Università Roma Tre

Students must have a previous good knowledge of the events of contemporary history from 1815 to the present.

The course is divided in two parts, the first basic, the second more advanced: 1) Introduction to the history of the contemporary world (4CFU) 2) Racism and anti-Semitism in contemporary history (4CFU).
PART ONE: This part introduces to the history of 19th and 20th Century, to methodological issues (periodization, political use of history, memory, sources), to the greatest phenomena (revolutions and political ideas, industrial development, mass society), and to the main historical interpretations of contemporary world.
Main topics: 1. Modernity and industrial development 2. The birth of modern “political sphere”: revolution, conservatism, liberalism, democracy, socialism, and nationalism 3. The social transformations: peasants, workers, middle class, and women 4. The role of religion: secularization 5. National unification in Germany and Italy 6. Europe and the world: Imperialism and colonialism 7. The second industrial revolution and mass society 8. The Great War 9. The Russian Revolution 10. The Interwar Age: Economic Crisis and Totalitarianism 11. World War II 12. Cold War 13. Decolonisation and Third World 14. Republican Italy 15. The Sixties: Affluent society, détente and protest 16. Globalisation, crisis of the Welfare State and the fall of Communism
PART TWO: The Age of democratic revolutions has been also the age of racial intolerance. This section will analyse the history of the formation of a racist view, of racists and anti-Semitist movements, looking for the main features, phases, decisive turns. Special attention will be devoted to the Holocaust and to the dramatic issue of the reaction of civil conscience, governments and in particular of the Catholic Church.
Main topics: 1. The birth of racism in the 18th Century 2. The origins of the Arian myth 3. Gobineau 4. Christian anti-Judaism 5. The scientific development of racism 6. The development of a religion of race 7. Catholic intransigent Anti-Semitism. 8. The birth of political anti-Semitism 9. The turn of the Great War 10. Hitler’s and Nazis’ ideas 10. German Jewry 12. Nazi legislation against the Jews 13. Emigration 14. Ghettos 15. From the “Madagascar project” to the Wansee Conference: When does the “final solution” begin? 16. Mass shooting 17. The industry of extermination 18. The Sinti and Rom extermination 19. The debate about the pope’s “silence” and the facts 20. Catholic and racist anti-Semitism 21. Catholicism and Nazism 22. The problem of information 23. Holy See’s impartiality 24. To keep silence in order to help? 25. The fruit of a mentality: Church and modernity

Part One
○ G. SABBATUCCI – V. VIDOTTO, Storia contemporanea. L’Ottocento, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2017, pp. 418 (esclusi i capitoli I-IV)
○ G. SABBATUCCI – V. VIDOTTO, Storia contemporanea. Il Novecento, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2017, pp. 488

Part Two
○ G.L. MOSSE, Il razzismo in Europa dalle origini all’Olocausto, 7. ed., Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2017, pp. 302
○ W. BENZ, L’Olocausto, Torino, Bollati Boringhieri, 2006, pp. 128
○ R. MORO, La Chiesa e lo sterminio degli ebrei, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2009, pp. 216

The acquisition of tools needed to understand the XIX and XX centuries will be realized through a programme divided in three parts.
In the first one, with the aid of the history manual, the basic knowledge about the development of contemporary world, about the main processes of cultural, economic, political, institutional and social transformations will be acquired. This part will also describe the key turning points and some historiographical junctions. In the second part the analysis will focus on WW1, its global dimension as watershed between the 19th and the 20th century. In the third part the study will deal with the elaboration of the idea of peace, as put forward by pacifist movements, in particular the women’s pacifism, and how it held before the deflagration of the conflict.
The acquired knowledge, verified in the relevant exams, should give evidence of the critical ability in understanding the complexity of problems the relevance of specific aspects of events in the 19th and 20th centuries. For those who attended the lessons there will be a written test valid to pass the first part of the exam, namely the one based on the study of the manual.

Giovanni Sabbatucci e Vittorio Vidotto, Contemporary History. XIX Century (excluding chapters I-IV), Laterza ed.
Giovanni Sabbatucci e Vittorio Vidotto, Contemporary History. XX Century, Laterza ed.
Oliver Janz, 1914-1918. The Great War, Einaudi
Stefania Bartoloni, Women before the Great War. Peace, Rights, Democracy (1978-1918), Laterza