AP European History

Course Description:

This course is a study of the social, economic, cultural, intellectual, political and diplomatic history of Modern Europe and its place in the history of the world from the fall of Constantinople to the fall of the Berlin wall and the Soviet Union. The course will be taught at a level and rigor equivalent to that required of students in a college freshman or sophomore Modern European History course.

Students will develop an understanding of the major periods, ideas, movements, trends, and themes that characterize European history from approximately 1450-the high Renaissance-to the present. Students develop the ability to analyze historical evidence and express understanding and analysis in writing.

The course will prepare students for the College Board examination in European History.

Prerequisites: None

Course Length: Two Semesters or Block

Required Text Book: Kagan, Donald, Steven Ozment and Frank Turner. The Western Heritage: Since 1300. 8th ed. Prentice Hall. 2003. ISBN: 0131828835.


Course Outline:
  1. Course Introduction
  2. Historiography
  3. Late Middle Ages
  4. Europe and the Renaissance
  5. The Reformation: Religious Differences
  6. Wars of Religion
  7. Absolute and Constitutional Monarchies
  8. Galileo and Modern Medicine
  9. Eastern Europe: The Rise and Fall of the Ottoman Empire
  10. Aristocracy: The Peasants of Europe
  11. Scientific aspects of the Enlightenment
  12. The French Revolution
  13. Napoleon
  14. Revolutions of the 1800s; Liberalism and Conservatism
  15. Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions
  16. European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century
  17. Nationalism
  18. Russian Revolution of 1905
  19. World War 1
  20. World War 1 and the Russian Revolution of 1917
  21. Communism and Fascism
  22. Worldwide Depression
  23. World War 2 in Europe
  24. Division of Germany and the Cold War
  25. The Walls Fall
  26. European Unification