Università Roma Tre

The course has two parts:
a) the first is an introduction to historical knowledge, its methodological issues and its political use. It examines the overarching phenomena of the contemporary age with their interpretative challenges.
b) the second, more specialised, looks in depth at Italy's political history in twentieth century.

- G. SABBATUCCI – V. VIDOTTO, Storia contemporanea. L’Ottocento, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2019 (excluding chapters I-IV)
- G. SABBATUCCI – V. VIDOTTO, Storia contemporanea. Dalla Grande Guerra ad oggi, Roma-Bari, Laterza
- S. CAVAZZA – P. POMBENI (a cura di), Introduzione alla storia contemporanea, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2006
- G. FORMIGONI, Storia essenziale dell’Italia repubblicana, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2021
- M. BLOCH, Apologia della storia o mestiere di storico, Torino, Einaudi (any edition)

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.

Giovanni Sabbatucci e Vittorio Vidotto, Contemporary History. XIX Century (excluding chapters I-IV), Laterza ed.
Giovanni Sabbatucci e Vittorio Vidotto, Contemporary History. XX Century, (excluding chapters XXI-XXII), Laterza ed.
Oliver Janz, 1914-1918. The Great War, Einaudi
Stefania Bartoloni, Women before the Great War. Peace, Rights, Democracy (1978-1918), Laterza
Richard J. Overy, The Origins of the Second World War, Il Mulino