AP European History
Syllabus
Course Purpose
The goals of the Advanced Placement Program in European History are to develop (1) an understanding of some of the principle themes of modern European history, (2) an ability to analyze historical evidence, and (3) an ability to express historical understanding in writing. Taking an AP course will give you the opportunity to sharpen your academic skills, allowing you to enter college with the confidence that you can succeed. In addition, a satisfactory score on the AP exam may give you academic credit that can give you a head start in college.
In addition to preparing for the AP Exam, this course will help students develop the following skills:
1) Time Management, organization and study skills
2) Critical reading of Primary and Secondary Sources
3) Constructing and evaluating historical interpretations
4) Essay writing and oral communications
5) Cause and effect relationships
6) Comparative Analysis
7) Making Historical Analogies
8) Mastering inductive and deductive reasoning
Scope
The class covers major themes in European history from the late medieval period to the present. The AP exam emphasizes the following themes:
1) Intellectual and Cultural History, 2) Political and Diplomatic History, and 3) Social and Economic History. These themes are developed throughout the class in a series of units. Each unit will cover major topics in European History. Because this class is taught in a block for a semester, the units are very condensed in number. There are nine units spread throughout the semester. Each unit will include not only reading from the textbook, but will also readings of additional primary and secondary sources. The students will develop their analytical and writing skills for each unit while examining art, maps, tables, graphs, and political cartoons. In addition, the students will complete Free Response Questions and Document Based Questions in each unit.
Textbook
Western Civilization, Jackson J. Spielvogel, Combined Sixth Edition; Thomson-Wadworth, 2006
Course Sequence
Unit 1: End of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance
Text: Chapters 12, pp. 313-345.
Primary source readings including: Aquinas, Dante, Petrarch, Pico, Castiglione, Machiavelli,
Topics covered: 1) Feudal Order 2) Manorialism and the Guild System 3) Scholasticism 4) Impact of the Plague 5) Economic Foundations of the Renaissance 5) Family in the Renaissance 7) Humanism (Italian and Northern) 8) Medieval to Renaissance Art 9) Politics of the Italian City States 10) Machiavelli and the End of the Renaissance
Assessment: Unit Test MC questions with FRQ; DBQ Rennaisance Education, or Responses to the Black Death
Unit 2: The Reformation
Text: Chapters 13, pp. 346-377
Primary source readings including: Erasmus, Luther, Calvin, Loyola, Council of Trent
Topics covered: 1) Brief history of Western Christian Church 2) Critics of the Renaissance Church 3) Luther 4) Calvinism 5) The Catholic Reformation 6) Baroque Art and Architecture
Assessment: Unit Test MC Questions with FRQ; DBQ Pilgrimage of Grace or Attitiudes to towards the poor 1450-1700, Festivals in Early Modern Europe
Unit 3: The Rise of the Nation State
Text: Chapters 14- 15 pp. 379-446
Primary source readings including: Columbus, Las Casas, Queen Elizabeth’s Armada Speech, James I, Bodin, Richelieu, Colbert, The Levellers, Hobbes, English Bill of Rights, Bousset
Topics covered: 1) European economic expansion 1450-1600 2) Age of Exploration 3) Columbian Exchange 4) Early Atlantic nation states: Spain, France, England 5) The Wars of Religion 6) English constitutionalism in the era of the Stuarts 7) Louis XIV: Model of Absolutism 8) The Dutch Golden Century 9) Rise of Prussia 10) Peter the Great’s Russia 11) Mercantilism 12) Colonial Rivalries and Wars of Empire
Assessment: Unit Test with MC Questions and FRQ; DBQ Dutch Republic Rise & Fall, Education of Women 15th-18th Centuries
Unit 4: Scientific and Industrial Revolution
Text: Chapters 16 & 20, pp. 448-471, 562-588
Primary source readings including: Malleus Malificarum, Copernicus, Galileo, Bacon, Descartes, “A Statistical View of European Rural Life, 1600-1800” in Discovering the Western Past, Report of the Sadler Committee
Topics covered: 1) Ancient & Medieval Science and Superstition 2) The Copernican Revolution 3) Promoters of the Scientific Revolution 4) Advances in Medicine 5) Science and Religion 6) Women and the Origins of Modern Science 7) Demographic change in the 18th century 8) Agricultural Revolution 9) Why the Industrial Revolution started in England 10) Social Impact of the Early Industrial Revolution
Assessment: Unit Test With MC Questions and FRQ; DBQ Women in Science, Manchester and Industrial Revolution
Unit 5: The Enlightenment and the French Revolution
Text: Chapters 17 & 19, pp. 473-500, 532-561
Primary source readings including: Locke, Buffon, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Diderot, Beccaria, Rousseau, Sieyes, Cahiers, Declaration of the Rights of Man,
Robespierre
Topics covered: 1) The Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment 2) The Philosophes 3) 18th Century Culture 4) Enlightened Absolutism 5) The Ancien Regime 6) Origins the French Revolution 6) Course of the French Revolution 7) Reign of Terror and the Thermidorian Reaction 8) Rise of Napoleon
9) Napoleonic Hegemony 10) Fall of Napoleon
Assessment: Unit Test with MC Questions and FRQ; DBQ Slavery during Elightenment and French Revolution, Reign of Terror, Literacy in Old Regime France
Unit 6: Romanticism and Nationalism
Text: Chapters 21-23, pp. 589-679
Primary Source Readings include: Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Charles Darwin, Otto von Bismarck, Jeremy Bentham, Adam Smith, Sigmund Freud
Topics covered: 1) Metternich 2) Romantic Art 3) Karl Marx and Marxism 4) French Social and Political Unrest, 1815-1852 5) Napoleon III 6) Continued rise of Anti-Semitism in Europe 7) Cavour, Garibaldi & Unification of Italy 8) Otto von Bismarck, Realpolitik, & German Unification 9) Socialism in England and France 10) Changes in Intellectual thought with Psychology and Science 11) Franco Prussian War/3rd French Republic 12) Feminism in England and France
Assessment: Unit Test with MC Questions and FRQ; DBQ German 1848 Unity, Education of Women, Gin Act, Women’s Status and Suffrage in the 19th Century
Unit 7: Imperialism and WWI
Text: Chapters 24-25, pp.681-748
Primary Source Readings include: George Bernard Shaw “The Drama in Hoxton”, Zimmerman Telegram, Terms of the Triple Alliance, Treaty of Versailles,
Topics covered: 1) Alliance System 2) Africa and European Imperialism 3) Russo-Japanese War 4) Rise and execution of Balkan Nationalism 5) Belle Epoque 6) Individual Goals and Aims of each country for WWI 7) Course and Sequence of Fighting 8) Versailles Peace Treaty 9) Russian front War Outcome
Assessment: Unit Test with MC Questions and FRQ; DBQ’s on WWI German Aircraft, Sudan Crisis
Unit 8: Russian Revolution and WWII
Text: Chapters 26-27, pp. 750-813
Primary Source Readings include: Lenin’s New Economic Policy(NEP), Lenin’s State and Revolution, Lenin’s 1922 Testament, Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact,
Topics Covered: 1) Agricultural and Industrial conditions in Russia 2) Russo-Japanese War and Revolution of 1905 3) Role of Intelligentsia 4) Events of Revolution of 1917 March-November 5) Vladimir Lenin and Role of Bolsheviks 6) Lenin’s policies including New Economic Policies(NEP) and succession of Stalin 7) Stalin as dictator & elimination of Trotsky 8) 1930’s Purges and 5 year plans 9) German Weimar Republic 10) World Wide depression 11) Holocaust 12) WWII outbreak, progress, and details 13) End of WWII 14) Aftermath of WWII/introduce Cold War
Assessment: Unit Test with MC Questions and FRQ; DBQ’s covering Pan-Slavism, Holocaust, Spanish Civil War
Unit 9: Cold War/European Union
Text: ch.28-29, pp.814-882
Primary Source Readings include: Churchill’s Iron Curtain Speech, Notes from USA to USSR on Berlin Wall, Maastricht Treaty, Proposed European Union Constitution
Topics Covered: 1) Military conflicts during cold war, 2) Origins/rise of European Common Market 3) Détente 4) Role of Charles DeGaulle in the 4th and 5th French Republics 5) De-Stalinization of Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc 6) Soviet Domination of Eastern Europe 7) Soviet Union reforms under Gorbechev 8) Collapse of Soviet Union and Eastern European communist states 9) Unification of Germany 10) Maastricht Treaty and the rise of the European Union 11) Modern European Feminist movement 12) Modern Environmental movements
Assessment: Unit Test with MC Questions and FRQ; DBQ’s covering the European Union post-WWII
