Course Code: HIST 3500
Academic Year: 2024-2025
No understanding of the 20th century is complete without an awareness of the staggering crimes against humanity perpetrated by Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin in the names of Nazism and Communism. This course examines the social, cultural, political, economic, ideological, and psychological conditions that produced Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, and how the policies of these two regimes resulted in the deaths of millions through war, famine, concentration camps, and death factories. The course will place special emphasis on the victims of these regimes, examining their voices and experiences. Through historical studies, political theory, and survivor accounts, this course raises fundamental questions about politics, ideology, terror, genocide, and mass murder, as well as the difficult issues that surround complicity and guilt. It will also consider what lessons this history holds for us today, and examine what types of politics are best for minimizing inhumanity and maximizing human flourishing.