied Unity, 1812–1822.
Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | The Concert of Europe System (Lecture 14)
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Lecture 14: This lecture focuses on the operation of the Concert of Europe system constructed at the Congress of Vienna. It covers the years from 1815 to 1848 and details the mystical, religious notion of a Holy Alliance as a conservative bloc within the Concert of Europe, which occasioned anxieties for Great Britain. We devote special attention to the periodic international congresses that convened under the auspices of the Concert of Europe system and their determined efforts to stamp out what they considered the dark and dangerous forces of nationalism and liberalism, practicing intervention wherever these were to be found. The repressive system was strained in the revolts of 1830—a prelude to greater revolutions to come.
Essential Reading:
René Albrecht-Carrié, A Diplomatic History of Europe Since the Congress of Vienna, pp. 1–29.
Supplementary Reading:
F. H. Hinsley, “The Concert of Europe,” in Diplomacy in Modern European History, Laurence W. Martin, ed., pp. 43–57.
Paul Schroeder, “Did the Vienna Settlement Rest on a Balance of Power?” in American Historical Review, 97 (June 1992), pp. 683–706.
Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | Eastern and Western Questions (Lecture 15)
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Lecture 15: This lecture examines the fascinating problems posed by events and dynamics seemingly at the margins of the European arena from 1815 to 1848. As a result, we observe the expansion of the European state system. The famous Eastern Question (a precursor to the recent turmoil in the Middle East and the Balkans) concerned the ultimate fate of a once-mighty Ottoman Empire now apparently in decline and disintegration, receding slowly in the Balkans and provoking a crisis year in 1840. To the west, across the Atlantic, the United States opposed an extension of the balance of power system to the western hemisphere through the Monroe Doctrine. Our lecture concludes by examining the beginnings of a growing wave of European Imperialism overseas.
Essential Reading:
René Albrecht-Carrié, A Diplomatic History of Europe Since the Congress of Vienna, pp. 29–64.
Supplementary Reading:
A. L. Macfie, The Eastern Question 1774–1923, 2nd ed.
Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | The Challenge of 1848 and Napoleon III (Lecture 16)
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Lecture 16: This lecture covers the period from 1848 to 1870 and examines two surprises in the realm of diplomacy: extensive revolutions in 1848 that did not produce war (as had been the case after the French Revolution), and a new Napoleon who rose to power. Initially, a profound challenge to the conservative order established at the Congress of Vienna came with the series of revolutions that broke out across the continent in 1848—the “Springtime of Nations.” A testament to the growing importance of Nationalism and liberal ideas, the revolutions were nonetheless put down and general war avoided. In the wake of the revolution, the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte came to power in France as the emperor Napoleon III. This enigmatic figure championed Nationalism and Liberalism and hatched diplomatic conspiracies to redraw the European map, yet those same intrigues led to his undoing in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.
Essential Reading:
A. J. P. Taylor, The Struggle for the Mastery of Europe, 1848–1918, pp. 1–45.
Supplementary Reading:
Matthias Schulz, “A Balancing Act: Domestic Pressures and International Systemic Constraints in the Foreign Policies of the Great Powers, 1848–1851,” German History, 21.3 (2003), pp. 319–46.
Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | Britain’s Empire (Lecture 17)
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Lecture 17: “Britannia rules the waves,” a patriotic song proclaimed. This lecture examines the trajectory of the British Empire over the course of the 19th century. During this period, Britain represented the largest empire the world has ever seen, extending to a quarter of the landmass of the globe. We examine the empire’s industrial and economic might as the “workshop of the world,” its liberal advocacy of international free trade and the abolition of slavery, and its fateful dominion over India. During the reign of Queen Victoria, noted statesmen including Palmerston, Gladstone, and Disraeli coped with imperial issues guided by distinctive visions of British identity and interests. Nonetheless, by the end of the century, Britain was challenged by relative decline.
Essential Reading:
Simon C. Smith, British Imperialism 1750–1970.
Supplementary Reading:
John Gallagher and Ronald Robinson, “The Imperialism of Free Trade.” The Economic History Review, 6.1 (1953), pp. 1–15.
Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | The Crimean War (Lecture 18)
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Lecture 18: The Crimean War of 1853–1856 has been called an unnecessary war, but it reflected deeper tensions and diplomatic problems in the European order. Arising out of the long-standing Eastern Question of the future of the Ottoman lands, this crisis pitted the Russian Empire against two other Great Powers in the West—Great Britain and France—which invaded Russia through the Black Sea. A crucial outcome of the war, which ended in a Russian defeat, was the battering of the Concert of Europe and its vision of conservative solidarity now that Great Powers had come to blows. While Russia withdrew to reform and reorganize, the earlier structures were weakened, setting the stage for dramatic changes.
Essential Reading:
A. J. P. Taylor, The Struggle for the Mastery of Europe, 1848–1918, pp. 46–98.
Supplementary Reading:
J. C. Hurewitz, “Ottoman Diplomacy and the European State System.” Middle East Journal 15 (1961), pp. 141–52.
Alexis Troubetzkoy, A Brief History of the Crimean War.
Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | Italian Unification (Lecture 19)
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Lecture 19: When the unification of Italy as a nation-state was achieved from 1858 to 1861, it was the fulfillment of long-standing patriotic wishes dating back to a time when Italy had been dismissed as a “mere geographic expression.” The achievement of nationhood, however, also relied on changes in the international scene and assistance from a Great Power—Napoleon III’s France—skillfully engineered by Count Camillo di Cavour, the Prime Minister of Piedmont. The bloody modern battles of the war waged against Austrian forces in Italy also prompted another important event: the founding of the Red Cross to aid the wounded under a neutral international flag.
Essential Reading:
A. J. P. Taylor, The Struggle for the Mastery of Europe, 1848–1918, pp. 99–125.
Supplementary Reading:
Denis Mack Smith, Cavour: A Biography.
Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | German Unification (Lecture 20)
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Lecture 20: When Germany was unified as an empire around the hard core of the German kingdom of Prussia, this unification was called a “German Revolution,” upsetting all the political certainties of the age. A new power factor appeared at the center of the continent, but would it anchor peace or disrupt stability? From 1862 to 1871, the Prussian “Iron Chancellor” Otto von Bismarck (though not a nationalist himself) steered the process of national unification through a series of wars with Denmark, Austria, and France. In this lecture, we examine closely his fascinating character, elusive aims, and ruthless methods—in particular his trademark “politics of Realism,” or Realpolitik.
Essential Reading:
Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp. 103–36.
Supplementary Reading:
A. J. P. Taylor, Bismarck: The Man and the Statesman.
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Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | The Bismarckian System (Lecture 21)
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Lecture 21: After Bismarck had forged the German Empire, the new challenge that faced him was finding a way of reconciling the powerful new empire’s neighbors to the fact of the German Revolution and presenting Germany as a guarantor of stability. This lecture examines the period from 1871 to 1894, as we follow the development, functioning, and eventual breakdown of the Bismarckian system of diplomacy, which could not long outlast the firing of Bismarck himself in 1890. We consider the repeated crises weathered by the European state system in this period, the tangled webs of alliances woven by Bismarck, and the perilous trends strengthening at this time.
Essential Reading:
Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp. 137–67.
Supplementary Reading:
A. J. P. Taylor, Bismarck: The Man and the Statesman, pp. 123–274.
Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | High Imperialism (Lecture 22)
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Lecture 22: While a general war was avoided on the European continent in the later part of the 19th century, the European powers launched a scramble for empire from the 1870s that cruelly carved up entire continents, subjecting foreign populations to “gunboat diplomacy” and colonialist rule. By 1914, the European powers had divided up among themselves three-quarters of the world’s land. Colonial conferences sought to resolve conflicting claims at the expense of the subject populations. Expansion in central Asia, with Britain and Russia as rivals, was called “The Great Game.” This lecture examines the wave of High Imperialism from the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and the “Scramble for Africa” to the perilous moment in 1898 when France and Britain were on the brink of a colonial war.
Essential Reading:
René Albrecht-Carrié, A Diplomatic History of Europe Since the Congress of Vienna, pp. 186–94.
Supplementary Reading:
H. L. Wesseling, The European Colonial Empires 1815–1919.
Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | The Reconfigured World of 1900 (Lecture 23)
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Lecture 23: This lecture examines decisive changes in diplomatic patterns at the start of the 20th century, as new alignments emerged. We first consider how the colonial clash between France and Britain at Fashoda in Sudan was averted. Next, we trace how German naval expansion and colonial brinksmanship inadvertently produced ties between France, Russia, and Great Britain to resist German ambitions. We explore the reasons behind Germany’s zigzag diplomatic route into increasing isolation. Next, we examine telling trends of the period: the establishment of popular movements for peace at a time when Europe was arming on land and on the sea; Japan’s defeat of the Russian Empire in 1905, which stunned contemporaries and announced the advent of non-European powers; increased American presence in international venues; and a growing peril in the form of regional crises.
Essential Reading:
Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp. 168–95.
Supplementary Reading:
M. S. Anderson, The Rise of Modern Diplomacy 1450–1919, pp. 103–48 and 236–79.
Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | Balkan Instability (Lecture 24)
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Lecture 24: This lecture, covering the years from 1900 to 1913—the very eve of the First World War—returns to the long-standing Eastern Question concerning the future of the Ottoman territories now that the Turkish realm was seen by contemporaries as being in terminal decline. The Eastern Question now reached a critical stage. We observe the growing tension in southeastern Europe, fueled by the flaring up of local Balkan nationalisms, the Bosnian Crisis of 1908 (which seemed to take Europe to the brink of war), Great Power rivalries and colonial disputes, and then the sudden outbreak of the two Balkan Wars of 1912–1913.
Essential Reading:
Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp. 195–200.
Supplementary Reading:
Mark Mazower, The Balkans: A Short History.
Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | The Outbreak of World War I (Lecture 25)
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Lecture 25: This lecture examines the causes of the outbreak of World War I in the summer of 1914. This classic case of escalation is the object of one of the biggest debates in modern history, responsible for a voluminous amount of scholarship. We examine how it was that European diplomats and statesmen brought the continent to the brink of and then plunged it into an ever-widening war. We analyze in turn the main competing explanations for this route into catastrophe, weighing long-term and short-term causes, the role of intention versus accident, and the crucial question of contemporary expectations. Finally, we trace how scholarly debate has evolved and explore the current state of that debate.
Essential Reading:
Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp. 200–17.
Supplementary Reading:
James Joll, The Origins of the First World War, 2nd ed.
Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | World War I - Total War (Lecture 26)
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Lecture 26: World War I (1914–1918) is often called a “total war” because of the all-encompassing mobilization of mass armies, entire economies, domestic societies, and allies demanded by the stakes of the conflict. The changes produced by the experience of war, in which at least nine million soldiers died, were correspondingly deep on the level of international politics. Long-standing diplomatic patterns were overturned under the pressure of war, war aims changed and grew more radical as the conflict dragged on, four empires collapsed (the Austro-Hungarian, German, Ottoman, and Russian empires), and two new ideological actors began their ascent to superpower status: Woodrow Wilson’s United States and Lenin’s Soviet Russia.
Essential Reading:
Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp. 218–227.
Supplementary Reading:
Aviel Roshwald, Ethnic Nationalism and the Fall of Empires: Central Europe, Russia, and the Middle East, 1914–1923.
Hew Strachan, The First World War.
Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | The Paris Settlement (Lecture 27)
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Lecture 27: After four years of devastating war, the victors of World War I gathered in Paris in 1919 for a grand diplomatic conference to draft a comprehensive settlement and create a new international order replacing that of the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Many factors were involved: the strong personalities of the negotiators (Clemenceau of France, Lloyd George of Great Britain, and Wilson of the United States), their pursuit of national interest and common stability, as well as chaotic realities on the ground in remote parts of Europe. These all combined to shape a controversial peace settlement, including the Treaty of Versailles imposed on a defeated Germany and the plan for an international League of Nations to replace the balance of power with collective security.
Essential Reading:
Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp. 227–45.
Supplementary Reading:
Margaret MacMillan, Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World.
Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | Interwar Europe (Lecture 28)
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Lecture 28: This lecture, which covers the turbulent years from 1919 to 1929, first outlines the new diverse map of Europe and traces the great hopes vested in the League of Nations, its internal dynamics, efforts to protect minorities in the new Europe, and urgings for disarmament. Relations between France and Germany, however, remained tense; eastern Europe was in a state of turmoil as the new states of the region contended over borders, and the United States withdrew from European politics. The 1925 Treaties of Locarno seemed to offer a new beginning, pacifying wartime hatreds in Europe. A key figure of the period was the controversial German Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann, who sought a new international role for Germany before his untimely death.
Essential Reading:
Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp. 246–87.
Supplementary Reading:
Carole Fink, Defending the Rights of Others: The Great Powers, the Jews, and International Minority Protection, 1878–1938.
Jonathan Wright, Gustav Stresemann: Weimar’s Greatest Statesman.
League of Nations Photo Archive at Indiana University: www.indiana.edu/~league/
Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | Europe into Crisis (Lecture 29)
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Lecture 29: The promise of the interwar period rapidly ebbed, however, as the Great Depression of 1929 and the shift toward Authoritarianism and Fascism in European politics moved the continent toward another plunge into disaster. This lecture covers the darker period from 1929 to 1939 and tracks the rise to power of Mussolini in Fascist Italy, Hitler in Nazi Germany, and the calculations of Stalin in the Soviet Union. We observe Hitler’s aggressive racist ideology of domination and his diplomatic revolution, overthrowing the Treaty of Versailles and exploiting the appeasement policies of the Western democracies before launching World War II in 1939 after signing the Nazi-Soviet Pact—an unexpected and strange alliance.
Essential Reading:
Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp. 288–318.
Supplementary Reading:
Norman Rich, Hitler’s War Aims: Ideology, the Nazi State, and the Course of German Expansion, pp. 1–120.
Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | World War II (Lecture 30)
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Lecture 30: World War II (1939–1945) was a renewed and perfected “total war,” even more intense than World War I and ultimately taking a toll of some 50 million dead. This lecture examines the diplomatic bombshell that paved the way to war: the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 1939. We outline the scale of Hitler’s ambitions for hegemony, culminating at last in the invasion of his Soviet ally in 1941. We turn to discuss the complicated alliance coordination of the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union, including the key conferences in Tehran and Yalta, where the personalities of the wartime leaders Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin played crucial roles.
Essential Reading:
Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp. 332–422.
Supplementary Reading:
John Keegan, Winston Churchill.
Norman Rich, Hitler’s War Aims: Ideology, the Nazi State, and the Course of German Expansion, pp. 121–250.
Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | Aftermath and Peace Plans (Lecture 31)
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Lecture 31: This lecture devotes special attention to the immediate aftermath of World War II from 1945 to 1946. No final and comprehensive settlement was worked out as had been the case in Paris in 1919 after World War I, as the victorious alliance, which had already experienced earlier strains, began to drift apart. We trace the outlines of the founding of the United Nations as a successor to the failed League of Nations; the results of the Potsdam Conference held in defeated Germany by the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union; Stalin’s reimposition of harsh personal control; and growing tensions between the victorious powers.
Essential Reading:
Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp. 423–45.
Supplementary Reading:
Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, pp. 347–95.
Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | The Cold War Begins (Lecture 32)
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Lecture 32: Earlier tensions and disagreements between the Soviet Union and both the United States and Great Britain now turned into a long-term standoff called the Cold War. This lecture examines Europe in the key years of 1946–1949, as the split between former allies widened, and explores the distinctive crisis diplomacy of the Cold War. Issues included the future of Poland and divided Germany and the civil war in Greece. After the 1947 announcement of the Truman Doctrine, American involvement in Europe extended to the Marshall Plan for economic recovery, the massive and dramatic airlift of supplies in the Berlin Crisis of 1948–1949 and support for the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany formed out of the western zones of occupation.
Essential Reading:
Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp. 446–72.
Supplementary Reading:
Reynolds, David. “The Origins of the Cold War: The European Dimension, 1944–1951,” The Historical Journal.
Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | Blocs and Decolonization (Lecture 33)
The Great Courses
Lecture 33: This lecture covers two processes growing apace in the period from 1949 to 1956. On the one hand, Europe as a key arena of the Cold War stand-off was increasingly polarized into separate blocs to the East and West, configured into the military alliances of NATO and the Warsaw Pact. We discuss challenges to this division of Europe and important exceptions. On the other hand, European powers simultaneously underwent decolonization (a process that could be fast or slow, negotiated or contested), losing most of their once huge imperial holdings around the world, with a profound psychological impact on political self-understanding.
Essential Reading:
Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp. 473–567.
Supplementary Reading:
David Reynolds, “A ‘Special Relationship’? America, Britain and the International Order Since the Second World War,” International Affairs, 62.1 (Winter 1985–1986), pp. 1–20.
Marc Trachtenberg, ed., Between Empire and Alliance: America and Europe during the Cold War.
Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | The European Project (Lecture 34)
The Great Courses
Lecture 34: In response both to the changed status of Europe after a half century of destructive tensions and world wars, as well as its location as ground zero of the Cold War conflict or a future World War III, European political leaders sought to craft a new departure from the competitive politics of statehood inaugurated at the long-ago Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. This lecture surveys the European project of unity from 1957 to 1980 (later culminating in today’s European Union) in the midst of the perilous experience of the Cold War. We examine surprising French-German cooperation, the impact of the Cuban Missile Crisis, détente, German approaches to eastern Europe (Ostpolitik), and the unsuspected significance of the Helsinki Accords of 1975.
Essential Reading:
Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp. 568–761.
Supplementary Reading:
John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History.
Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | The Fall of the Wall (Lecture 35)
The Great Courses
Lecture 35: With unexpected rapidity, the Communist states of eastern Europe and the Soviet Union collapsed near the end of the century. This lecture, covering the years 1980–1991, discusses the deeper causes leading to this startling transformation. It introduces the new generation of leaders on both sides of the Cold War divide—British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, American President Ronald Reagan, and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev—and discusses the negotiations that followed a renewed stage of the Cold War. The dramatic internal consequences of a shifting international scene included the liberation of eastern European countries and German reunification, in spite of the anxieties that these sudden changes could produce.
Essential Reading:
Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp. 762–803.
Supplementary Reading:
Timothy Garton Ash, In Europe’s Name: Germany and the Divided Continent.
Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | Post–Cold War to the Present (Lecture 36)
The Great Courses
Lecture 36: This concluding lecture of our course covers the years from 1991 to the beginnings of the 21st century, including the expansion of NATO and the European Union, renewed violence in the Balkans, and Russia’s search for an international role. We end by considering key questions of tremendous import for the future of our world: What is the current trajectory of the European Union project and what challenges does it face? What dynamics now guide relations between Europe, the United States, and the world at large? Is Europe now entering a fundamentally new stage in its experience of statecraft, or do the historical dynamics of war, peace, and power still apply?
Essential Reading:
M. S. Anderson, The Rise of Modern Diplomacy 1450–1919, pp. 291–3.
Supplementary Reading:
Robert Kagan, Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order.
Diplomatic History of Europe 1500 - 2000 | Foundations of Diplomacy (Lecture 1)
1 year ago
183
War, Peace, and Power: Diplomatic History of Europe, 1500–2000
36 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture
Taught by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius
University of Tennessee
Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania
For much of the past five centuries, the history of the European continent has been a history of chaos, its civilization thrown into turmoil by ferocious wars or bitter religious conflicts—sometimes in combination—that have made and remade borders, created and eliminated entire nations, and left a legacy that is still influencing our world. Is there an explanation for this chaos that goes beyond the obvious: political ambition, religious intolerance, the pursuit of state power, or the fear of another state's aspirations? Can we discover a hidden logic that could possibly explain the Thirty Years' War, the Napoleonic Wars, two World Wars, and other examples of national bloodletting? Is it possible to formulate a meaningful rationale against which to order a history as tumultuous as Europe's, gaining insights that enrich our understanding of Europe's past and future, and perhaps even of ours as well?
In War, Peace, and Power: Diplomatic History of Europe, 1500–2000, Professor Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius answers these questions and more as he offers everyone interested in the "why" of history a remarkable look into the evolution of the European continent and the modern state system. In 36 provocative lectures, he allows us to peer through the revealing lens of statecraft to show us its impact on war, peace, and power and how that impact may well be felt in the future—an approach that historians have been using for thousands of years.
Lecture 1: This first lecture lays the essential groundwork for our exploration of European diplomatic history by introducing key concepts and debates in international history. We seek first of all definitions for important terms of the debate, such as “power,” “reason of state,” and the “balance of power.” Next, important debates are presented that will later recur in historically specific situations: primacy of foreign policy versus primacy of domestic policy, Realism versus Idealism as competing schools of thinking about diplomacy, and the question of who or what (leaders, elites, public opinion, ideologies, or other imperatives) steers states in the foreign policy choices they inevitably must make.
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