The document provides an overview of an AP European History course, including: 1) The course aims to prepare students for the AP exam and develop skills like critical thinking, writing, and analysis. 2) The curriculum explores six major themes in European history from 1450 to present day. 3) Students will complete essays, multiple choice tests, and a documentary question for each unit to demonstrate their understanding of concepts.

1. AP European History
All test dates are “Cast in Stone” and will not be changed. All essays will be due each Monday when the tardy bell
rings—there will be no exceptions. Essays will be either Free Response or Document Based in style and will be
selected from questions used on previous AP Exams. Any additional assignments will also be due when the tardy
bell rings on the due date. In addition to the assigned supplemental texts you will be expected to keep up with
readings.
Course Purpose
AP European History is the equivalent of a college level survey course and exists as a joint venture between the
College Board, high schools and colleges from both this nation and around the globe. Highly motivated students
will have the opportunity to earn college credit while still in high school by passing the national AP Examination.
The exam will be administered in early May. The curriculum, materials and methods used in this course are of
college level and have been selected to prepare the student for success on this three hour examination. More than
just test preparation, this course will help students develop the necessary thinking, reading, studying and
organizational skills to become successful in their on going educational careers.
Course Objective:
While the course is labeled AP European History, and certainly one aim of this endeavor is to enable students to
understand European intellectual, political, social, economic and cultural history, this course goes beyond the mere
content. Hopefully, students will learn to love history for its sheer joy and along the way develop the skills of:
• organization and time management
• study habits
• essay writing
• discussion
• critical reading and thinking
• comparative analysis
• both inductive and deductive thinking
Course Scope and Themes:
This course will explore the six themes set forth by the College Board as a means of understanding the fabric of
Modern European History from 1450 to the present. These themes include political, diplomatic, social, intellectual,
cultural and economics. Students will be expected to demonstrate why historical events evolved. The course will
begin with the Renaissance and journey onward concluding with a look at the failure of communism and the rise of
global terrorism.
Instructional Procedures:
The course will be built around the lecture/discussion format. Most class periods will include a powerpoint
presentation which have been prepared utilizing maps, charts, cartoons, art and primary sources. Students will be
expected to explain the “why” of history and not merely recite a list of events.
After a few weeks of school most weekends will feature an essay (either an AP FRQ or DBQ question) which will
provide opportunity for the student to demonstrate mastery of the concepts covered during the week. Each unit will
have a FRQ or DBQ. There will be a minimum of 4 DBQ’s and 4 FRQ’s. At the conclusion of each unit students
will take a rigorous timed, multiple-choice test containing 40-60 questions that will cover both current and
previously covered materials. Pop quizzes may be used as a means to keep students focused and prevent
procrastination.
Text
A History of Modern Europe From Renaissance to the Present. John Merriman. 2004
Resources and extra texts used for differing of interpretations
AP European History: An essential coursebook; Ethel Wood
Fordham University Sourcebook will be used for most primary source documents.

2. Western Civilization: Sources, Images, and Interpretations. Dennis Sherman
The Creative Impulse; Dennis Sporre
The Human Record; Andrea and Overfield
Unit 1 Endings and Beginnings (the Middle Ages to the Renaissance)
• The Structure of Medieval Society
• Nation Building
• New Technologies
• Religious Divisions
• Agricultural Economy
• The Black Death
• Banking Practices
• Overseas Exploration
• Was there a Renaissance?
• Italian City States
• Social Structure
• The Condottieri
• Renaissance values: Humanism, Individualism, Secularism, and Rationalism
• The High Renaissance
• Southern vs. Northern Renaissance
• Renaissance Art
• The World of Women
PRIMARY SOURCES: Valla, Castiglione, Machiavelli’s The Prince, Petrarch, Mirandola, de Las Casas
DBQ-Spanish Settlement of the New World
FRQ-Linking the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel to the advancements of humanism
Unit 2 The Reformations and the Wars of Religion
• The Roots and Causes of the Reformation
• The Social background for the Reformation
• Martin Luther
• The spreading of the Reformation: Zwingli, Calvin, Anabaptists, and English Reformation
• The Peace of Augsburg
• The Counter Reformation: Inquisition, Loyola, Council of Trent
• The cultural Reformation Baroque Style, Witch Hunts, Education and Literacy, Women and the
Reformation
• Religious Civil War in France
• Catholics vs. Huguenots in France
• Catherine de Medici
• Henry of Navarre and St. Bartholomew’s Day
• Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu
• The Thirty Year’s War: Origins, War in Bohemia, The Danish Period, The Swedish Intervention, Social
and Economic consequences of the war, The Treaty of Westphalia
PRIMARY SOURCES: Luther (the packet), Calvin, Erasmus, Loyola, Council of Trent, Witchcraft documents, St.
Teresa, St. Bart’s Day, Edict of Nantes, Charles V.
DBQ-Using writing from Luther; was he a Protestant or a good Catholic?
Unit 3 The Atlantic World

3. • Economic changes
• Agricultural Changes
• The Price Revolution
• Depression
• The Rise of Spain
• The results of the Potosi discovery
• Dynastic Marriages (Austrians and Habsburgs)
• The World of Philip II
• The Turkish Problem
• The English Tudors
• The Elizabethan Age: Cultural, Religious, Economic and Social change and political challenges
• The decline of Spain
• The English Stuarts and the Civil War
• The Interregnum (Cromwell)
• The Glorious Revolution
• The Rise of Parliament and the Decline of the Monarchy
• The Intellectual Revolution of John Locke
• Society in the English 17th century
• The Golden Age of the Dutch Republic
• Religious Toleration
• Patronage of the arts
• The Decline of the Dutch
PRIMARY SOURCES: Cortes, Montezuma, Sahagun, Espinosa, de Las Casas, Sepulveda, Henry VIII, Elizabeth I,
James I, Cromwell, Acts of Parliament, Locke ENGLISH HISTORY IN ART – POWER POINT PRODUCTION
FRQ-Describe the effect of the Reformation on the English Civil War
Unit 4 The Age of Absolutism and the Rise of the Intellectual
• Theories of absolutism
• The actual character of Absolutism
• The growth of the state
• Absolutism and Religion
• Czarist autocracy and the Russian Orthodox Church
• French Absolutism: Louis XIV and the culture of Versailles, Mercantilism, An end of toleration
• The Austrian Habsburgs
• The Rise of Prussia (once upon a Frederick)
• The Russian experience: Duchy of Muscovy, Peter the Great
• Eastern European culture
• The Balance of Power and the modern state
• The Intellectual Revolution
• Changing views of the Universe
• Copernicus and Galileo challenge the Church (to what degree?)
• Scientific Anatomy
• What is really up “there”
• The Newtonian world and the loss of security
• The Culture of Science: Science and religion together in the world
• The social ramifications of the Scientific Revolution
PRIMARY SOURCES: Bossuet, Duke of Saint Simon, Frederick William, Colbert, Copernicus, Galileo, Pope John
Paul II,
LOUIS XIV AND THE BAROQUE --- POWER POINT PRODUCTION
Unit 5 The Eighteenth Century

4. • Economic and Social change: The social order, British landed elite
• Hints of the Industrial Revolution to come
• New Agricultural movements
• New Technology
• England’s advantages
• Adam Smith
• Towns and Cities
• The plight of the lower classes
• Controlling Society
• The Enlightened movements: Enlightened ideas, Great Thinkers of the century, The social dimension of
the Enlightenment, The Cultural Enlightenment
• Enlightened Absolutism
• Educational and Religious reforms
• The late Enlightenment
• The Legacy of the Age
• Colonial expansion
• Economic rivalries
• Prussia vs. Austria
• The Seven Years’ War
• The ‘new’ warfare of the 18th century
• Political workings in Great Britain
• The American experience
• The decline of the Ottoman Empire and the partitions of Poland
PRIMARY SOURCES: Smith, Descartes, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Beccaria, Voltaire, (Candide), Frederick
the Great, Catherine the Great
DBQ-The Gin epidemic of England
Unit 6 French Revolution
• The state of the Old Regime
• Financial crisis
• The First Stage of the French Revolution
• Constitutional restraints on the monarch
• The impact of war upon the Revolution
• The Second Stage of the Revolution
• The Terror
• The Final Stage (Napoleon’s beginning)
• The Meaning (contemporary and futuristic) of the Revolution
• Napoleon—Son of the Revolution or Imperial Despot
• Rise to Power
• Consolidation of Power
• The French Empire
• Napoleonic Code
• Overextension and the beginning of the end
• Temporary restoration and Napoleon’s return
• To St. Helena and the aftermath
PRIMARY SOURCES: Abbe de Sieyes, de Gouges, Writings of the Assembly, Robespierre, Desmoulins,
Napoleonic Code, Bonaparte (diary),
THE ART OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION -- POWER POINT PRODUCTION
FRQ-What Napoleon a Child of the Enlightenment?

5. Unit 7 The Restoration, its failure and Middle Class Liberalism
• European restoration
• The Congress of Vienna
• Conservative ideology
• The breakdown of the conservative plan for Europe
• The Bourbon restoration in France
• The Revolution of 1830 (France) Liberal ideas begin to take hold
• Nationalism emerges on the continent
• The unique situation in Britain
• The British Reform Bill of 1832
• What is the “new” Middle Class?
• A different Middle Class in different places
• Middle class culture
• A feminist movement
• A culture of comfort
• Education, Religion and Leisure
• Liberalism and laissez-faire
• From Reason to Emotion. The emergence of Romanticism
PRIMARY SOURCES: Hegel, Metternich, Alexander I, Byron, Shelley, Ricardo, Darwin, J.S. Mill
THE ART OF THE ROMANTIC AGE -- POWER POINT PRODUCTION
• Unit 8 Nineteenth Century Revolutions
• Industrialization background
• Demographic explosion
• The Agricultural base
• New transportation systems
• Different stroke for different folks—Industrialism across the continent
• The impact of the Industrial Revolution
• A new way of life – workers, labor, living conditions, protests, social awareness
• The origins of European socialism
• Utopians to Marx
• The causes of revolution
• Revolutions in the German states
• Revolutions in Central Europe
• Revolutions in Italy
• The French crisis
• The Counter-revolutionary movement
• The Second French Republic
• The legacy of 1848
PRIMARY SOURCES: Smiles, Chateaubriand, Bentham, Owen, Proudhon, Engels, Marx, Mazzini, Industrialism
Packet, Blanc, Tristan, Chadwick
DBQ-The development of the city of Manchester, England
Unit 9 National Unification, Dominant Powers,
• The Italian experience
• The German experience (filling the void in the north)

6. • The Habsburg experience
• The Victorian Age – politics, culture and social changes
• The Crimean War
• The Reform Bill of 1867
• The Czars of Russia
• Nihilists and populists
• France’s Second Empire
• Science and Realism
• Impressionism
• The Franco-Prussian War
• The Paris Commune
• The Second Industrial Revolution
• Changing populations
• Social Changes
• Mass Culture—leisure
• Responses to the changing world (from alcoholism, to philosophy to the avant-garde
PRIMARY SOURCES: O’Connell, Parnell, Garibaldi, Bismarck, Cavour, Pope Leo XIII, Mazzini, Gladstone,
Nietzsche, Freud
AVANT GARDE AND THE NEW ART – POWER POINT PRODUCTION
FRQ-How did the Victorian Age impact Colonialism, Culture, and Democracy?
Unit 10 Nationalism and Imperialism
• The meaning of mass politics
• From Liberalism to Nationalism
• Universal manhood suffrage
• Cartels
• Social Reform
• Women’s Suffrage
• Challenges to the nation state
• Changes and continuities in British political life
• Republican France
• Czarist Russia --Russo-Japanese War
• Italy and the rise of nationalism
• Austria-Hungary and ethic tensions
• Germany under Bismarck and William II
• The meaning of imperialism
• The Scramble for Africa
• Imperialism in Asia
• The realities of imperialism
• Goals and motivations of Imperialism
PRIMARY SOURCES: Pankhurst, Webb, Ferry, William II, Hobson, Kipling, Lenin, Punch.
DBQ-Imperialism in Africa
Unit 11 The Great War
• Visions of War
• The alliance system
• Technology and the new view
• Europe divided
• The Balkan crisis (or the beginnings of war)

7. • Society and Social issues toward war
• The final straw (the real shot heard ‘round the world)
• The changing nature of war
• A true world war
• The final stages: US entry
• Peace plans
• The impact of the war on all levels: Plans, techniques, fronts
PRIMARY SOURCES: Lenin, Wilson, Wilfred Owen, Punch, Knight- Adkin, William II
WORLD WAR I IN ART AND POETRY -- POWER POINT PRODUCTION
DBQ-WWI airplane use
Unit 12 The Russian Revolution and the turbulent 20’s
• The long background and causes of the revolution
• General unrest, failed reforms, and revolution
• Lenin and the Bolsheviks
• The 1905 Revolution
• World War I and revolution
• The October Revolution
• The Civil War
• The creation of the Soviet Union
• Stalin—rise, plans, culture and purges
• The Treaty of Versailles: Plans, dissent, idealism, Point 14
• Settlements in Eastern Europe
• Nationalism vs. colonialism
• Post war politics and economy
• The rise of fascism: Two models
PRIMARY SOURCES: Witte, Lenin, Izvestiia, Stalin, Trotsky, Kerenski, Rasputin Packet.
ART STYLES OF THE 20TH CENTURY -- POWERPOINT PRODUCTION
FRQ-Analyze the use of Marxism by Lenin and Stalin
Unit 13 Depression, Dictatorship and Disaster (WWII)
• The Great Depression
• Fascist Movements
• The French Popular Front
• Nazism
• Holocaust
• The Spanish Civil War
• Steps to the outbreak of World War II
• The war in Europe begins
• Global War—Total War
• Hitlers’s “New European Order”
• Dissent
• The turning of the tide
• Allied Victory: Yalta
• VE and VJ Day
• The war’s end and the meaning of it all

8. PRIMARY SOURCES: Nitti, Mussolini, Hitler, Nuernberg Trials, Stalin, Linke, Kellogg-Briand Pact,
Chamberlain, Churchill, Hawes, Goering, Clinton, Truman
FRQ-How did the Treaty of Versailles fail to solve the problems of WWI?
Unit 14 The Post War World and the Modern Era
• Europe at the end of the war
• The Potsdam Settlement
• The UN and Cold War Alliances
• Economic and social unrest
• Political realignment (Truman doctrine and Marshall Plan)
• Eastern Europe in Soviet hands
• The Labor Party in Britain
• The new French Republic (again)
• Politics in the Soviet Union
• Decolonization
• Economic and Social changes
• The Cold War; Korea
• Superpower tension
• Sino-Soviet competition
• Politics in a changing world
• Growth of Democracy
• Decline of Religion
• The European Community and the European Union
• Economic growth
• Oil and global economy
• Threats to Peace: Weapons, terrorism, and religious and ethnic divisions
• The fall of communism: Prague Spring, Brezhnev Doctrine, Gorbachev era (glasnost and perestroika)
• Poland and Hungary
• Fall of the Wall
• The fall of the Soviet Union
• On toward a modern world
• Entrance into the 21st century
• Nuclear Proliferation in Korea and Iran
• Global War on terror
• Global Warming and climate change
• The role of the US in the new world economy and superpower structure
PRIMARY SOURCES: Beauvoir, Friedan, Truman, Khrushchev, Solzhenitsyn, Gorbachev, Putin, Sartre,
Churchill, Walesa, Kennedy. Current CNN news stories on terrorism and Nuclear arms
FRQ- Describe the lasting effects of the cold war in relation to events in the early 21st century. Including China,
Korea, Iran, and Iraq
Units of Study
Each unit of study will consist of lecture covering the variety of materials including the texts. Students will spend
days each unit writing analysis and questions for discussion of primary source material. Each unit will include one
DBQ or FRQ essay. Most large units will include 2 essays. All tests will be on www.quia.com/web.
Research Assignment
Each student will complete a research paper over the topic of their choice. The paper will be assigned after
Christmas and will reflect a historical problem of the past related to the world today. Students must present material
that set the stage for the modern world while putting the event into the context of the period in which they occurred.