The Making of Modern Europe: 1400-1945

Overview

Course No. 8215

Discover how Europe became the laboratory for modern democracy, capitalism, and scientific thought through this 48-lecture journey from the Middle Ages to WWII.

Professor Bartlett guides you through Europe’s transformative centuries, examining:

• The collapse of feudalism and rise of nation-states

• Religious revolutions from the Reformation to secularism

• The Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment ideas

• Industrialization’s social upheavals

• The ideological battles leading to World Wars

This course reveals not just what happened, but why – showing how Europe’s past shaped our present.

Video Lessons

Medieval Foundations (Lectures 1-5)

1. The Idea of Europe (32 min) – Conceptual framework

2. Feudalism’s Structure (30 min) – Protection and hierarchy

3. Three Estates System (30 min) – Clergy, nobility, commoners

4. Manorial Economy (30 min) – Agricultural foundations

• Trade and Urban Growth (30 min) – Crusades to Black Death

Renaissance & Reformation (6-16)

6. Italian Renaissance (30 min) – Merchant class and humanism

7-8. Church Crises (30/31 min) – Schisms and Christian humanism

9-10. Ottomans & Expansion (31/30 min) – Mediterranean to New World

11-14. Protestant Reformations (31/31/32/31 min) – Luther to English Civil War

15-16. Religious Wars (31/32 min) – Thirty Years’ War consequences

Revolutionary Centuries (17-30)

• Absolute Monarchy (31 min) – Louis XIV’s France

18. Scientific Revolution (31 min) – Bacon to Newton

19-20. Enlightenment Thinkers (30/30 min) – Voltaire to Rousseau

21-24. French Revolution (30/30/30/31 min) – 1789 to Napoleon

25-28. Industrialization (31/31/30/30 min) – Factories to middle class

29-30. Liberal Governance (31/31 min) – Mill to Gladstone

Modern Ideologies (31-48)

31-32. Science & Optimism (31/32 min) – Progress theories

33-34. Nationalism (31/30 min) – 1848 revolutions to unification

35-36. Darwin’s Impact (30/30 min) – Evolution to Social Darwinism

37-38. Socialist Movements (30/31 min) – Utopians to Marx

39-42. World War I (31/30/30/31 min) – Causes to Versailles

43-48. Interwar Europe (30/30/31/31/30/31 min) – Rise of Fascism to WWII eve