CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

The aim of the course is to introduce students to contemporary history, providing the fundamental elements and the key features of contemporary historical knowledge, especially social, ethical, political, economic and cultural transformations of the 20th century. The aim of the course also is to provide the fundamental methodological tools of the discipline, to develop students' critical spirit and their ability to expound fully and articulately what they have learned. By the end of the course, students will be able: to identify the main elements that differentiate historical knowledge of the period and contemporary issues from that offered by other social sciences; to distinguish between the main phases in the processes of contemporary globalisation and identify their differences from those of the previous historical eras; to know the characterising features of liberalism, nationalism, capitalism, democracy, communism, fascism and nazism, in a vision not of eurocentricity but of a global world;  to have basic knowledge of the world wars, the major economic crises, the international migrations, the revolutions, the process called the "Cold War," and the the major genocides of the twentieth century, particularly the Shoah; to understand the general impact of colonialism, imperialism and the decolonisation processes; to know the main aspects of mass society in the 20th and 21th centuries i.e. industrialisation, urbanisation, consumerism, mass culture, communication networks etc.; to have learned key elements for understanding the phenomena of fundamentalism, racism, populism and europeanism; to understand the reasons behind the crisis of the nation state and the current processes of globalisation to the age of "disorder" in the present world.

The course will be conducted through a series of face-to-face lectures, in which historiographical debates on various issues will be focused on, historical sources will be analyzed, and materials such as anthologies of historiographical texts and films will be used. The method used to construct the course and convey its contents to students consists first of all of incorporating into the basic structure consisting of the textbook, in-depth critical reading of monographs and various historiographical sources. Students will have to learn as much to connect the two levels, the general and the monographic, as to go deep inside the monographs, to grasp the specificity of historical interpretations on certain themes and contexts.

The course will open with some preparatory lectures on the meaning and role of Contemporary History and it aims to provide the basic knowledge and the necessary elements for understanding the social, economic, political and cultural processes of the 20th century. Some nodes pertaining to European and world history will then be examined, with attention to continuities and discontinuities in historiographical debate. The course will address some of the major events in 20th-century history, with particular attention to the following pivotal moments:

1. Prodromes and historical characters of the twentieth century

2. Liberalism, capitalism and democracy

3. Total war: from the "Great War" to World War II to genocides

4. Social-communist Revolutions

5. Totalitarianisms: fascism, nazism, stalinism

6. From the processes of colonialism-nationalism-imperialism to decolonization

7. From “Golden Age” to "landslide": economic miracle, mass society and financial crisis

8. From "Cold War" to the age of "disorder" (and technological revolution)

9. Globalization: a long-term historical phenomenon

10. The major issues in the history of republican Italy

Bibliography : (1 textbook + 1 monography of your choise)

- Tommaso Detti, Giovanni Gozzini. Storia contemporanea. Il Novecento, Milano, Bruno Mondadori 2002 (or later editions) ;

- Paolo Viola, Il Novecento, Torino, Einaudi 2000 (or l.e.) ;

- Giuliano Procacci, Storia del XX secolo, Milano, B. Mondadori 2000 (or l.e.) .

- Eric Hobsbawm, Il secolo breve, Milano, Rizzoli 1997 (or l.e.) ;

- Tony Judt, Postwar, Roma-Bari, Laterza 2005 (or l.e.) ;

- Gabriele Turi, Il nostro mondo, Roma-Bari, Laterza 2006 (or l.e.) ;

- T. Detti, G. Gozzini, L'età del disordine, Roma-Bari, Laterza 2018 (or l.e.) ;

- Marcello Flores, Il secolo-mondo, Bologna, Il Mulino 2002 (or l.e.) ;

- Emilio Gentile, Fascismo, Roma-Bari, Laterza 2002 (or l.e.) ;

- Federico Romero, Storia della guerra fredda, Torino, Einaudi 2009 (or l.e.) ;

- Raymond F. Betts, La decolonizzazione, Bologna, Il Mulino 2004 (or l.e.) ;

- G.Gozzini, G. Scirè, Il mondo globale come problema storico, Bologna, Archetipo 2007 (or l.e.) ;

- Silvio Lanaro, Storia dell'Italia repubblicana. Venezia, Marsilio 1992 (or l.e.) ;

- Paul Ginsborg, Storia d'Italia dal dopoguerra a oggi, Torino, Einaudi 1998  (or l.e.) ;

- Guido Crainz, Storia del miracolo italiano, Roma Donzelli 2003 (or l.e.) ;

- G. Crainz, Il paese mancato, Roma, Donzelli 2003 (or l.e.) ;

- Adriano Prosperi, Un tempo senza storia. La distruzione del passato, Torino, Einaudi 2021 ;

- Piero Ignazi, I partiti in Italia dal 1945 al 2018, Bologna, Il Mulino 2018 (or l.e.) .

- Pietro Scoppola, La repubblica dei partiti, Bologna, Il Mulino 1997 (or l.e.).

Students will be examined by means of an oral exam on the topics covered in class, on the reading list, on the analysis of documents, anthologies and historiographical sources provided in class, and on volumes selected from the bibliography. The aim is to assess students’ achievement of the expected learning outcomes. There is the possibility of "in itinere" written test. Students will be required to demonstrate suitable historical understanding of the topics on the syllabus, to be able to communicate information, ideas, problems and solutions with regard to the main issues addressed in the course. Rather than focusing on general (notional) concepts, the exam will specifically assess the ability to think and reason in a historical way. Students will be asked at least three questions.

Evaluation grid for Contemporary History exams :

- The student's possession of good critical and in-depth skills, the ability to link together the main themes addressed in the course, the use of appropriate language with respect to the specificity of the discipline will result, during the examination, in evaluations of excellence (30/30 with high honors).

- The student's possession of mnemonic knowledge of the content, relative critical and linking skills among the topics covered, and use of appropriate language will result in fair evaluations (29-25).

- The student's attainment of minimal knowledge on the topics covered (although there are some formative gaps), use of inappropriate language will result in sufficient evaluations (24-18).

- The student's difficulty in orientation on the topics covered in the examination texts, formative gaps, use of inappropriate language will result in negative evaluations (failed exam).

Why does the Great War appear profoundly different from the wars that had preceded it?

What are the differences between the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917 and Mao Tse Tung's revolution in China?

What are the phases of the fascist regime in Italy from 1922 to 1945 and how do they differ from each other?

What were the economic, political and social conditions that fostered Hitler's rise to power with Nazism in 1933?

What is the difference between imperialism and colonialism at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries?

What were the events, internal and external, that led to the collapse of Soviet communism in 1989?

What repercussions, globally, did the Wall Street stock market crash in 1929 have?

What is economic Keynesianism and what does the word American New Deal mean?

What is the difference between the "new woman" phenomenon of the 19th century and the feminist emancipation of the 20th century?

What do the terms "Cold War" and "bipolar world" mean?

What are the most significant stages and what is the importance of the decolonization process in the framework of world history in the second half of the 20th century?

What is the Italian "miracle" of the 1950s-60s and what are its defining elements?

What are the constituent elements of the so-called age of "disorder" after 1973?

What are the differences and similarities between the globalization of the 19th and 20th centuries?

What are the characters of the "new wars" of the third millennium?