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Lecturer: László Kontler
Credits: 4
Evaluation: 1 oral presentation, also developed in essay format; end-term
closed book examination
Rebellion, revolt, civil war, revolution -- these terms have been variously
applied to a number of decisive upheavals in Europe and its overseas extensions
during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. The course attempts to introduce
students nto the theoretical literature of the subject (i. e., the debates
on the meaning of the above-mentioned categories and the boudaries between
the phenomena they describe), but its main emphasis is on the social, political
and intellectual history of four major events that have been called revolutions
in our period: the Huguenot (religious and/or civil) wars in France, the
Dutch War of Independence, the English Civil War ("Great Rebellion"?, "Puritan
Revolution"?) and the American War of Independence. Much of recent historiography
is concerned concerned with a radical revision of earlier interpretations
of these movements. While surveying these controversies, the course also
reexamnies some familiar questions. To what extent were these "revolutions"
triggered off by processes like "the rise of the middle class" or "the
growth of state centralization"? What was the proportion of "the modern"
and "the traditional" in them? How far were they animated by factors of
religious or patriotic devotion?
Literature
(non-mandatory and non-exclusive)
(1) GENERAL
From the Fontana History of Europe:
J. H. Elliott, Europe Divided 1559--1598
Geoffrey Parker, Europe in Crisis 1598--1648
John Stoye, Europe Unfolding 1648--1688
Thomas Munck, Seventeenth Century Europe (MacMillan, 1990)
Perez Zagorin, Rebels and Rulers 1500--1650, 2 vols (Cambridge, 1982)
Yves-Maria Bercé, Revolt and Revolution in Early-Modern Europe
(Manchester, 1987)
Robert Forster, Jack P. Greene (eds.), Preconditions of Revolution
in Early-Modern Europe (Baltimore, 1970)
Geoffrey Parker, Lesley Smith (eds.), The General Crisis of the Seventeenth
Century (Penguin, 1987)
Keith Michael Baker, Inventing the French Revolution (Cambridge, 1990)
Charles Tilly, European Revolutions 1492--1992 (Blackwell, 1993)
(2) FRANCE
Robin Briggs, Early Modern France 1560--1715 (Oxford, 1977)
J. H. M. Salmon, Society in Crisis (Cambridge, 1975)
N. M. Sutherland, The Huguenot Struggle for Recognition (New Haven,
1980)
N. M. Sutherland, Princes, Politics and Religion 1547--1589 (Hambledon,
1984)
(3) THE NETHERLANDS
Pieter Geyl, The Revolt of the Netherlands 1555--1609 (Oxford, 1958)
Geoffrey Parker, The Dutch Revolt (Penguin, 1989)
Jonathan Israel, The Dutch Republic and the Hispanic World 1606--1661
(Oxford, 1986)
Martin van Gelderen, The Political Thought of the Dutch Revolt 1555--1590
(Cambridge, 1992)
(4) ENGLAND
Christopher Hill, The Century of the Revolution 1603--1714 (2nd ed.
Norton, 1982)
Lawrence Stone, The Causes of the English Revolution (Harper and Collins,
1972)
Conrad Russell, The Causes of the English Civil War (Oxford, 1990)
G. E. Aylmer, Rebellion or Revolution? England 1640--1660 (Oxford,
1987)
J. C. D. Clark, Revolution and Rebellion. State and Society in England
in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Cambridge, 1986)
W. A. Speck, Reluctant Revolutionaries: Englishmen and the Revolution
of 1688 (Oxford, 1988)
(5) AMERICA
Charles M. Andrews, The Colonial Background of the American Revolution
(New Haven, 1958)
J. G. A. Pocock (ed.), Three British Revolutions: 1641, 1688, 1776
Princeton, 1980)
Jack P. Greene, Peripheries and Center: Constitutional Development
in the Extended Polities of the British Empire and the United States, 1607--1788
(Athens, Georgia, 1986)
Colin Bonwick, The American Revolution (University Press of Virginia,
1991)
Edmund S. Morgan, The Birth of the Republic 1763--1789 (3rd ed. Chicago,
1992)
For the first class meeting, please make an effort to read:
Zagorin, Rebels and Rulers, Ch. 1.
Tilly, European Revolutions, Ch. 1.
Baker, Inventing the French Revolution, Ch. 9.
Presentations
Each participant of the course is required to give at least one oral
presentation in class on a specific issue related to the subject discussed,
and also submit it in essay format before the end-term closed written exam.
Below, some topics and core readings are suggested, which are welcome to
be supplemented by others according to individual interest and depending
on the availability of literature. Presentations on a major upheaval not
listed in the syllabus, especially from the history of Central or Eastern
Europe, are strongly encouraged for the sake of broadening the comparative
perspective.
Suggested topics:
1. The legitimation and mechanism of political violence in early-modern
Europe. Bercé, Revolt and Revolution, Ch. 1, 4.
2. The debate on the "crisis of the seventeenth century". T. K. Rabb,
The Struggle for Stability in Early Modern Europe, Ch. 1-4.
3. The beginnings of the Reformation and religious persecution in France.
Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle, Ch. 1-2.
4. The international context of the Huguenot wars: French Protestants
and the Dutch independence fighters. Sutherland, Huguenot Struggle, Ch.
6.
5. The political theory of the Dutch War of Independence. The Dutch
Revolt (anthology), Introduction and any text.
6. Overview of the 20th century historiography of the English Revolution:
social and political history. R. C. Richardson, The English Revolution
Revisited, Ch. 7, 9.
7. An example of the "social history" approach. Lawrence Stone, The
Crisis of the Aristocracy and/or "The Results of the English Revolutions
of the Seventeenth Century", in Three British Revolutions, Ch. 1.
8. An example of "revisionist" historiography. Russell, Causes of the
English Civil War, Ch. 1, 6.
9. The American Revolution as an event in Engliah/British history.
D. Lovejoy, "Two American Revolutions" and J. G. A. Pocock, "The Revolution
against Parliament" in Three British Revolutions, Ch. 7-8.
10. A test case: Dutch "revolutions" in the eighteenth century. M.
C. Jacob, W. Mijnhart (eds.), The Dutch Republic in the Eighteenth Century,
Ch. 1-4.
