Atlantic Communities II

In this second course of the Atlantic Communities sequence, the histories, societies and cultures of Europe and North America, along with those of Western Africa and Latin America, continue to fuse, but the perspectives are extended toward broader global horizons. Students begin with the Industrial Revolution and end their study at the end of the Second World War. The transformations of the modern age across the Atlantic region, the development of liberalism as well as European and U.S. nation-building—including the tragedy of America’s Civil War—are important focal points. The course continues with World War I and the Russian Revolution. This is followed by an examination of the economic, political, and cultural reactions to the Great War that contributed to the global economic depression of the 1930s, the rise of totalitarianism, and World War II.