EARLY MODERN HISTORY

The course aims to introduce students to historical phenomena placed at the core of “Western modernity”, such as the modern state, confessionalization, individualism, etc. Some sources and the historiographical debate on these themes will be briefly presented during the course. Although the course will focus on the European society, the analysis will take into account a global perspective.

The main goal of the course is to provide students with basic heuristic tools, capable of giving them a better comprehension of the historical processes occurred between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries.

No specific prerequisites required.

The course focuses on some thematical areas that scholars consider pivotal to defining early modern history: communication revolution, globalisation, confessionalization, modern state, Enlightenment and the age of revolutions.

a) a thorough handbook of early modern history. Recommended: Carlo Capra, Storia moderna, 1492-1848, Firenze, Le Monnier, 2021 (fourth edition or some other edition);

b) one of the following books:
- E.P. Thompson, Whigs and Hunters. The Origins of the Black Act, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1977;
- C. Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms. The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller, Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992;
- ...

c) Notes taken during the course.

or

one of the following books:
1. Lucette Valensi, Stranieri familiari. Musulmani in Europa (XVI-XVIII secolo), Torino, Einaudi, 2013 (first edition in French).
2. John Thornton, African and the Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1800, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998.
3. Thomas Kaufmann, I redenti e i dannati. Una storia della Riforma, Torino, Einaudi, 2018 (first edition in German).
4. Jeremy Popkin, A New World Begins, New York, Basic Books, 2019.

The students' competence will be verified through a written exam consisting of three questions (with limited space for each answer). The student will have to answer a first question on the handbook; a second question on the monographs listed in the point b in the section Course Bibliography; while s/he will have the chance to choose the third question among five different options: the first will concern the topics discussed during classes, the other four will regard the four monographs selected in the point c of the Course Bibliography.

written

Lectures. Sources will be presented and discussed.