European History Study Library.

Italian Renaissance: humanism, civic humanism, and patronage of the arts · Northern Renaissance: Christian humanism, Erasmus, Thomas More · Renaissance art and architecture (Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael) · New Monarchies and centralization of royal power · Portuguese exploration and the sea route to Asia (Prince Henry, Vasco da Gama) · Spanish exploration: Columbus and the Caribbean · The Columbian Exchange: biological and demographic consequences · Impact of the printing press (Gutenberg) on literacy and religious reform · European encounters with the Americas, Africa, and Asia

Luther and the Protestant Reformation: 95 Theses, justification by faith, Diet of Worms · Lutheranism: spread in the Holy Roman Empire, role of German princes · Calvinism: predestination, theocratic governance in Geneva · Anabaptists and radical reform movements · English Reformation: Henry VIII, Act of Supremacy, break with Rome · Catholic/Counter-Reformation: Council of Trent, Jesuit order (Ignatius of Loyola) · French Wars of Religion: Huguenots, St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, Edict of Nantes · Thirty Years' War: causes, phases (Bohemian, Danish, Swedish, French), devastation · Peace of Westphalia (1648): state sovereignty, religious settlement, end of religious wars

French absolute monarchy: Louis XIV, Versailles as a political tool, intendant system · Mercantilism and Colbert's economic policies under Louis XIV · English Civil War: causes, Parliament vs. Crown, execution of Charles I · The Interregnum and Cromwell's Commonwealth · The Glorious Revolution (1688): William and Mary, limited monarchy · English Bill of Rights (1689) and John Locke's political theory · Dutch Republic: republicanism, commercial dominance, religious toleration · Peter the Great: Westernization of Russia, modernization of the military and bureaucracy · War of Spanish Succession and the balance-of-power principle

Scientific Revolution: heliocentrism (Copernicus, Galileo), Newtonian mechanics · Scientific method: inductive reasoning (Francis Bacon), deductive reasoning (René Descartes) · Enlightenment origins: challenge to religious authority, natural law, reason · Key Enlightenment thinkers: Locke (natural rights), Voltaire (religious tolerance), Montesquieu (separation of powers), Rousseau (general will, social contract), Wollstonecraft (women's rights) · The public sphere: salons, coffeehouses, the philosophes, the Encyclopédie (Diderot) · Enlightened Absolutism: Frederick the Great of Prussia, Catherine the Great of Russia, Joseph II of Austria · Application of Enlightenment ideals to governance: legal reform, religious tolerance, serfdom debates · Tension between Enlightenment reform and maintenance of absolutist power

Causes of the French Revolution: fiscal crisis, Estates-General, Enlightenment ideas, social inequality · Phases of the Revolution: constitutional monarchy (1789–1792), radical/Jacobin phase and the Terror (1793–1794), Thermidorian Reaction · Key revolutionary events: storming of the Bastille, Declaration of the Rights of Man, Women's March on Versailles · Napoleon Bonaparte: rise to power, First Consul, Emperor · Napoleonic reforms: Napoleonic Code, concordat with the Church, meritocratic bureaucracy, public education · Napoleonic Wars: Continental System, Grand Army, invasion of Russia, defeat and exile · Congress of Vienna (1814–1815): balance of power, legitimacy, Concert of Europe · Conservatism vs. liberalism as ideological responses to the Revolution · Nationalism as an emergent force unleashed by revolutionary and Napoleonic armies

Origins of industrialization in Britain: natural resources, capital, enclosure movement, canal and rail infrastructure · Spread of industrialization to the European continent (Belgium, France, Germany) · Urbanization: growth of industrial cities, living conditions, public health crises · Emergence of the working class (proletariat) and bourgeoisie · Early labor movements: Luddism, trade unions, Factory Acts · Utopian socialism: Robert Owen, Saint-Simon, Fourier · Marxism: Communist Manifesto (1848), class struggle, historical materialism, critique of capitalism · Second Industrial Revolution: steel, chemicals, electricity, petroleum (post-1850) · Global economic integration and its social consequences

Ideological spectrum: conservatism (Burke, Metternich), liberalism (Mill, free trade), nationalism · Concert of Europe and Metternich's conservative order after 1815 · The Revolutions of 1848: liberal-nationalist uprisings across Europe, causes, and failures · Conservative nationalism: Bismarck's Realpolitik and German unification (1871) · Italian unification (Risorgimento): Cavour, Garibaldi, Victor Emmanuel II · Romanticism as a cultural movement: Rousseau's influence, nationalism in art and music · Realism in literature and art: response to Romanticism, social critique · Social Darwinism and its application to imperialism and social policy · New imperialism: European partition of Africa (Berlin Conference), colonization of Asia · Women's suffrage and early feminist movements

World War I: alliance system, assassination of Franz Ferdinand, trench warfare, total war, home front mobilization · WWI outcomes: Treaty of Versailles (1919), war guilt clause, reparations, territorial changes · Russian Revolution: February and October Revolutions (1917), Lenin and Bolshevism, civil war · Stalinist Soviet Union: collectivization, Five-Year Plans, purges, totalitarianism · Rise of fascism: Mussolini and Italian Fascism, Hitler and National Socialism (Nazism), Weimar Republic's collapse · The Great Depression and its political consequences in Europe · Spanish Civil War: Franco, International Brigades, ideological battleground · World War II: appeasement, invasion of Poland, Holocaust (genocide, concentration camps), Allied victory · Collaboration and resistance in occupied Europe

Cold War origins: Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, Berlin Blockade, NATO and Warsaw Pact · Soviet consolidation of Eastern Europe: satellite states, Iron Curtain · Decolonization: independence movements in Asia and Africa, European retreat from empire · European integration: formation of the EEC, Maastricht Treaty, creation of the EU and the euro · The 1968 upheavals: student revolts in France and Czechoslovakia (Prague Spring) · Détente and nuclear arms competition · Thatcherism and Reaganism: neoliberal economic policies, welfare state retrenchment · Fall of communism (1989): Solidarity in Poland, Berlin Wall, collapse of Soviet satellites · Soviet dissolution (1991) and post-Cold War Europe · Contemporary challenges: immigration, European populism, Eurozone crisis