Foundations of Western Civilization II: A History of the Modern Western World

Taught by Robert Bucholz
Loyola University of Chicago D.Phil., Oxford University

As Americans, we are rooted in different soils, in different lands. We draw on
different philosophies and religions to sustain us. And we earn our livings in
different ways. But no matter what our differences, there is one bond we share,
says Professor Robert Bucholz.

"Wherever we come from, whatever we believe, and however we make a living,
Americans are all to a greater or lesser extent inhabitants of a world shaped
by the last five centuries of Western history and culture."

Moreover, he says, to understand how we came to be what we are, we must look
to Western Europe, the land whose history from the 16th century to today "has,
arguably, done more to shape [our] world than any other."

But how did that happen?

How did the decentralized agrarian principalities of medieval Europe become
great industrial nation-states? How and why did absolutism rise and then yield
to democratic liberalism? How did Western science and technology create the
first industrialized economies and reduce the power of superstition and disease?

Why did Europe produce two great antagonistic economic systems, capitalism and
Communism? Why did Westerners conquer half the world only to lose it?

And overall, has the legacy handed down to us been positive or negative?

Foundations of Western Civilization II: The History of the Modern Western World
explores all of these questions and many others. But Professor Bucholz's course
is more than just a history of Western civilization?it is a course about the
meaning of civilization itself. As such, it promises profound rewards for
students of history at every level, a grand narrative of the past five centuries
that not only offers a coherent context for the events and trends with which you
may already be familiar, but also makes clear the nature of the legacies those
centuries have bequeathed to us.

Download File Size:336.27 MB

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