HIS 272 CC: BERLIN

What makes a world city? How did Berlin develop from a provincial capital into a great cultural and political center, a quintessential modern world city? In this course, Berlin will serve as a window through which to examine the major developments in Germany over the last two-and-a-half centuries, including the unification of Germany, two world wars, the rise of the Nazis, and the division of the city during the Cold War. Students will develop an understanding of the evolution of a city by placing the city of Berlin within its historical and cultural contexts while at the same time learning about its physical development. By examining the intense debates over buildings such as the Royal Palace and the Reichstag, museums and monuments, as well as parks, streets, and other urban spaces, students will learn about the new Berlin republic's determination to foster a democratic and inclusive public discourse around contentious and charged issues, and develop the ability to evaluate all kinds of cities in a similar manner. At the end of the course, students will have been exposed to a model of interdisciplinary studies, that is, one example of how the same object of study, here Berlin, may be examined by two different intellectual disciplines in ways that sometimes converge and sometimes diverge.