History 151

Final Exam

Part I: Take Home

(GO HERE FOR FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS)

 

This part of the final consists of two parts: a longer essay on one of the questions below and a shorter comment on one of the primary sources identified below.

 

A second part will be completed in an exam room during the final examination period, May 9 to May 15. This will be a self-scheduled exam, so you choose from among the available times to complete the exam. The questions will resemble the format of the in-class part of quiz 2: a number of major events and primary sources that we’ve discussed in class will be given and you’ll be asked to date and identify their meaning and historical significance. The identifications will be multiple choice items.  The items will be chosen from major events and primary sources discussed in class since March 25.

 

Due in my mail box, 310 Skinner by the end of the Exam Periods, i.e., no later than noon, May 15th

 

A. Major Essay: Choose 1 (one) of the following questions to address in an essay of 5 to 6 page essay (double spaced).

 

  1. In the last decade the media, some authors, critics, and protestors have characterized our era as one of “globalization,” variously emphasizing the benefits or costs of this global process. Known for your historical thinking and expertise, you have been asked to deliver an address to the Mount Holyoke College History and International Relations Clubs.  The honorarium includes a free lunch at Blanchard as well as the recognition accorded to a keynote speaker. (The Clubs are pinched for funds of late). The title of your address is “Globalization in Historical Perspective: European Engagement in the Wider World from Christopher Columbus to Decolonization..” Write your lecture in which you develop an historical informed interpretation that is well supported with specific historical evidence drawn from the readings, lectures, and discussions in the course.

 

  1.  When one examines European history since the seventeenth-century, it appears that European intellectuals and writers have tended to interpret their world in terms of one view of human nature and society or another.  One view asserts that human nature is basically perverse and therefore needs to be held in check to ensure peace and an orderly society.  A second view holds that humankind, being potentially good, needs to be freed from unnatural restraints, unjust laws, and arbitrary rule in order to realize its potential for social progress.  Accordingly, the climate of opinion--or dominant outlook--in different historical eras tends to alternate between pessimism and optimism.  Do you agree?  Evaluate this generalization in an essay that examines ideas and developments in at least three different centuries in European history since 1600 and takes into account European relations with the wider world.  In selecting and reviewing evidence for your essay, recall the writers we have studied, such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Lohanton, Napoleon, Françoise Graffigny, Karl Marx, Victor Hugo, Paul Valery, Jose Ortega y Gassett, Sigmund Freud, Adolph Hitler, and Fritz Stern.  You may also include Krupabai Satthianadhan, the author of Saguna, as an example of an Indian woman influenced by European ideas.

 

  1. We know that state centralization was a significant feature of seventeenth and eighteenth-century Absolutism.  To what extent, and in what specific ways, does twentieth-century Totalitarianism constitute a break or a continuation of that Absolutist tradition?  In your essay, you should explain what justifying ideology in 20th century totalitarianisms replaced “the divine right of kings” of absolutist regimes. Include a consideration of Germany and the Soviet Union/Russia in the twentieth century as well as specific examples of absolute regimes of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.  Be sure that you give clear definitions of both absolutism and totalitarianism.

 

  1. In the Communist Manifesto (1848), Marx and Engels said that “a specter” was haunting Europe and went on to explain what they meant.  In 1998, a century and a half later, in his newspaper article (“Building Blocks of the New Europe”), Fritz Stern warned that there were “barbarism” was reappearing not only in the former Yugoslavia but elsewhere in Europe also. In an essay that investigates these views, explain how Marx and Engels and Stern have looked to history as a guide for understanding their own times and for forecasting the future.  In your essay be sure that you 1) state the meaning of “spectre” and “barbarism” and 2) discuss specific examples of the historical forces or developments to which those terms refer.  At the end of your essay, offer a brief judgment of your own on history as a guide to understanding the present.

 

 

B. Short Essay: Choose 1 (one) of the following primary sources and write a brief interpretation of the historical meaning and historical significance of the source (s). Be sure to support your points with specific examples in the source.  Use the format given below.

 

CAUTION: AVOID USING THE CHOICE HERE IN BOTH THIS SHORT ESSAY AND IN THE LONGER ESSAY. THE OLD ADAGE OF “KILLING TWO BIRDS WITH ONE STONE” SHOULD NOT BE APPLIED ON THE FINAL.

 

  1. Philip Gibbs, selections from European Journey(1934) on “Hitler’s Germany” and “The Road to Remembrance.”
  2. The film “Triumph of the Will” (from cuts on line).
  3. A substantial passage from “Krupabai Satthianadhan, Sagun
  4. Documents handed out in class related to the European Union: “Jean Monnet’s Early Plan for a Post-World War II European Union,” “Declaration of May 9, 1950, by French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman,” and “The Treaty of Rome, March 25, 1957.”

 

Format:

 

  1. Title of source
  2. Historical context for the source (one paragraph)
  3. Claim with supporting examples that interprets the historical meaning of the chosen source (one paragraph, two at most.)
  4. Conclusion: state the historical significance of the source (one paragraph)