EUROPEAN AND ITALIAN HISTORY FROM 1789 TO 1914

This course focuses on the history of nineteenth-century Italy placed within the broader context of European events. It is divided into two parts. The first part addresses the main events and issues that affected Italy from the period of the French Revolution to its unification. The second part instead starts from the decades following the unification of Italy and continues up to World War I.
During the course an approach based on cultural history will be adopted. Therefore, attention will be paid not only to the political and economic events that developed in Italy during the nineteenth century, but also to themes more related to the society and culture of the time, without privileging any of these aspects. The aim is to foster a broad understanding of the complexity of the historical events that characterised nineteenth-century Italy. During the lessons, extensive use will be made of written and visual sources, in order to prompt them to dialogue and develop some initial rudiments of analysis.

The course aims to provide students with a basic knowledge of the main phenomena and events that characterised the Italian and European 19th century. A further aim of the course will be to provide students, through historical reflection, with critical tools for understanding issues and facts of the present.

Basic knowledge of the English language
Basic knowledge of European geography

The course is comprised of 21 lessons:
1: What We Talk About When We Talk About Modern History?
2: The Age of Enlightenment
3: The French revolution
4: Napoleon and the Conservative order
5: The modern idea of Nation
6: Back to revolutions (1820-1825 and 1830-1831)
7: 1848
8: Gender and Sexuality in Nineteenth Century Italy
9: The Italian unification
10: Mid-term exam
11: Checking and reviewing the midterm exam
12: Post-unification Italy and the process of nation building
13: The industrial revolution
14: Scientific thought and racism
15: Colonialism
16: how to do an historical research?
17: Socialism and suffragism
18: Europe before the WWI
19: presentations
20: presentations
21: presentations

The main reference text is:

Alberto Mario Banti, L’età contemporanea. Dalle rivoluzioni settecentesche all’imperialismo, Laterza,
Roma-Bari, 2009

The assessment is divided into three parts:
- mid-term exam: written exam with multiple choice and open questions
- presentation: the students divided into groups will make a presentation that must fall within 5 macro themes:
1. rights and citizenship
2. the idea of nationhood
3. gender and sexuality
4. science and technology
5. colonialism and racism
- paper: delivery of a paper of approximately 1000-1500 words on a topic of your choice discussed during the course

written and oral

Grades will be given in thirtieths

The course will be conducted through lectures, supported by the use of slides. At the end of each lecture, 15 minutes will dedicated for a discussion around contemporary issues analysed through the tools of historical reflection.