a map
a chronology

two essays

10 points
20 points

35 points each

You will be presented with two pairs of essays. From each pair, you will select one essay to write.

The essay is a writing exercise. Accordingly, you should compose your answer in narrative format. Not bullets. Not an outline. Instead well-constructed paragraphs that conform to the rules of English style and composition.

Your essay should be argumentative. Stake a claim early in your essay, formulate it clearly as a thesis statement, and then spend the rest of the essay defending that claim with specific reference to the course texts and lectures. Remember that a blank sheet of paper is worth zero points. Your task is to fill it up with points.

1. Territorial Nation-State: From the late Middle Ages to the twentieth century the European state was transformed from a system of personal loyalties to a territorial unit with a centralized federal administration. Discuss three items in relation to this: a) the process of centralization, using a specific state as an example; b) the motivations (military, economic, religious, political) that led successive administrations to bring power to a central location; c) the social or cultural consequences of the rise of the territorial nation-state. Then answer this question: Is the territorial nation state normative (i.e. is it right, natural, proper that human society should be organized according to such boundaries)? What other ways might humanity organize itself? How has society been organized before or outside of modern Europe?

2. The Arts: We have spent considerable time on art in this course: literature in antiquity, the early middle ages, and modernity; music from monophonic chant to modern symphony; visual art from ancient Greek idealization to Renaissance perspective and modern art. Using the images, music, and literature you have experienced in this course, discuss some of the ways we can use the arts to gain access to the past. Be sure to include specific examples of the values and ideas conveyed in specific works of art.

3. Resistance: Following the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre in 1572, there emerged in Europe a political discourse regarding the location of political sovereignty and the circumstances under which the citizen might resist or even overthrow that sovereign. Making specific references to the texts discussed in this course, describe some of those political ideologies. Cite texts approving the right of citizens to reform their government as well as texts that denied that right. Discuss also some of the ways in which those ideologies were manifested in European political events.

4. Reason, or not: Beginning with the Reformation in the sixteenth century and continuing through nineteenth-century industrialization, Europe looked with growing confidence on its own progress. What evidence was there for European progress? What evidence was there that such progress was illusory? Who were the harbingers of irrational forces, and what was their message?

5. The Church: During the thirteenth century the Church stood at the peak of its power as the "papal monarchy." Thereafter it underwent a series of crises that culminated in the Protestant Reformation and beyond. Describe the narrative of church history from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century. What were some of the social consequences of the splitting of the church? And what was really at stake behind all the violence and conflict?

Cities
Athens
Sparta
Troy
Carthage
Rome
Florence
Geneva

Rivers
Danube River
Rhine River
Seine River
Rhone River
Thames River
Tiber River

Water
Atlantic Ocean
North Sea
English Channel
Mediterranean Sea
Black Sea
Aegean Sea
Adriatic Sea

Countries
England
Ireland
Netherlands/Holland
Luxembourg

Chronology

Renaissance
St. Bartholomew’s Day
      Massacre
Thirty Years’ War
Totalitarianism
Trojan War
William the Conqueror