HIST 103 -- Western Civilization

Industry under plastic - photo by entropiK [link]

Expanded course description

This is a course in focused world history. And it is our history, here and now. Let me explain. It is "focused" because it does not attempt to treat every significant episode in the whole of global history over the past two centuries. Yet it is "world history" because it will treat a large inventory of decisive global issues that have been caused by, or reflected within, that vague and vast history of what is called "Western Civ". Usually university history courses are about the experience of "nation-states", that is, nameable sovereign geo-political units like Germany, Russia, Japan and USA. "Western Civ" is different, it's about more than one or several nation-states, more than Europe and/or North America. As a visiting research scholar at the Japanese National Slavic Research Center, I frequently heard Japanese professionals refer to their nation and contemporary culture as a part of "the West". At the same time, oddly, no one says that, when the English scientist Newton influenced the French philosopher Voltaire, we have an example of "Western" influence on France. We're dealing with a slippery, maybe even tricky, notion here.

"Civ" is college-talk for "civilization", and that always implies something far beyond the border-bound nation-state. In this case the adjective is "Western". Borrowed from the compass, "the West", "Western", etc., are always capitalized, as if to grant ersatz substance to this obscure adjective. We see the obscure proper noun "West" and all of its derivatives used time and again in our print and electronic media. It's us, but it's also others. Beethoven represents "Western" music, but so do the Beetles when they played with Ravi Shankar. The USA Marshall Plan and the American general, then president, Eisenhower, represent "Western" policy, but we are reluctant to grant that to the German dictator Hitler or French students on the streets of Paris in 1968. Is Chinese Marxism "Western"? Urban modernization and technological innovation are "Western", but are the Opium Wars in China "Western"? It's global, but what is it? Let's find out together this term.

But there's more. The past two centuries in the history of "Western >Civ" are our time. It might be silly to say that Napoleon is our "contemporary" (with us or among us right now). But we can call him a "modern" person, a representative phenomenon of the modern world. He invaded and occupied Egypt, in part to bring the glories of French Revolutionary, egalitarian/democratic progress to these "backward" Islamic folk. His armies later perished on the Eurasian steppes. He sold the whole mid-section of North America to the New World nation-state USA. The main events and trends of "Western Civ" since Napoleon's time lead right up to our door steps, even here in Oregon, a distant periphery to the world's great metropoles.

Here are some leading events and trends of the past two centuries = Industrial modernization threatened thorough eradication of traditional rural ways. Monarchical authority, and the whole body of aged social conventions (privileges and exemptions by birth, the rule of aristocracies and priesthoods) were widely replaced by representative governmental forms. Mega-centers called "cities" erupted across the world's countryside. Modern industrialized economies, administrations, armies and authorities projected themselves over the face of the whole globe ("Imperialism"). These same powers were projected inwards in two great and catastrophic wars, WW1 and WW2. Totalitarian state authority came to near perfection under conditions of modern industrial technologies of control and managerial authoritarianism. Liberal innovations of the US and French Revolutions, so dominant in the 19th century, came under withering assault from extreme rightist and extreme leftist trends of the 20th century. Even before the attack from extreme flanks, the failure ofliberal "Western" regimes to meet the needs of a wholly new social formation, wage-labor, gave rise to social democracy and welfare statism. The Enlightenment posed a shocking challenge to ancient theological and mythological ways of thinking, then came the rise of science and the power of empiricism and rationalism. Intellectual counter attacks were quick to arise in romantic and irrationalist movements, along with fundamentalist religious revivals. "Western Civ" seemed to turn against itself, aided and abetted by resilient non-European spiritual trends. Then, in the 20th century, science seemed to pull the rug out from under the dominant "positivist" ways of looking at the world.

Group: SSC

Offered 200603.

Syllabus

Although syllabi can change from term to term, a syllabus may provide further information about typical instances of this course.