Williamson,Arthur H - California State University, Sacramento

CSUS
Department of History
Hist. 105.01/SP- 13 A.H. Williamson
GREAT AGES AND ISSUES IN WESTERN CIVILIZATION
This course will provide an introduction to the development of Western Civilization from about
1650 to the present. As such it does not focus on the narrative of events, but instead examines
the basic ideas, assumptions, and commonplaces shared by modern people. Virtually all such
ideas--whether liberal-democratic values, the attitudes toward nature in modern science, our
notions of privacy, self, emotions, love, and even what it means to work--differ vastly from those
universally held during most of the history of the West. How did they arise, how did they
become persuasive, and subsequently central to Western people? Why are we convinced that
modern science asks the right questions and that earlier approaches to nature are either irrelevant
or ridiculous? What convinces us that something called "love"--and admittedly irrational-should
be the basis for forming enduring personal relationships? How, in a word, did we become
who we are?
This course has two additional objectives. It stresses the careful reading and analysis of original
texts and thereby, hopefully, will develop the student's capacity to read critically and historically.
Although the readings in this course are significant statements of Western culture--and important
for history majors--part of the purpose is simply to teach students to read any writing more
insightfully, whether the Sacramento Bee or even the speeches of George W. Bush.
The course is further intended to strengthen the student's expository prose and seeks to achieve
this objective through three analytical papers, a mid-term and a final examination. Finally the
course also strongly encourages the student to analyze and engage the material through class
discussion.
Course requirements: Mid-term Examination (20%)
Analytical Papers (30%)
Final Examination (30%)
Class Participation (20%)
***Students are expected to bring the scheduled reading material to class each session***

Required Books:
Marvin Perry et al., Western Civilization, 1660-Present, 9th edition (Houghton)
Keith Baker, ed., The Old Regime and the French Revolution (Chicago)
John Boyer and Jan Goldstein, eds., 20th Century Europe (Chicago)
Voltaire, Philosophical Letters (Bobbs/Hornet)
Blaise Pascal, Pensées (Penguin)
Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract (Hafner/Hornet)
John Stuart Mill, Autobiography (Pengiun)
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Marx-Engels Reader (Norton)
Friedrich Nietzsche, Use and Abuse of History (Bobbs)
A.H. Williamson, Great Ages and Issues (Hornet)
A.H. Williamson, Images of Blood (Hornet)
All required texts are available in the bookstore and are on reserve in the library (hopefully).
Course requirements: There will be a midterm and a final examination, as well as three brief
papers (brief = three double-spaced typed pages, about 1000 words).
Paper #1: Write a summary of Turgot's argument in his article about "Foundations" (in Baker).
Due in class 28 February.
Paper #2: Summarize Lord Byron's argument in his poem "Prometheus." Due in class 21
March.
Paper #3: Compare Nietzsche's argument in The Use and Abuse of History with the ideas about
people and society developed by Jeremy Bentham in An Introduction to the Principles of Morals
and Constitutional Code ("Selected Readings"). Due in class 25 April.
***Late papers will not be accepted***
Office Hours: Tuesdays 12:00-3:00 and by appointment in 3061 Tahoe Hall (278-6914).
1st Week: 29/31 January
Man and Nature in the Pre-Modern World
Alexander Pope, Essay on Man, 1733 (Selected Readings,
hereafter indicated as SR)
Perry, Western Civilization, Chapter 17, pp. 400-18.
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(Note excerpt from Descartes’ Discourse on Method, 1637, p. 417)
2nd Week: 5/7 February
The Rise of Modern Science: Descartes, Newton, and the Concept of Cause
Voltaire, Philosophical Letters,1733, 52-74
Perry, Western Civilization, Chapter 18, pp. 419-51.
(Note Three Impostors, date and author uncertain, p. 449)
3rd Week: 12/14 February
The Enlightenment: Science and Society under the Ancien Regime
4th Week: 19/21 February
Charles Loyseau, Traité des Ordres, 1610(Baker)
Denis Diderot, "Definition of an
Encyclopedia," 1757 (Baker)
Voltaire, Philosophical Letters, pp. 3-29, 39-40
Absolutism Can Be Fun
Anne-Robert-Marie Turgot, "On Foundations" 1757 (Baker)
Anne-Robert-Marie Turgot, "Memorandum on Local Government
and National Education" 1775 (Baker)
Perry, Western Civilization, Chapter 18, pp. 442-43 (review).
Continuity and Contiguity: Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal, Pensées, (1650) #23, 24, 25, 26, 33, 44, 45,60, 66,
83, 86, 114, 125, 131, 188, 200, 228, 242, 520, 533, 750,
781
Further Reading (= optional, i.e. you don't gotta):
5th Week: 26/28 February
Voltaire, Philosophical Letters, pp. 114-150
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THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
(First Paper due in class, 28 February)
a. The "Moderate" Revolution
J.J. Rousseau, The Social Contract,1762, Bk. I, chs. 1-7 (pp. 5-
18), Bk. II, chs. 3, 4,7 (pp. 25-30, 35-39), Bk. IV, ch. 8 (pp.
115-125)
Abbe Sieyès, What is the Third Estate? (Baker) 1789, pp. 154-165;
remainder optional.
"Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen," 1789 (Baker)
"La Liberté des Colons," 1791 (SR)
Perry, Western Civilization, Chapter 19, pp. 451-67.
b. The Republic of Virtue
Documents of the Sans Culottes (Baker)
Maximilien Robespierre, "Letter to his Constituents," 1793 (SR)
"Draft Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen," 1793 (SR)
Perry, Western Civilization, Chapter 19, pp. 467-80, 486-7
(Profile).
(Note excerpt from Robespierre’s “Report on Public Morality,” 1794)
6th Week: 5/7 March
(Baker)
Popular Culture: the Advent of Kitsch
No readings (!!!)
Reaction: Edmund Burke and the Marquis de Sade--the Problem of Nature and Self
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790
Marquis de Sade, Philosophy in the Bedroom, 1795 (on reserve)
Perry, Western Civilization, Chapter 22, pp. 531-36, 548-51.
The Romantic Impulse
George Gordon, Lord Byron, "Prometheus" (SR)
Byron, "On this Day I complete my Thirty-Sixth Year" (SR)
John Keats, "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" (SR)
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Further Reading:
7th Week: 12/15 March
Perry, Western Civilization, Chapter 22, pp. 520-31, 541-46.
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
19th CENTURY LIBERALISM AND ITS CRITICS
a. Auguste Comte and the Science of Reaction:
"Sociology"
Auguste Comte, Early Essays, (on reserve)
Perry, Western Civilization, Chapter 22, pp. 534-41, Chapter 24, p.
578 (Comte); (Note Joseph de Maistre, pp. 544-45)
b. The Individual and Society
Jeremy Bentham, An
Introduction to the Principles of Morals, 1780 (SR)
Bentham, Constitutional Code for the Use of all Nations, 1827
(SR)
John Stuart Mill, Autobiography, 25-71, 84-86, 93-96, 111-118.
Perry, Western Civilization, Chapter 21, pp. 500-18; Chapter 22,
pp. 534-41; Chapter 24, pp. 589-90.
8th Week: 19/21 March
(Second Paper due in class, 21 March)
Socialism and the Rise of Social Theory
Marx-Engels Reader, pp. 70-81, 473-500.
Perry, Western Civilization, Chapter 24, pp. 573-89.
9th Week: 2 April: Review
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10th Week: 9/11 April
4 April: *MID-TERM EXAMINATION*
Imperialism: the European Order at Its Zenith
Rudyard Kipling, "The White Man's Burden"(SR)
Marquis de Condorcet, Sketch” (SR)
Perry, Western Civilization, Chapter 25, pp. 609-19.
The Critique of Time and Reason
11th Week: 16/18 April
12th Week: 23/25 April
Friedrich Nietzsche, Use and Abuse of History (entire)
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 1886 (SR)
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist, 1889 (SR)
Perry, Western Civilization, Chapter 26, pp. 622-32, Chapter 27,
pp. 650-71, 674-76; Chapter 28, pp. 678-82 (Note excerpt from
Nietzsche’s Will to Power, 1883-88, p. 703).
Modernism: the End of the Victorian World View?
"Futurist Manifestos," 1909 (Boyer)
Sigmund Freud, “Thoughts for the Times of War and Death,” 1915
(Boyer)
René Magritte, "Ceci n'est pas une pipe," 1928-9 (SR)
René Magritte, "Personnage marchant vers l'horizon," 1928-9 (SR)
Perry, Western Civilization, Chapter 28, pp. 678-702.
(Third Paper due in Class, 25 April)
and Wilson – the Enlightenment Moves East
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The Russian Revolution: Lenin
V.I. Lenin, State and Revolution, 1917 (on reserve)

13th Week: 30 April / 2 May
14th Week: 7/9 May
Joseph Stalin, The Foundations of Leninism, 1924 (Boyer)
Perry, Western Civilization, Chapter 29, pp. 708-43. Chapter 30,
750-579. (Check out picture on p. 708)
Fascism and the Right: Modernist and Anti-Modernist
T.S. Eliot, "The Hollow Men," 1925 (SR)
Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," 1917 (SR)
Eliot, "The Boston Evening Transcript," 1917 (SR)
Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, 1925 (Boyer)
Benito Mussolini, The Doctrine of Fascism, 1932 (Boyer)
Perry, Western Civilization, Chapter 30, pp. 759-83 (Review
Chapter 25, pp. 609-19). Note Profile of Charles Maurras,
pp. 780-81 (hugely influential on T.S. Eliot.
THE POST-WAR ERA
a. Existentialism
15th Week: 14/16 May
Jean-Paul Sartre, "Existentialism is a Humanism," 1945 (Boyer)
Perry, Western Civilization, Chapter 31, pp. 806-08.
b. The Cultures of the Cold War: McCarthy and Zhdanov
Perry, Western Civilization, Chapter 33, pp. 851-69.
THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD
16th Week: ***FINAL EXAMINATION***
Michel Foucault, "The Subject and Power", 1982 (Boyer)
A.H. Williamson, “Images of Blood: Ethnic Identity and the
Destruction of the Left in Europe and America, 1972-1992.”
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