PSIR105 MODERN WORLD HISTORY
Course Content
This course examines the rise and fall of great powers as political, military and economic entities. Since 1500, history has shown many comparable examples regarding the relation of economic and military overstretch of many great states like Ming China, Ottoman Empire, France, Great Britain, Austrian-Hungarian Empire, Prussia and the two great powers at the beginning of this century: the United States and Russia. All this will be considered in the framework of the -European Balance of Power- and the traditional -isolationist foreign policy- of the U.S. in the last century. The beginning of World War I and its implications on the world balance of power will be considered. The developments in Europe and U.S. since 1919 until today will be examined. World War I and the new political structure after 1918 will be considered from the point of global developments. World War II and the involvement of the U.S. in European affairs, the Cold War Sovietization of Eastern Europe and the emancipation of the Third World ocountries are also to be discussed. The relations among the industrial and non-industrial countries in political, economic and military fields will be explained with some comments on future prospects for global developments.
