Contemporary History

ITALY AND EUROPE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: POLITICAL-SOCIAL AND CULTURAL DYNAMICS

The Course aims to develop the knowledge of the main events and the most significant issues of contemporary history in national and international contexts, to analyze and interpret the political-social, economic and cultural dynamics that characterized the twentieth century. The Course will then explore some of the most relevant themes of the contemporary age, such as nation building and nineteenth and twentieth century nationalisms, the rise and fall of old and new empires, colonialism and its dismantling, totalitarianism, the Cold War and the most recent changes in the international balance. The discussion of these topics will make use of the contributions of the most recent historiography and the citation of inherent printed, literary and iconographic documents.

The learning outcomes expected at the end of the Course are: the acquisition by the student of understanding and the ability to contextualize the different phenomena in the contemporary historical process; the awareness of the complexity of the conceptual criteria of periodization, also in reference to the historiographical debate; the development of a critical reflection, in a comparative framework, on the relevant issues in national and international affairs from the 20th century to the beginning of the XXI; the ability to apply the critical method of historical analysis to the investigation of contemporary reality. The final exam aims to verify the level of learning of the topics covered and a deepening of the same on the basis of an integrative apparatus of readings indicated during the Course.