CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

Academic Year 2024/2025 - Teacher: GIANCARLO POIDOMANI

Expected Learning Outcomes

At the end of the course students should have a precise idea of the fundamental characteristics of the contemporary age, having acquired awareness of the main historical events and processes of the last two centuries.

Course Structure

The lectures will be held face to face. In addition to the traditional frontal lesson, we will try to adopt the methodology of the new university teaching based on learning by doing, the flipped classroom, the preparation of individual papers and powerpoints, study groups, etc.

Required Prerequisites

General knowledge of the history of the last two centuries

Attendance of Lessons

Attending students will be able to access intermediate tests on a part of the program and curricular credits

Detailed Course Content

Introduction to contemporary history

The political and economic revolutions of the 19th century

Nations and nationalisms

The construction of the Italian state

Imperialism and colonialism

The Great War

Europe between two wars

The Bolshevik Revolution and Stalinism

Fascism

The crisis of '29 and the New Deal

Nazism

The Spanish Civil War

The Second World War

War on civilians: the war of aerial bombardment on the populations (Sicily 1940-1943)

The Holocaust

The Resistance

The Cold War

The Italian Republic

Decolonization

The 60s: music, cinema, culture

The years of the crisis: from Fordism to Toyotaism

'68 and the "years of lead"

The 80s and the ebb

The collapse of the USSR

Tangentopoli and the “second Italian republic”

Conflicts in the Middle East

Islamic terrorism

Globalization and the “single thought”

The third industrial revolution: from analogue to digital reality

The new protagonists

Textbook Information

Author	Title	Publisher	Year	ISBN
Giovanni Sabbatucci e Vittorio Vidotto	Il mondo contemporaneo	Laterza	2019	9788858135730
Giancarlo Poidomani	Un inglese a Roma: L'ambasciatore britannico Sir James Rennell Rodd e l'Italia (1858-1941)	Franco Angeli	2020	8891791008
	G. Poidomani, Lezioni di Storia contemporanea (per i frequentanti e in alternativa al Sabbatucci-Vidotto)

Learning Assessment

Learning Assessment Procedures

Attending students will be able to access intermediate assessments (tests, papers, powerpoints) on a part of the programme. The final exam will be an oral interview.

Examples of frequently asked questions and / or exercises

The industrial revolutions

The political revolutions

Imperialism and colonialism

The construction of national states

The great war

The Bolshevik Revolution

Totalitarianisms: Fascism, Nazism, Stalinism

The crisis between the two wars

The crisis of 29 and the New Deal

Fascist Italy

The Spanish Civil War

The Second World War

War to civilians: bombs over cities

The Cold War

Decolonization

The Arab-Israeli conflict

The Italian Republic from its origins to today

The crisis of the 70s

Neoliberalism

The globalization

Islamic terrorism

The collapse of the USSR

Degree Course in

History, Politics and International Relations