This course is an introduction to European history from around 1500 to the present. The central questions that it addresses are how and why Europe--a small, relatively poor, and politically fragmented place-- became the motor of globalization and a world civilzation in its own right. Put differently how did western become an adjective that, for better and often for worse, stands in place of modern

History 5, 001 - Fall 2014 European Civilization from the Renaissance to the Present - Thomas W. Laqueur Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs