Aims

By the end of this course, students should
- have acquired a global overview of the major historical dynamics that have shaped modern societies.
- be familiar with the key events from this period of history (such as the fall of the Byzantine Empire, Lutheran reforms, the Treaty of Westphalia, the Galilean Revolution, the French and American Revolutions, the Russian Revolution) and be able to place them on a time line.
- be able to show the relationships of historical dependency between the processes of social structuring which are studied as specialist subjects within the degree course (Politics, Economics, Social Studies, Communication)

Main themes

The period covered by this course goes from the fall of the Byzantine Empire to the contemporary period. There is a primary, but not exclusive focus on European and North American history. Students will be given the keys to an understanding of historical development on a global level, highlighting different phases of globalisation and the resulting identities created.

Content and teaching methods

This course is intended to situate, explain and analyse the historical contexts which gave rise to the social structures studied in detail in the courses given by the Economics, Social Sciences and Politics Faculty which have included this course within their programmes (Political Science, Social Science and Communication). There are five key structural processes whose historical origins and development - and the events surrounding these - need to be defined and related.

- In the field of Economics: the different phases in the process of market construction and development of capitalism, from the Renaissance onwards
- In the field of Politics: the process of centralizing the State, the construction of the Nation-State, the construction of the constitutional State and modern revolutions, Imperialist expansion.
- In the field of Culture: cultural transformations with a) structural changes relating to the place of religion at a collective, political and individual level (brought about particularly through the spread of the Reforms); b) changes in the relationship between the individual and society (reflected in people's private life, people's vision of marriage and themselves - crucially the development of Psychology - their bodies and Art)
- In the field of Science: the process of rationalisation within Science and Technology, its industrial consequences and cultural impact. Emphasis will be laid on processes of change relating to the natural world and on the role of technology in structuring social relations, on the real-world effects of industrialisation (on communication, mobility and infrastructure etc) and on the technological and scientific visions which have influenced our vision of society (such as the steam engine, the chemical imagination, the idea of electrical force-fields, electro-magnetism, particle physics).
In the field of Art and Communication: the process of individualization in Art, the redefinition of the rules of artistic representation, the importance of printing, the break with the past of Contemporary Art and the development of the mass media.

Other credits in programs