Learning outcomes

The integrated course intends to furnish the essential elements for understanding the reality and the dynamics of European Ancien Régime societies (16th-18th centuries) by way of a series of lectures dedicated to the main institutional and social aspects of the modern world.

Program

General part (1st modulo): Introduction to the Early Modern European history
Monographic part (2nd modulo): Europe and the New World
Exam requirements: a) basic knowledge of European history between 1453 1815; b) the capacity to interpret the main moments of economic, social, political-institutional, and cultural transformation; c) the capacity to analyze and contextualize a single historical document; d) the elaboration of a research topic in the social history of the early modern period. The introductive component, regarding the general history of early modern Europe (15th-18th centuries), will be accompanied by a more systematic component which intends to provide the student with the instruments and the methods necessary for analyzing and understanding the cultural, economic, and political consequences of the discovery of the Americas.

Exam Reading
One manual of the following:
M. Rosa, M. Verga, Storia dell’età moderna (1450-1815), Milano, Bruno Mondadori, 1998; R. Ago, V. Vidotto, Storia moderna, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2003; G. Gullino, G. Muto, E. Stumpo, Il mondo moderno. Manuale di storia per l’Università, Bologna, Monduzzi, 2007.

Two volumes from the following (chosen from different groups):

I.
M. Livi Bacci, Eldorado nel pantano. Oro, schiavi e anime tra le Ande e l’Amazzonia, Bologna, il Mulino, 2008
M. Livi Bacci, Conquista. La distruzione degli Indios americani, Bologna, il Mulino, 2005
F. Cantù, La conquista spirituale. Studi sull'evangelizzazione del Nuovo Mondo, Roma, Viella, 2007.
I. Luzzana Caraci, «Per lasciare di me qualche fama». Vita e viaggi di Amerigo Vespucci, Roma, Viella, 2007
F.-A. Felipe, Amerigo. La vita avventurosa dell'uomo che ha dato il nome all'America, Milano, Mondadori, 2009.

II.
C. Bernand - S. Gruzinski, Dell'idolatria. Un'archeologia delle scienze religiose, Torino, Einaudi, 1995 (1st ed.1988)
A. Padgen, Signori del mondo. Ideologie dell'impero in Spagna, Gran Bretagna e Francia, 1500-1800, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2005 (1st ed.1995).
S. Todorov, La conquista dell’America. Il problema dell’altro, Torino, Einaudi, 1992 (1st ed. 1982)

Examination Methods