More than just a history of Western civilization, Foundations of Western Civilization II is a course about the meaning of civilization itself. Taught by Professor Robert Bucholz, it promises profound rewards for students of history at every level, a grand narrative of the past five centuries-of social progress, political evolution, industrialization, and other economic factors-within a coherent context for events and trends, and clarifies the legacies those centuries have bequeathed us.
Foundations of Western Civilization II: A History of the Modern Western World
Expand your understanding into the depth and breadth of an unprecedented period in world history with an expert historian as your guide.
Rated 5 out of
5
by
James Kotow from
Excellent, Excellent and Excellent
The presenter did such a great job I just had to read the guide book along with the lessons. A perfect match for Western Civilization I.
Date published: 2024-09-25
Rated 3 out of
5
by
IoannesGermanus from
First course I was not 100% satisfied
Generally the course was very informative to me, a newcomer in history studies. Unfortunately I early sensed a left-leaning anti-conservative bias, not a strong one, but nethertheless identifiable, which I found rather uncomfortable. I am also - like others - of the opinion, that Thomas Noble mad a better job in giving a well rounded objective picture of the subject. Finally I have to say, that - having finished to course - in my opinion there is a lack of wisdom in Professor Buchholtz final analysis.
Date published: 2024-05-26
Rated 5 out of
5
by
JPM54 from
Fantastic
The material covered in this course is very comprehensive as reflected in the number of lectures. Professor Bucholz delivers each topic with passion and makes the course that much more enjoyable and interesting. I thoroughly enjoyed the course and learned quite a bit from it.
Date published: 2024-04-08
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Dasha from
Amazingly captivating lectures
I never liked history lessons but this series left me wanting more, more of the superb storytelling by prof B…
Date published: 2024-01-05
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Larspeart from
Outstanding modern perspective! Well worth it.
This s is a terrific example of “right update, right time, and (in particular) right teacher. Professor Bucholz is a passionate, enthusiastic, and wonderfully approachable scholar who outlines wonderfully new research in a talented manner that conveys, but also creates wonderful opportunities to think, ponder, and seek more.
Outstandingly worth it. Highly recommend.
Date published: 2023-10-19
Rated 4 out of
5
by
Jet Stream from
Overall an excellent survey of Modern History
Professor Bucholz is an excellent lecturer who keeps your attention and interest. I have his courses about English History and London as well. To me the only downside is his American bias in 20th century events.
Date published: 2023-08-09
Rated 5 out of
5
by
cb4usc from
Excellent Overview Course
I thoroughly enjoyed Dr. Bucholz's course. Obviously with such a broad subject matter, in many instances the treatment of the subject was pretty much at the surface level. However, the course provided an excellent overview of so much of Western civilization. I very much enjoyed his comments about what constitutes "civilization" and how we in America match up against his definition. Man's inhumanity to man continues and where is the "civilization."
Date published: 2023-07-28
Rated 5 out of
5
by
ThreeLetterNickname from
Charming instructor Lots of info
A thorough review of our culture and how it formed. Could use an update.
Date published: 2023-02-17
Overview
About
Dr. Robert Bucholz is Professor of History at Loyola University Chicago, where he has taught since 1988. He earned his B.A. in History from Cornell University and his D.Phil. in Modern History from Oxford University. Before joining the faculty at Loyola University, Professor Bucholz taught at numerous universities, including Cornell University; California State University, Long Beach; and Loyola, Marymount University. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Among Professor Bucholz's numerous teaching awards are the Sujack Award for Teaching Excellence, the highest such award presented by the Loyola College of Arts and Sciences. On two occasions, he received the Honors Program Faculty Member of the Year Award. At Loyola University, Professor Bucholz teaches courses on Early Modern London, Early Modern England, and English Social History. He is the author or coauthor of books on English history, including Early Modern England: A Narrative History and The Augustan Court: Queen Anne and the Decline of Court Culture. Professor Bucholz is also the project director of the Database of Court Officers, which contains the career facts of every person who served in the British royal household from the Restoration to the death of Queen Victoria.
Trailer
01: The Importance of the West
This lecture is an overview of the past 500 years of European history and culture—the system of government, economic structures, science and technology, and much of the literature, art, and music.
32 min
02: Geography Is Destiny
We look at how the physical realities of Europe and the Atlantic world—its geography and climate—shaped its destiny by affecting patterns of population, immigration, diplomacy, war, and political and cultural divisions.
31 min
03: Culture Is Destiny
The "Great Chain of Being" assumed an ordered, hierarchical universe in which humans—like angels, animals, plants, and even stones—were placed in a particular rank by God. As Europe emerges from the Middle Ages, that concept is challenged and strained by forces in politics, society, religion, and culture.
30 min
04: Renaissance Humanism—1350–1650
A revived interest in the literary and historical works of classical Greece and Rome unleashes new ideas about the qualifications of a gentleman, the role of women, and the expectations of a prince—with a resulting emphasis on textual accuracy, literacy, education, and the human and practical.
31 min
05: Renaissance Princes—1450–1600
The Humanist emphasis dovetails with the rise of a new kind of ruler, with expanding powers in every area of life and seeking to pay for their ambitions by claiming trade routes to the Far East and the Americas.
31 min
06: The New World & the Old—1400–1650
The exploration and exploitation of Africa and Asia by the Portuguese, and of the Americas by first the Spanish, then the French and English, change the economies, cultures, and political makeup of these regions forever.
31 min
07: The Protestant Reformation—1500–22
The rise of literacy and the development of the printing press make possible the dissemination of powerful new ideas—particularly those of Augustinian priest and reformer Martin Luther.
31 min
08: The Wars of Religion—1523–1648
The Reformation splits Europe into opposing camps, producing a series of bloodbaths culminating in the Thirty Years' War, the near-bankruptcy of Spain, and the eventual conviction that perhaps religious matters are best settled peacefully.
31 min
09: Rational & Scientific Revolutions—1450–1650
Beginning with Copernicus in the 15th century, European thinkers such as Galileo, Kepler, Bacon, and Newton question old views on how the world works, pioneering the Scientific Method.
30 min
10: French Absolutism—1589–1715
Following the disasters of the Wars of Religion, the monarchies of Europe experience a crisis of authority. The French response—ultimately perfected by Louis XIV—of an absolutism that makes the king a virtual god on Earth becomes an object of envy and imitation for nearly every monarchy on the continent.
31 min
11: English Constitutionalism—1603–49
The Stuart monarchs of England struggle with Parliament and their own foibles and extravagance. The resulting English Civil Wars culminate in the trial and execution of King Charles I in 1649.
31 min
12: English Constitutionalism—1649–89
After the execution of Charles I, England experiments with a republic, a protectorate, and even, once again, a semi-absolutist monarchy, before the Glorious Revolution sets an example of an alternative, more democratic, form of government for Europe and the Americas.
30 min
13: War, Trade, Empire—1688–1702
The Revolution of 1688–89 precipitates a series of general European wars pitting the French against the British and Dutch for mastery in Europe and control of trade with colonies in America and Asia.
31 min
14: War, Trade, Empire—1702–14
Building on its military success—powered by innovative deficit financing—Britain becomes the most prosperous trading nation in Europe, with much of the foundation of that prosperity built on the misery of Africans forced into the Triangular Atlantic trade in sugar, tobacco, and African slaves.
30 min
15: War, Trade, Empire—1714–63
Most of Europe, and France in particular, emerges from two decades of warfare exhausted financially and militarily, but the peace is temporary. A new round of conflicts leaves Britain the undisputed master of the Canadian and Eastern seaboards of North America.
31 min
16: Life Under the Ancien Régime—1689–1789
Thanks to commercial and financial revolutions, the middling orders of merchants and professionals are growing in numbers, wealth, and political savvy—and will be key to the coming revolution in European social and economic relations.
31 min
17: Enlightenment & Despotism
European thinkers such as Voltaire, Diderot, Montesquieu, and Rousseau expand the ideas of Locke and others in a movement that comes to be known as the Enlightenment. When even enlightened monarchs fail to change their societies, some Europeans begin to consider an alternative: revolution.
31 min
18: The American Revolution
The American Revolution becomes a fight over Enlightenment ideas. The new republic and its constitution represent the first comprehensive attempt to put those ideas into practice and become a model and inspiration to Europeans who want reform.
31 min
19: The French Revolution—1789–92
Nearly bankrupted by its participation in the American Revolution, and unable to achieve reform under its existing system, France becomes a constitutional monarchy, with aristocratic privilege abolished and a Declaration of the Rights of Man set forth. But will Louis XVI accept his reduced role?
31 min
20: The French Revolution—1792–1803
As the king—urged on by monarchs elsewhere—refuses that new role, the Revolution turns violent, unleashing a Reign of Terror that eventually brings about war with virtually every other monarchy in Europe, a new nationalism, and the rule of Napoleon Bonaparte.
30 min
21: The Napoleonic Empire—1803–15
Despite a succession of brilliant victories, Napoleon's efforts to conquer Britain and force the nations of Europe into his system meet with eventual defeat. Nevertheless, the sense of nationalism spread by France has changed the political climate, as the Congress of Vienna learns in attempting to restore the Bourbon monarchy.
30 min
22: Beginnings of Industrialization—1760–1850
While several factors make Europe the logical place for industrialization to begin, it is Britain's advantages—financial, political, and social—that makes it the best-suited country to exploit those conditions. The result is a host of brilliant inventors, financiers, and managers who bring about the first Industrial Revolution.
30 min
23: Consequences of Industrialization—1760–1850
The consequences of the first Industrial Revolution do more to create today's world than any other development studied in this course. But its innovations have a dark side that draws multiple responses from European intellectuals—which we examine in the next three lectures.
30 min
24: The Liberal Response—1776–1861
The appalling conditions of life and work for the working class produce a series of intellectual and political reactions in Western Europe, with the best routes to reform the subject of wide-ranging debate among liberal thinkers.
31 min
25: The Romantic Response—1789–1870
In the face of half-hearted or partial solutions to the problems of the Industrial Revolution, Romantic writers such as Wordsworth, Blake, and Shelley urge revolution, forever altering how Europeans and, later, Americans, perceive the world.
31 min
26: The Socialist Response—1813–1905
The urgings of early Socialists for voluntarily sharing wealth eventually give way to the demands of Marx and Engels for more radical action. Though Marx's critique is influential, several factors prevent industrial Europe from ever experiencing the revolution for which he calls.
31 min
27: Descent of Man; Rise of Woman—1830–90
Industrialization is the material product of an age of scientific advance. But science, with its emphasis on empirical evidence, reason, and experimentation, also revolutionizes how Europeans think, as one after another, fundamental beliefs and traditions are challenged.
31 min
28: Nationalism—1815–48
The Industrial Revolution is primarily a northern and western European phenomenon. Elsewhere, the big issue is nationalism, and the failure of the Congress of Vienna to take nationalism and liberalism into account leads to revolutions across Europe throughout the next 30 years.
30 min
29: Nationalism—1848–71
Despite the rise of nationalism on the continent, the balance of European power remains stable. It is not until the unification of Germany at the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 that this fragile balance is affected for generations to come.
30 min
30: Imperial Rivalry—1870–1914
The European powers, as well as the United States, seek new empires overseas. The resulting competition for colonies breeds conflict between nations that otherwise have no reason to fight, a factor that in the long run contributes to World War I.
31 min
31: Industrial Rivalry—1870–1914
The second Industrial Revolution creates, for most people, a cornucopia of opportunities and new products. Internationally, two new industrial giants arise to challenge Great Britain, and tensions with one help to frame World War I.
30 min
32: The Alliance System—1872–1914
A series of interlocking treaties devised by Otto von Bismarck to ease conditions in the Balkans prevents nationalistic and economic pressures from exploding into full-scale European war, but new tensions eventually grow to overwhelm it.
30 min
33: Decadence & Malaise—circa 1900
The start of the Great War is greeted by cheering crowds and floods of volunteering men all over Europe. For some the reasons involve nationalism and patriotism; for others it's a chance to flee a stagnant economy or find answers for a society and culture in flux.
30 min
34: The Great War Begins—1914–16
The rapid mobilization of Russia and the determined resistance of France ruin Germany's plans for quick victory. The new inventions of the second Industrial Revolution give the defensive side all the advantages, and the armies of Europe are locked into a bloody stalemate of trench warfare.
30 min
35: Breaking the Deadlock—1915–17
Both sides try in vain to break the deadlock. Germany's sinking of merchant ships inevitably draws America into the war. In 1917, the Germans play another card as they attempt to foment revolution in Russia.
31 min
36: The Russian Revolution—1917–22
The most backward and repressive nation in Europe, terribly overmatched in the war, experiences the overthrow of both its czar and the republican government that succeeds him before suing for peace with Germany and establishing the world's first Communist government.
31 min
37: The End of the War—1917–22
Its final effort to win the war thwarted, and facing food and fuel shortages, Germany finally agrees to an armistice. The ensuing peace conference produces a treaty that will weaken the German economy and breed tremendous resentment.
31 min
38: Recovery & Depression in the West—1919–36
The world economy only slowly recovers from the Great War. America emerges as both Europe's creditor and the world's wealthiest nation, with the collapse of the stock market having a disastrous ripple effect.
30 min
39: Totalitarian Russia—1918–39
Lenin's early experiments with forced collectivization at home and revolution abroad are disastrous for the Soviet Union's domestic and foreign policy and even worse for its people. When Lenin dies, a vicious power struggle results in the rise of Josef Stalin.
30 min
40: Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany—1922–36
The disillusionment in Europe with democracy and, later, capitalism following the Great War and the Great Depression make alternatives seem reasonable. Mussolini and Hitler seize power and create states that boast full employment—at a price.
30 min
41: The Holocaust—1933–45
The Nazi regime embarks on the extermination of Jews, Slavs, homosexuals, and other "undesirables" in Europe. The lecture concludes with a meditation on the meaning of this crime and its implications for the concept of Western civilization.
31 min
42: The Failure of Diplomacy—1935–39
In both the Far East and Europe, aggression brings the world closer to war. Following its earlier invasion of Manchuria with an invasion of the rest of northern China in 1937, Japan has joined the Axis powers, and Hitler marches a rearmed Germany into the Rhineland, Austria, and then Czechoslovakia.
31 min
43: World War II—1939–42
This first lecture on World War II begins with Hitler's Blitzkrieg invasion of Poland and continues until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and Hitler's decision to declare war on the United States.
30 min
44: World War II—1942–45
From 1942 on, the sheer size of the Soviet Union and its army, combined with the industrial might of the United States, guarantee an Allied victory—but the cost will be very high.
31 min
45: American Hegemony, Soviet Challenge—1945–75
The two undisputed superpowers threaten each other with nuclear arsenals and fight proxy wars for global dominance. Americans use their leadership and wealth to establish democracies in Germany and Italy and to restore Western European economies through the Marshall Plan. This lecture doesn't address the end of the Cold War.
30 min
46: Rebuilding Europe—1945–85
The great nations of Europe are forced to re-evaluate their positions. Gradually, often reluctantly, and sometimes violently, they divest themselves of overseas colonies, accommodate themselves to a precarious existence between the superpowers, and concentrate on rebuilding their economies.
30 min
47: The New Europe—1985–2001
After the fall of the Soviet Union, the nations of Europe form a European Union with an aim to reshape the politics and economics of the region and the world, even as it deals with many new challenges.
30 min
48: The Meaning of Western Civilization
At the dawn of the 21st century, the European legacy of democracy, capitalism, and relative freedom for the individual is challenged by internal and external movements, including the rise of religious fundamentalism, international terrorism, tensions over immigration, and integration into a global economy. Will European ideals survive?
32 min
