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Contemporary History of Europe (from 1945)

Code: 106182 ECTS Credits: 6
2025/2026
Degree Type Year
Contemporary History, Politics and Economics FB 1

Contact

Name:
Gennadi Kneper
Email:
gennadi.kneper@uab.cat

Teachers

Gennadi Kneper

Teaching groups languages

You can view this information at the end of this document.


Prerequisites

  • A B2 level of English of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages is required, although no specific test of English proficiency level is held to access the degree.

 

Objectives and Contextualisation

In this subject, students will have the opportunity to learn about and analyze European history from 1945 to the present. The subject covers fundamental historical events, as well as social and cultural relations, including the gender perspective, between the countries of the continent. It includes lectures, reading historical texts, learning to research historical knowledge, writing reviews, and drafting analytical papers. All activity deadlines are indicated in the subject's schedule and must be strictly adhered to.


Competences

  • Assess the social, economic and environmental impact when acting in this field of knowledge.
  • Distinguish between and analyse the type of relations that have been established over the last century among the different social, political and economic agents on national, regional and international frameworks.
  • Distinguish between governmental decision-making systems in different social and political contexts from the mid-twentieth century to the present day in state-, substate and suprastate frameworks.
  • Explain and summarise knowledge acquired in English language at an advanced level.
  • Identify the role in the present of the different social memories referring to conflictive pasts, differentiating between the concepts of history and memory.
  • Manage and apply data to solve problems.
  • Recognise and contextualise texts referring to recent contemporary history.
  • Students must be capable of communicating information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialised and non-specialised audiences.
  • Students must develop the necessary learning skills to undertake further training with a high degree of autonomy.
  • Work cooperatively in multidisciplinary and multicultural teams implementing new projects.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Analysing the various historiographical perspectives in the different periods of history.
  2. Applying the necessary abilities in order to assess and spread historical knowledge.
  3. Assessing and critically solving the historiographical problems of war studies.
  4. Be familiar with the basic bibliography on historical evolution of governmental systems in the countries of reference for the subject.
  5. Capacity to continue future learning independently, acquiring further knowledge and exploring new areas of knowledge.
  6. Communicating in your mother tongue or other language both in oral and written form by using specific terminology and techniques of Historiography.
  7. Demonstrate capacity to adapt to changing environments.
  8. Demonstrate initiative and work independently when required.
  9. Demonstrate motivation regarding the quality of the work performed and sensitivity regarding the consequences on the environment and society.
  10. Developing the ability of historical analysis and synthesis.
  11. Distinguishing the relation between historiographical theory and practice.
  12. Engaging in debates about historical facts respecting the other participants' opinions.
  13. Express an opinion based on the nature, perspective and rigour of texts referring to the course content.
  14. Identifying the main and secondary ideas and expressing them with linguistic correctness.
  15. Know different cases of memories in conflict between different places in different states.
  16. Know different cases of memories in conflict between different places in the same state.
  17. Make a brief comparison of national and/or regional cases within the same international framework.
  18. Make a critical comparison of the evolution of the large regional areas that are covered in the subject.
  19. Make comparisons between the evolution of governmental systems within a supranational regional area.
  20. Make comparisons between the levels of regional autonomy within a state.
  21. Organise work in relation to good time management and planning.
  22. Recognising and implementing the following teamwork skills: commitment to teamwork, habit of cooperation, ability to participate in the problem solving processes.
  23. Select and generate the information necessary for each problem, analyse it and take decisions based on that information.
  24. Understand regional specificities within states.
  25. Value ethical commitment in professional practice.
  26. Work in teams respecting all points of view. Use the specific vocabulary of history correctly.

Content

  1. Europe as a Narrative and a Reality
  2. Post-war Europe: Politics, Economy, Gender and Society
  3. The Politics of European Unification
  4. The Dismantling of the Colonial Empires and its Impact on Europe 
  5. Europe behind the Iron Curtain
  6. 1968 and the Consequences: Social and Cultural Change in Post-war Europe
  7. A Changing Continent: From Social Democracy to Neoliberalism
  8. The Central and Eastern European Revolutions, 1989-1991
  9. The 1990s: Europe United?
  10. The New Millennium: New Challenges for Europe

Activities and Methodology

Title Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Type: Directed      
Debates and discussions 6 0.24 1, 2, 6, 10, 13, 14, 12, 22, 26, 25
Lectures 45 1.8 2, 3, 18, 17, 24, 15, 16, 7, 10, 4, 19, 20, 13, 12
Reading and understanding historical texts. 5 0.2 1, 5, 18, 17, 10, 11, 4, 19, 20, 14
Type: Supervised      
Conducting reviews and drafting analytical papers 24 0.96 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 9, 21, 23, 25
Learning to compile historical information 8 0.32 1, 2, 7, 8, 10, 4, 14, 21, 23
Type: Autonomous      
Individual study 30 1.2 3, 5, 18, 17, 24, 15, 16, 8, 11, 4, 19, 20, 21, 23

- Lectures.

- Debates and discussions.

- Reading and understanding historical texts.

- Learning to compile historical information.

- Conducting reviews and drafting analytical papers.

- Individual study.

Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.


Assessment

Continous Assessment Activities

Title Weighting Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Individual paper 40% 22 0.88 1, 2, 5, 24, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 4, 13, 9, 21, 23, 25
Oral presentation 10% 8 0.32 17, 6, 10, 19, 20, 13, 14, 9, 21, 12, 22, 26
Written Tests 50% 2 0.08 1, 3, 18, 17, 24, 6, 15, 16, 10, 11, 4, 19, 20, 13, 14, 25


The information on assessment activities and their weighting is merely a guide. The subject’s lecturer will provide full information when teaching begins

Continuous evaluation

Oral presentation – 10%

This part of the evaluation will consist of a presentation of one of the compulsory reading texts for the session. The presentation will have a maximum duration of 15 minutes and should include a Powerpoint in order to present additional graphic material and delve into one or more aspects of the subject matter.

Individual paper – 40%

With individual written work, students will obtain the possibility of researching a specific topic of their own interest, which should be part of the subject. The paper will have an extension of approximately 8 pages (TNR; 1.5 spacing) and should include a basic outline of the contents and a bibliography researched by the students.

Written tests – 50%

There will be two written tests, each of them worth 25% of the final grade. In the written tests, students will have to answer a series of questions to demonstrate their ability to explain and contextualize historical topics and give their qualified opinion on past events.

Single Assessment

This subject does not incorporate the single-assessment option.

Review

When publishing final grades, prior to recording them on students’ transcripts, the lecturer will provide written notification of a date and time for reviewing assessment activities. Students will be able to arrange reviewing with the lecturer.

Missed/failed assessment activities

Students may compensate for assessment activities they have failed or missed, provided that those they have actually performed account for 66.6% (two thirds) of the subject’s final mark, and that they have a weighted average grade of at least 3.5. Under no circumstances may an assessment activity worth 100% of the final mark be retaken or compensated for. The lecturer will inform students of the procedure involved, in writing, when publishing final grades, prior to recording them on transcripts. The lecturer may set one assignment per failed or missed assessment activity or a single assignment to cover a number of such activities.

Grading as “non-assessable”

If students’ performance in assessment activities accounts for only 30% or less of the subject’s final grade, their work will be graded as “non-assessable” on their transcript.

Irregularities and misconduct in assessment activities

In the event of a student committing any irregularity that may lead to a significant variation in the grade awarded to an assessment activity, the student will be given a zero for this activity, regardless of any disciplinary process that may take place. In the event of several irregularities in assessment activities of the same subject, the student will be given a zero as  the final grade for this subject.

Irregularities refer, for instance, to copying in an exam, copying from sources without indiacting authorship, or a misuse of AI such as presenting work as original that has been generated by an AI tool or programme. These evaluation activities will not be re-assessed.

Restricted use of AI

This subject allows the use of AI technologies exclusively for support tasks such as content-based search and text correction. In the case of subjects in a Modern Languages degree, use of translation must be specifically authorised by the teacher. Other specific situations may be contemplated, as deemed appropriate by the teacher. The student must clearly (i) identify which parts havebeengenerated using AI technology; (ii) specify the tools used; and (iii) include a critical reflection on how these have influenced the process and final outcome of the activity. Lack of transparency regarding the use of AI in the assessed activity will be considered academic dishonesty; the corresponding grade may be lowered, or the work may even be awarded a zero. In cases of greater infringement, more serious action may be taken.

Exchange students

Exchange students who request to advance an exam must present the professor with a written document from their home university justifying their request.


Bibliography

Andry, Aurélie Dianara. Social Europe, the Road not Taken: The Left and European Integration in the Long 1970s. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022.

Berger, Stefan, and Chris Lorenz, eds. The Contested Nation: Ethnicity, Class, Religion and Gender in National Histories. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

Chakrabarty, Dipesh. Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000.

Deighton, Ann, and Alan S. Milward, eds. Widening, Deepening and Acceleration: The European Economic Community, 1957-1963. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1999.

Ekengren, Ann-Marie. “How Ideas Influence Decision-Making: Olof Palme and Swedish Foreign Policy, 1965-1975.” Scandinavian Journal of History 36, no. 2 (2011): 117-134.

Fukuyama, Francis. “The End of History?” The National Interest, no. 16 (Summer 1989).

Gowan, Peter, and Perry Anderson, eds. The Question of Europe. London: Verso, 2000.

Harvey, David. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Judt, Tony. Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945. New York: The Penguin Press, 2005.

Moravcsik, Andrew. The Choice for Europe: Social Purpose and State Power from Messina to Maastricht. London: Routledge, 2013.

Mudde, Cas, ed. The Populist Radical Right: A Reader. London: Routledge, 2017.

Sassoon, Donald. One Hundred Years of Socialism: The West European Left in the Twentieth Century. London: I. B. Tauris, 2014.

Staniszkis, Jadwiga. Poland’s Self-Limiting Revolution, ed. Jan T. Gross. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984.

Taubman, William. Gorbachev: His Life and Times. London: Simon & Schuster, 2017.

Ther, Philipp. “Beyond the Nation: The Relational Basisof a Comparative European History of Germany and Europe.” Central European History 36, no. 1 (2003): 45-73.

Todorova, Maria. Imagining the Balkans. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.

United States Institute of Peace, “Whither the Bulldozer? Nonviolent Revolution and the Transition to Democracy in Serbia.” United States Institute of Peace Special Report, no. 72 (August 2001).

Wakeman, Rosemary, ed. Themes in Modern European History since 1945. London: Routledge, 2003.

Woolf, Stuart. “Europe and its Historians.” Contemporary European History 12, no. 3 (2003): 323-337.

X [George F. Kennan]. “The Sources of Soviet Conduct.” Foreign Affairs 25, no. 4 (1947): 566-582.


Software

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Groups and Languages

Please note that this information is provisional until 30 November 2025. You can check it through this link. To consult the language you will need to enter the CODE of the subject.

Name Group Language Semester Turn
(PAUL) Classroom practices 50 English second semester morning-mixed
(TE) Theory 50 English second semester afternoon