Course Description

Instructor: Michael McDavid, BA, MA European History, MA Library Science
Modern European history is inseparable from the history of France. Since the Middle Ages, France has played an outsized role in the cultural, religious, military and political life of the western world. In this course, we will survey the broad currents of life in France from the Enlightenment and French Revolution at the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of war in 1914. Some of the topics to be covered include the Napoleonic period, the Bourbon restoration, the Revolutions of 1830 and 1848, Napoleon III and the Second Empire, the Third Republic and runup to the first world war.