War, Peace, and Power: Diplomatic History of Europe, 1500-2000 [repost]

For much of the past five centuries, the history of the European continent has been a history of chaos, its civilization thrown into turmoil by ferocious wars or bitter religious conflicts—sometimes in combination—that have made and remade borders, created and eliminated entire nations, and left a legacy that is still influencing our world.

Is there an explanation for this chaos that goes beyond the obvious: political ambition, religious intolerance, the pursuit of state power, or the fear of another state's aspirations? Can we discover a hidden logic that could possibly explain the Thirty Years' War, the Napoleonic Wars, two World Wars, and other examples of national bloodletting? Is it possible to formulate a meaningful rationale against which to order a history as tumultuous as Europe's, gaining insights that enrich our understanding of Europe's past and future, and perhaps even of ours as well?

In War, Peace, and Power: Diplomatic History of Europe, 1500–2000, Professor Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius answers these questions and more as he offers everyone interested in the "why" of history a remarkable look into the evolution of the European continent and the modern state system. In 36 provocative lectures, he allows us to peer through the revealing lens of statecraft to show us its impact on war, peace, and power and how that impact may well be felt in the future—an approach that historians have been using for thousands of years.

"Diplomatic history is one of the oldest varieties of historical analysis," Professor Liulevicius notes. "Indeed, it's sometimes traced back all the way to Thucydides and the vision that he offered of Greek state interaction and politics.

"Diplomatic history offers a tremendously powerful intellectual tool to understand how states relate to one another. Because states are still relating with one another today, it is of undiminished relevance for our own times. …

"As we conclude our course, we'll be able to ask, 'Where is Europe headed today, and what implications will follow for the world at large?' as we survey what had begun as a European state system [but which] has now become a global system of states in international politics."

Learn How Europe's Most Pivotal Moments Shaped History

Far more than just a history of ambassadorial missions and other diplomatic efforts, this course re-creates Europe's most pivotal historical moments—in the context of their times—showing how contemporary pressures and historical precedent combined to influence individuals, governments, structures, and even non-state organizations.

These events would happen not only on history's bloodiest battlefields but also in quieter settings where so many of the factors that would govern Europe's future would be set into place:


You'll see how the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, negotiated at the first great diplomatic conference of modern times, not only brought to a close the ordeal of the Thirty Years' War but also overthrew existing ideals and claims of universal authority to create the European system of independent sovereign states, setting into motion new concepts of international law that would codify the new politics of power.
You'll experience the dawn of Europe's "classical balance of power," as the 1815 Congress of Vienna—amidst the exuberance and glitter of great balls and banquets—responds to the defeat of Napoleon with its creation of the so-called Concert of Europe, a new order opposed to revolution and based on conservative solidarity that would keep Europe from general war for nearly a century.
And you'll be in Paris in 1919 for the aftermath of the shattering of the Concert of Europe, as the victorious allies gather to draft a comprehensive Paris Settlement—including the Treaty of Versailles—meant to build a new and lasting European order on the ruins of the old.

Each of these key points on history's timeline represents an attempt to establish a lasting idea of order in the European world, a task with which Europe's states have been wrestling since the birth of modern diplomacy in Renaissance Italy.

Lectures:

Foundations of Diplomacy
Europe in 1500—Ancient and New Monarchies
Renaissance Statecraft in Italy
Religion and Empire
The Thirty Years' War
The Peace of Westphalia, 1648—A New Era
French Superpower
The Great Powers
Northern Earthquake
18th-Century Competition
Revolutions
Napoleon's Glory and Defeat
The Congress of Vienna
The Concert of Europe System
Eastern and Western Questions
The Challenge of 1848 and Napoleon III
Britain's Empire
The Crimean War
Italian Unification
German Unification
The Bismarckian System
High Imperialism
The Reconfigured World of 1900
Balkan Instability
The Outbreak of World War I
World War I—Total War
The Paris Settlement
Interwar Europe
Europe into Crisis
World War II
Aftermath and Peace Plans
The Cold War Begins
Blocs and Decolonization
The European Project
The Fall of the Wall
Post–Cold War to the Present

High School Level - Early Amer...icans through the Forty-Niners

Historical Jesus

History of Ancient Egypt

History of Christianity in the Reformation Era

History of England from the Tudors to the Stuarts

History of Hitlers Empire, 2nd Edition

History of Russia: From Peter the Great to Gorbachev

History of Science - Antiquity to 1700

History of Science: 1700-1900

History of the Bible

History of the English Language, 2nd Edition

History of the Supreme Court

History of the United States, 2nd Edition

History of World Literature

How Music and Mathematics Relate

How to Become a SuperStar Student, 2nd Edition

How to Grow Anything: Container Gardening Tips & Techniques

How We Learn

Human Prehistory and the First Civilizations