Since the nineteenth century, Eastern Europe has undergone one of the most breathtaking political and socioeconomic transformations. Imperial ambitions, contentious politics of fin de siècle European nationalisms, the destructiveness of two world wars, experiments with socialism, political revolutions, transitions to capitalist democracy, and European integration (re)shaped the lives of hundreds of millions of people across twenty countries. Moreover, the region continues influencing global politics, as a site of the major geopolitical contestation between the “West” and its challengers. Contextualized in regional history since 1848, and through immersive case study in contemporary Romania, this course explores a wide array of social, political, economic, and cultural processes across local, national, regional, and global levels of analysis.
