HISTORY 1500
WINTER 2014
RESEARCH ESSAY TOPICS

1. Select a crusade and discuss the extent to which it accomplished its objectives. Why did it succeed or fail? Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Crusades: A Short History; Carole Hillenbrand, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives; Christopher Tyerman, God’s War: A New History of the Crusades

2. How did anti-Semitism manifest itself in medieval Europe?
Kenneth R. Stow, Alienated Minority: The Jews of Medieval Latin Europe; Mark R. Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages; Solomon Grayzel, The Church and the Jews in the Thirteenth Century

3. What was the position of prostitutes in medieval society? Ruth Mazo Karras, Common Women; Leah Otis, Prostitution in Medieval Society; Margaret Wade Labarge, A Small Sound of the Trumpet: Women in Medieval Life

4. Why did the French choose to follow Joan of Arc during the the Hundred Years War? Kelly DeVries, Joan of Arc: A Military Leader; Bonnie Wheeler, ed., Fresh Verdicts on Joan of Arc; Margaret Wade
Labarge, A Small Sound of the Trumpet: Women in Medieval
Life

5. Discuss the significance of siege warfare during the crusades. You may narrow this question down to a single crusade if you wish. Jim Bradbury, The Medieval Siege; Randall Rogers, Latin Siege Warfare in the Twelfth Century; John France, Victory in the East: A Military History of the First Crusade

6. Why did the persecution of heretics increase during the high and later Middle Ages? You may focus on the persecution of one heretical group if you wish. R.I. Moore, The Formation of a Persecuting Society; Malcolm Lambert, Medieval Heresy; Gordon Leff, Heresy in the Later Middle Ages

7. To what extent did the ideals of medieval knighthood match its realities? Maurice Keen, Chivalry; Richard Barber, The Knight and Chivalry; Peter Coss, The Knight in Medieval Europe

8. For centuries after the famed ‘Black Death’ of the Middle Ages, outbreaks of plague continued to haunt Europeans. How did later generations respond to the sudden outbreak of deadly epidemics?
Ann Carmichael, Plague and the Poor in Renaissance Florence; Paul Slack, The Impact of Plague in Tudor and Stuart England; A. Lynn Martin, Plague?: Jesuit Accounts of Epidemic Disease in the 16th Century

9. How did people’s fear of witches manifest itself in early modern Europe?
Stuart Clark, Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe; Robin Briggs, Witches and Neighbours: The Social and Cultural Context of European Witchcraft; Brian Levack, The Witch Hunt in Early Modern Europe

10. How did common people respond to the threat of starvation in early modern Europe?
Buchanan Sharp, In Contempt of All Authority: Rural Artisans and Riot in the West of England, 1586-1660; John Walter, ‘Grain Riots and Popular Attitudes to the Law: Maldon and the Crisis of 1629,’ in John Brewer and John Styles, eds., An Ungovernable People: The English and their Law in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries; John Walter and Keith Wrightson, ‘Dearth and the Social Order in Early Modern England,’ Past and Present 71 (1976): 22-42; E.P. Thompson, ‘The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century,’ Past and Present 50 (1971): 76-136; John Bohstedt, ‘The Moral Economy and the Discipline of Historical Context,’ Journal of Social History 26 (1992): 265-284

11. How did the introduction of Old World diseases like smallpox impact aboriginal people of the Americas?
Alfred W. Crosby, The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492; Noble David Cook, Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492-1650; Noble David Cook and W. George Lovell, eds., Secret Judgments of God: Old World Disease in Colonial Spanish America

12. How did the more ‘everyday’ forms of violence actually serve to defuse tensions in early modern Europe?
Robert Darnton, ‘Workers Revolt: The Great Cat Massacre of the Rue saint-Séverin’ in The Great Cat Massacre and other episodes in French Cultural History; Julius R. Ruff, Violence in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1800

13. How did the fear of Catholic subversion in sixteenth-century England lead to a terror campaign against Catholics?
Alison Plowden, Danger to Elizabeth: The Catholics under Elizabeth I; Adrian Morey, The Catholic Subjects of Elizabeth I

14. How did the Catholic Church use the Inquisition as an instrument of terror in the early modern world?
Martin A. Cohen, The Martyr Luis de Carvajal: A Secret Jew in Sixteenth-Century Mexico; William E. Monter, Frontiers of Heresy: The Spanish Inquisition from the Basque Lands to Sicily

15. Who were the main enemies of pirates? Joel H. Baer, Pirates of the British Isles; Peter Earle, The Pirate Wars

16. Why was terror so frequently connected with Christianity in late sixteenth-century France?
Natalie Zemon Davis, ‘The Rites of Violence,’ in Society and Culture in Early Modern France; Kathleen A. Parrow, From Defence to Resistance: Justification of Violence During the French Wars of Religion

17. In what ways was terror a deliberate and visible tactic in the Thirty Years’ War?
David Maland, Europe at War, 1600-1650; Stephen J. Lee, The Thirty Years’ War

18. How does the English Civil War reveal the ways in which religious and political differences could spark fear?
David Underdown, Revel, Riot and Rebellion: Popular Politics and Culture in England, 1603-1660; John Morrill, ed., Reactions to the English Civil War

19. How did terror make the Great Fire of London much greater than the flames themselves?
Walter George Bell, The Great Fire of London in 1666; Leonard W. Cowie, Plague and Fire, London 1665-66

20. What kind of fears drove Englishmen to oust James II in the so-called ‘Glorious’ revolution of 1688?
W.A. Speck, Reluctant Revolutionaries: Englishmen and the Revolution of 1688; George Hilton Jones, Convergent Forces: Immediate Causes of the Revolution of 1688 in England; J.R. Jones, The Revolution of 1688 in England

21. Did women have an Enlightenment? Dena Goodman, The Republic of Letters: A Cultura History of the French Enlightenment; Dorinda Outram, The Enlightenment

22. How did the popular press shape ideas of revolution in France?
Hugh Gough, The Newspaper Press in the French Revolution; Robert Darnton, Revolution in Print: The Press in France, 1775-1800; Carla Hesse, Publishing and Cultural Politics in Revolutionary Paris, 1789-1810

23. Why were hangings so frequent in eighteenth-century England?
Douglas Hay, Albion’s Fatal Tree: Crime and Society in Eighteenth-Century England; E.P. Thompson, Whigs and Hunters: The Origins of the Black Act

24. How did Europeans and Africans each experience the commoditization of human beings during the early slave trade?
Joseph C. Miller, Way of Death: Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade, 1730-1830; Paul E. Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa; Patrick Manning, ed., Slave Trades, 1500-1800: Globalization of Forced Labour

25. What were the main causes of slave mortality? James A. Rawley with Stephen D. Behrendt, The Transatlantic Slave Trade: A History; Joseph C. Miller, Way of Death: Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade, 1730-1830; Herbert S. Klein, The Middle Passage: Comparative Studies in the Atlantic Slave Trade. See also relevant articles in the journal Slavery & Abolition.

26. Was Louis XVI’s execution necessary? What was the purpose behind the execution of Marie Antoinette?
Ferenc Fehér, The Frozen Revolution: An Essay on Jacobinism; Michael Walzer, Regicide and Revolution; Michael Walzer, ‘The King’s Trial and the Political Culture of the Revolution’ in Colin Lucas, ed., The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture, Vol. 2

27. What role did the sans-culottes (workers) play in the French Revolution?
Richard Cobb, The Police and the People: French Popular Protest, 1789-1820; R.B. Rose, The Making of the Sans-Culottes: Democratic Ideas and Institutions in Paris, 1789-1792; Albert Soboul, The Parisian Sans-Culottes and the French Revolution, 1793-4

28. Did the French Revolution promote feminism?
Harriet Applewhite and Darlene Levy, Women and Politics in the Age of Democratic Revolution; Olwen Hufton, Women and the Limits of Citizenship in the French Revolution; Sara Melzer, Rebel Daughters: Women and the French Revolution

29. What was the significance of the death of Marat?
Ian Germani, Jean-Paul Marat: Hero and Anti-Hero of the Revolution; David L. Dowd, Pageant Master of the Republic: Jacques-Louis David and the French Revolution

30. How did the French Revolutionary wars shape the Terror?
T.C.W. Banning, The French Revolutionary Wars, 1787-1802; Richard Cobb, The People’s Armies: Instruments of Terror in the Departments

31. What did the Committee of Public Safety achieve during the French Revolution, if anything?
R.R. Palmer, Twelve Who Ruled: The Year of the Terror in the French Revolution; R.R. Palmer, The Improvement of Humanity: Education and the French Revolution; R. Pillorget, ‘The Cultural Programmes of the 1789 Revolution,’ History 70 (1985)

32. How did de-Christianization influence revolutionary France?
John McManners, The French Revolution and the Church; Timothy Tackett, Religion, Revolution and Regional Culture in Eighteenth-Century France; Michel Vovelle, The Revolution Against the Church: From Reason to the Supreme Being

33. Did the roots of French revolutionary Terror already exist in the Constituent Assembly of 1789-91?
N. Hampson, Prelude to Terror: The Constituent Assembly and the Failure of Consensus, 1789-1791; P.M. Jones, Reform and Revolution in France: The Politics of Transition, 1789-1791; Timothy Tackett, ‘The Constituent Assembly and the Terror,’ in The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture, Vol. 4

34. In pre-industrial Europe and North America, persons who violated social standards and accepted modes of behaviour often were subjected to ‘rough justice’ by their neighbors. Why was rough justice so prevalent in this period, and what does it reveal about the relationship between central authorities and local communities?
Allan Greer, ‘From Folklore to Revolution: Charivaris and the Lower Canadian Rebellion of 1837,’ Social History 15 (Jan. 1990): 25-43; Bryan D. Palmer, ‘Discordant Music: Charivaris and Whitecapping in Nineteenth-Century North America,’ Labour/Le Travail 3 (1978): 5-62; Thomas J. Humphrey, ‘Crowd and Court: Rough Music and Popular Justice in Colonial New York,’ in William Pencak, Matthew Dennis and Simon P. Newman, eds., Riot and Revelry in Early America (University Park 2002), 107-124. 35. Why were the Acadians expelled from their Nova Scotian homeland? N.E.S. Griffiths, The Contexts of Acadian History, 1686- 1784

36. What was the English poor law of 1834 and why was it introduced?
Lynn Hollen Lees, The Solidarities of Strangers: The English Poor Laws and the People, 1700-1948; Mitchell Dean, The Constitution of Poverty: Toward a Genealogy of Liberal Governance

37. During the American Revolution, blacks who escaped slavery were offered freedom by the British in exchange for their loyalty, but not equality. Concentrating on British North America in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, discuss the factors that influenced the formation of black communities and shaped the experiences of their residents.
James W. St.G. Walker, The Black Loyalists: The Search for a Promised Land in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone, 1783-1870

38. Why did Nova Scotia not join the American Revolution? John B. Brebner, The Neutral Yankees of Nova Scotia; Gordon Stewart and George Rawlyk, A People Highly Favoured of God

39. Why did Quebec not join the American Revolution? George Stanley, Canada Invaded: 1775-1776; Gustave Lanctot, Canada and the American Revolution, 1774-1783

40. What impact did Fenian terrorism have on the union of the British North American colonies? Hereward Senior, The Fenians and Canada; Wilfried Neidhardt, Feminism in North America

41. What ideals and social factors led to the Haitian Revolution? Laurent Dubois, Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution; David P. Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies

42. Why is the Haitian Revolution often considered to be the most successful slave rebellion in the history of the Americas? What effects did it have? Laurent Dubois, Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution; David P. Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies

43. Believing they faced ruin from agricultural machinery, the Luddites and Swing rioters in Britain chose to fight back. What tactics did they use and why? How much support did they have? How successful were they? [You can look at either one of these groups, or compare the two.]
Lionel M. Munby, The Luddites and Other Essays; David F. Noble, Progress Without People: In Defense of Luddism; Robert Reid, Land of Content: The Luddite Revolt, 1812; E.J. Hobsbawm and George Rudé, Captain Swing

44. When British North America was invaded by the United States during the War of 1812, local inhabitants often did not respond in the way colonial leaders expected. How did people respond to the call to defend the colonies, and what factors influenced their actions?
George Sheppard, Plunder, Profit, and Paroles: A Social History of the War of 1812 in Upper Canada

45. Social relations in British North America in the early nineteenth century were often violent. Why?
Michael S. Cross, ‘The Shiners’ War: Social Violence in the Ottawa Valley in the 1830s,’ Canadian Historical Review 54 (1973): 1-26; Judith Fingard, The Dark Side of Life in Victorian Halifax

46. Were the Lower Canadian rebellions of 1837-38 class struggles, ethnic struggles, or ideological conflicts? Did the rebellions constitute a revolution?
Allan Greer, The Patriots and the People: The Rebellion of 1837 in Rural Lower Canada; Beverly Boissery, A Deep Sense of Wrong: The Treason Trials of Lower Canadian Rebels after the 1838 Rebellion

47. When the institution of the penitentiary was invented in the nineteenth century, many claimed that it would not only reform criminals, but would evoke fear and obedience amongst the general populace. How did the founders and administrators of penitentiaries attempt to attain these goals, and how successful were they?
Peter Oliver, ‘Terror to Evil-Doers:’ Prisons and Punishments in Nineteenth-Century Ontario; Norval Morris, ed., The Oxford History of the Prison: The Practice of Punishment in Western Society

48. The ‘June Days’ of the French Revolution of 1848 were a violent attack on workers in Paris. What caused this event and what were its consequences for the French left?
John M. Merriman, The Agony of the Republic: The Repression of the Left in Revolutionary France, 1848-1951; Mark Traugott, Armies of the Poor: Determinants of Working-Class Participation in the Parisian Insurrection of June 1848

49. Did English public schools (what we would call private schools) inflict terror on upper-class boys? What was the aim of these schools, and what were the results?
John Chandos, Boys Together: English Public Schools, 1800-1864; Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy, The Old School Tie: The Phenomenon of the English Public School

50. The Chartists were a movement for parliamentary reform. Who were the ‘physical force’ Chartists and why did they advocate violent methods? Did this hurt the broader cause?
Asa Briggs, ed., Chartist Studies; Dorothy Thompson, The Chartists; Edward Royle, Chartism

51. In the nineteenth century, British North Americans suffered from periodic epidemics of contagious diseases. Nevertheless, people were afraid of many public health efforts to combat the spread of disease. Why?
Geoffrey Bilson, A Darkened House: Cholera in Nineteenth-Century Canada; Michael Bliss, Plague: A Story of Smallpox in Montreal

52. American historian Eric Foner has pointed out that ‘both sides fought the Civil War in the name of freedom.’ After the war ended, the Reconstruction period saw a prolonged struggle for the right to define American freedom. What were the competing definitions during the period, and what consequences did the contest have for African Americans?
Eric Foner, The Story of American Freedom; Eric Foner, A Short History of Reconstruction; Kenneth M. Stampp, The Era of Reconstruction; James T. Currier, ‘From Slavery to Freedom in Mississippi’s Legal System,’ Journal of Negro History 65 (1980): 112-125

53. Why was the Paris Commune crushed with unbridled terror in 1871?
Robert Tombs, The Paris Commune, 1871; Rupert Christiansen, Paris Babylon: The Story of the Paris Commune

54. In the latter part of the nineteenth century, many people thought that juvenile delinquency was on the rise and threatened the stability of society. Concentrating on the United States, critically examine what the fears surrounding and the responses to juvenile delinquency reveal about social attitudes and values at the time.
Mary E. Odem, Delinquent Daughters: Protecting and Policing Adolescent Female Sexuality in the United States, 1885-1920

55. How did the Haymarket bombing in Chicago in 1886 lead to a fear of terror by Americans and American officialdom? What was the result?
Paul Avrich, The Haymarket Tragedy; Bernard R. Kogan, The Chicago Haymarket Riot: Anarchy on Trial

56. Why did certain self-proclaimed anarchists choose assassination as a tactic during the decades before World War I?
Barbara Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World before the War, 1890-1914

57. The poetic inscription on the Statue of Liberty welcomes ‘the huddled masses’ of the Old World to the United States, but how accepting was the United States to immigrants in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries? What factors influenced immigration policies?
Maldwyn Allen Jones, American Immigration; Reed Ueda, Postwar Immigrant America; John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism; Alan M. Kraut, The Huddled Masses: The Immigrant in American Society, 1880-1921

58. One of the most startling uses of terror in modern European history was by the Women’s Social and Political Union in their fight for the vote. What led to their decision to use violence? Why was it not very threatening?
Jill Liddington and Jill Norris, One Hand Tied Behind Us: The Rise of the Women’s Suffrage Movement; Andrew Rosen, Rise Up, Women! The Militant Campaign of the Women’s Social and Political Union, 1903-1914

59. How was state-sponsored terrorism used by European governments to secure overseas territories during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries? [Compare the methods of 2 or 3 nations. You might also consider whether terrorist tactics were a logical response by Native peoples.]
Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

60. Was the American annexation of Cuba and/or the Philippines after the Spanish-American War a case of altruism or imperialism?
William Appleman Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy; Michael J. Hogan, The Ambiguous Legacy: U.S. Foreign Relations in the ‘American Century’; Lester D. Langley, America and the Americas: The United States in the Western Hemisphere

61. In what ways were fears about urban industrialization projected onto the ‘working girl’ at the turn of the century? Why were reformers so afraid of the growing number of single, working women in urban centers, and how did they attempt to deal with this ‘problem?’
Carolyn Strange, Toronto’s Girl Problem: The Perils and Pleasures of the City, 1880-1930

62. Some commentators have argued that William Randolph Hearst started the Spanish-American War to sell his newspapers. How accurate is this interpretation?
David Nasaw, The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst; Louis A. Pérez, The War of 1898: The United States and Cuba in History and Historiography

63. In Reflections on Violence (1908), Georges Sorel (1847-1922) argued that violence was necessary to achieve socialism. What were his arguments and to whom did they appeal?
Richard Vernon, Commitment and Change: Georges Sorel and the Idea of Revolution; Jeremy Jennings, Syndicalism in France: A Study of Ideas; Georges Sorel, Georges Sorel: Essays in Socialism and Philosophy

64. After 1900, thousands of African Americans migrated from the South to the North. What were their motives for migrating?
Carole Marks, Farewell- We’re Good and Gone: The Great Black Migration; Nicholas Lemann, The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How it Changed America; Joe W. Trotter, The Great Migration in Historical Perspective: New Dimensions of Race, Class, and Gender

65. Why did women join the Revolutionary movement in Russia?
Vera Figner, Memoirs of a Revolutionist; Barbara Alpern Engel, Five Sisters: Women Against the Tsar; Vera Broido, Apostles into Terrorists: Women and the Revolutionary Movement in the Russia of Alexander II; Anna Hillyar and Jane McDermid, Revolutionary Women in Russia, 1890-1917

66. How did the anti-Jewish pogroms of 1881 transform the Jewish Community in the Russian Empire? Benjamin Nathans, Beyond the Pale: The Jewish Encounter with Late Imperial Russia; Erich Haberer, Jews and Revolution in Nineteenth-Century Russia; Zvi Gitelman, A Century of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Present

67. Why did Lenin and the Bolsheviks declare the Red Terror in Russia in 1918? Adam Ulam, The Bolsheviks; Richard Pipes, ed., The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archive; Dmitri Volkogonov, Lenin: A New Biography; George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenin’s Political Police

68. Why was the Kolyma concentration camp established? Robert Conquest, Kolyma; Anne Applebaum, Gulag : A History; Paul R. Gregory and V.V. Lazarev, The Economics of Forced Labor: The Soviet Gulag; O.V. Khlevniuk, The History of the Gulag: From Collectivization to the Great Terror

69. What were the most important causes of the First World War?
John Keegan, The First World War; M. Eksteins, The Rites of Spring; Barbara Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World before the War, 1890-1914; Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers

70. What caused the Armenian genocide?
Richard Hovannisian, ed., The Armenian Genocide in Perspective; Tancer Akeam, From Empire to Republic: Turkish Nationalism and the Armenian Genocide

71. Evaluate the role of the Canadian Corps in the last hundred days of the First World War.
G. Sheffield, Forgotten Victory; Daniel Dancocks, Spearhead to Victory; J. Swettenham, To Seize the Victory: The Canadian Corps in the First War

72. Were soldiers and/or civilians terrorized by technology during the First World War?
Nigel Steel and Peter Hart, Tumult in the Clouds: The British Experience of the War in the Air, 1914-1918; Hugh Cecil and Peter Liddle, eds., Facing Armageddon; Dennis Winter, Death’s Men: Soldiers of the Great War

73. Was Sir Douglas Haig, commander of the British armies, an effective general?
Denis Winter, Haig’s Command: A Reassessment; John Terraine, Douglas Haig: The Educated Soldier

74. What role did women play in the First World War?
Gail Braybon, Women Workers in the First World War: The British Experience; Daniel Ute, The War From Within: German Working-Class Women in the First World War

75. Can English suffragettes be described as terrorists?
Jane Marcus, Suffrage and the Pankhursts; Sandra Stanley Holton, Feminism and Democracy: Women’s Suffrage and Reform Politics in Britain, 1900-1918; Martin Pugh, Women’s Suffrage in Britain, 1867-1928

76. Following World War I, much of the world’s political geography was reshaped. Was it reshaped successfully?
Margaret MacMillan, Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World; D. Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East

77. The year 1919 could be described as a ‘moment of terror’ in American history. What social, cultural, political and economic factors combined to make the year so frightening for so many Americans?
David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society; Robert K. Murray, Red Scare: A Study in National Hysteria, 1919-1920; Roberta Strauss Feuerlicht, America’s Reign of Terror: World War I, the Red Scare, and the Palmer Raids; Allan L. Damon, ‘The Great Red Scare,’ American Heritage 19 (1968): 22-27, 75-77

78. Why did Germans become supporters of Nazism, and of Hitler, before 1933?
Ian Kershaw, The Hitler Myth; Peter Fritzsche, Germans into Nazis; W.H. Allen, The Nazi Seizure of Power; Richard Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich

79. What key ideas and characteristics shaped Hitler and his goals for Nazi Germany?
Ian Kershaw, Hitler, vol. 1; Ron Rosenbaum, Explaining Hitler; Sebastian Haffner, The Meaning of Hitler; Eberhard Jäckel, Hitler’s World View

80. Why did women support the Nazi movement during the Third Reich?
Claudia Koonz, Mothers in the Fatherland; Ute Frevert, Women in German History; Jill Stevenson, Women in Nazi Society

81. How did the SS wield terror in Nazi camps?
Wolfgang Sofsky, The Order of Terror: The Concentration Camp; David Hackett, The Buchenwald Report; Heinz Höhne, The Order of the Death’s Head: The Story of Himmler’s SS; Hermann Langbein, People in Auschwitz

82. How did German youth respond to the Third Reich?
Alfons Heck, A Child of Hitler: Germany in the Days When God Wore a Swastika; Richard Grunberger, The 12-Year Reich: A Social History of Nazi Germany; Michael Kater, The Hitler Youth; J. Noakes and G. Pridham, eds., Nazism, vol. 2 (documents in English on Nazism)

83. Did the Vatican (Pope Pius XII) ignore the plight of the victims of the Holocaust?
Susan Zucotti, Under His Very Windows; John Cornwell, Hitler’s Pope; J. Botturn, The Pius War: Responses to the Critics of Pius XII; Daniel Goldhagen, A Moral Reckoning; Peter Godman, Hitler and the Vatican; José M. Sanchez, Pius XII and the Holocaust: Understanding the Controversy

84. Why did Jews rarely rise up against the Nazis, either in the death camps or in the East European ghettos? Why was it so difficult to resist?
Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz; Michael Marrus, The Holocaust in History; Doris Bergen, War and Genocide; Ruby Rohrlich, Resisting the Holocaust

85. Did those who helped to rescue Jews during the Holocaust have common motivations?
Martin Gilbert, The Righteous; Eva Fogelman, Conscience and Courage: Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust; Irene Opdyke, In My Hands: Memoirs of a Holocaust Rescuer

86. Why were gay men persecuted and killed by the Nazis?
Michael Burleigh, The Racial State; Robert Gellately, Social Outsiders in Nazi Germany; R. Plant, The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War Against Homosexuals; J. Lemke, Gay Voices from East Germany; Günter Grau, ed., Hidden from History; Gad Beck, An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin

87. Why did ordinary men and women participate in the persecution of Jews and other victims of the Nazi state?
Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men; Robert Gellately, Backing Hitler; Daniel Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners

88. How did the inmates of Auschwitz struggle to survive in this hellish world? What were the characteristics of this camp? Lawrence Rees, Auschwitz; Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz; Art Spiegelmann, Maus (part 1 and 2); Charlotte Delbo, Auschwitz and After; Elie Wiesel, Night; Hermann Langbein, People in Auschwitz

89. What role did the state play in generating violence during the 20th century? Mark Mazower “Violence and the State in the Twentieth Century,” American Historical Review, pp. 1147-1167, 2002.

90. Was Stalin’s Soviet Union a repressive state that killed with no clear direction? Who were his victims? Getty, Rittersporn and Zemskov, "Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-War Years,” American Historical Review 98 (1993): 1017-1049.

91. Were the Germans also victims of World War II?
Mary Nolan, “Germans as Victims during the Second World War: Air Wars, Memory Wars,” Central European History 38 (2005): 7-40.

92. Were the Allied bombings morally defensible?
Thomas Childers, “Facilis descensus averni est: The Allied Bombing of Germany and the Issue of German Suffering”, Central European History, 38 (2005): 75-105.

93. How should we tell the tale of World War II?
Chris Lorenz, “Explaining Auschwitz and Hiroshima: History Writing and the Second World War”, History and Theory, 35, 2 (1996): 234-252.

94. When and why did the Cold War begin? Adam Ulam, Expansion and Coexistence; W. Mastny, Russia’s Road to the Cold War, 1941-45; Walter Lafeber, America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945-66; Melvyn Leffler, Origins of the Cold War: An International History

95. How did the Cold War affect Hollywood?
Lary May, The Big Tomorrow: Hollywood and the Politics of the American Way; Larry Ceplair, The Inquisition in Hollywood: Politics in the Film Community, 1930-1960

96. How effective was the RCMP in defending Canadian security during the Cold War?
Reginald Whitaker and Gary Marcuse, Cold War Canada: The Making of a National Security State; John Sawatsky, Men in the Shadows; Steve Hewitt, Spying 101: The RCMP’s Secret Activities at Canadian Universities, 1917-1997

97. Did Canada experience a Cold War Red Scare? Reginald Whitaker and Gary Marcuse, Cold War Canada: The Making of a National Security State; Daniel J. Robinson and David Kimmel, “The Queer Career of Homosexual Security Vetting in Cold War Canada,” Canadian Historical Review 75 (1994): 319-345

98. Why were gays and lesbians persecuted during the Cold War in the United States and Canada? David K. Johnson, The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government; David Kimmel, “The Queer Career of Homosexual Security Vetting in Cold War Canada,” Canadian Historical Review 75(1994): 319-345

99. The repression of French Canadian liberals and nationalists by the colonial government in the era of the French Revolution and Napoleon has been interpreted by historians in different ways. How dangerous were the liberals and nationalists, and why were they repressed?
Fernand Ouellet, Lower Canada, 1791-1840; F. Murray Greenwood, Legacies of Fear: Law and Politics in Quebec in the Era of the French Revolution

100. Explain why the Front de Liberation du Québec (FLQ) and its terrorist activities appeared in the 1960s.
Louis Fournier, FLQ: The Anatomy of an Underground Movement; William Coleman, The Independence Movement in Quebec, 1945-1980; Kenneth McRoberts, Quebec: Social Change and Political Crisis (3rd edition 1988)

101. As a response to the terrorist kidnappings by the FLQ in October 1970, the Trudeau government proclaimed the War Measures Act. Was this action justified? Was it effective? Did it have long term consequences?
Gérard Pelletier, The October Crisis; Fernand Dumont, The Vigil of Quebec; Alain Gagnon, ed., Quebec: State and Society

102. How were terror, violence and intimidation used by loyalists and patriots during the American Revolution?
Jessica Warner, John the Painter: Terrorist of the American Revolution; Janice Potter, While the Women Only Wept

103. Why did some young middle-class radicals in Europe and the United States during the 1960s and 1970s believe that violence was a legitimate means of political struggle?
Jeremy Varon, Bringing the War Home: The Weather Underground, the Red Army Faction, and Revolutionary Violence in the Sixties and Seventies

104. How did the Ku Klux Klan change over time during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the US?
Nancy MacLean, Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan; David M. Chalmers, Hooded Americanism: The History of the Ku Klux Klan

105. What was the Black Power movement in the 1960s and 1970s United States? Did it advocate a form of terrorism?
William L. Van Deburg, New Day in Babylon: The Black Power Movement and American Culture, 1965-1975; Peniel E. Joseph,
Waiting ‘til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power

106. Why did lynching become so prevalent in the late 19th and 20th century American south? How was it linked to both terror and resistance?
W. Fitzhugh Brundage, Under Sentence of Death: Lynching in the South; W. Fitzhugh Brundage, Lynching in the New South: Georgia and Virginia, 1880-1930; Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, Revolt Against Chivalry: Jessie Daniel Ames and the Women’s Campaign Against Lynching

107. Has capital punishment in the United States and/or Britain functioned as a form of state-sanctioned terror?
Stuart Banner, The Death Penalty: An American History; Louis P. Masur, Rites of Execution: Capital Punishment and the Transformation of American Culture; V.A.C. Gatrell, The Hanging Tree: Execution and the English People, 1770-1868; Peter Linebaugh, The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century

108. Did the Cold War help the civil rights movement in the United States? Mary L. Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy; Thomas Borstelmann, The Cold War and the Color Line: American Race Relations in the Global Arena
109. How popular was the Spanish Republican cause in the USA?
Dominic Tierney, “Franklin D. Roosevelt and Covert Aid to the Loyalists in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-39,” Journal of Contemporary History 39 (July 2004): 299-313
110. Did the majority of Spaniards actively support either side?
Michael Seidman, “Individualism in Madrid during the Spanish Civil War,” Journal of Modern History 68 (March 1996): 63-83
111. How were the defeated Republicans treated?
Michael Richards, “Morality and Biology in the Spanish Civil War: Psychiatrists, Revolution and Women Prisoners in Málaga,” Contemporary European History 10 (November 2001): 395-421.
112. What did the West do to change the political situation in Franco’s Spain?
Enrique Moradiellos, “The Potsdam Conference and the Spanish Problem,” Contemporary European History 10 (March 2001): 73-90.
113. What made the battle for Stalingrad in the Second World War so horrific? Antony Beevor, Stalingrad (Penguin 2007)
114. George Orwell, British author of 1984, fought in the Spanish Civil War on the Republican side. How did the war shape his outlook? George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia. As well, there are lots of biographies of Orwell, the most recent being Robert Colls, George Orwell: English Rebel (Oxford University Press 2014)
115. Why did some sailors decide to become pirates and were their decisions wise? Marcus Rediker, Villains of all Nations: Atlantic Piracy in the Golden Age (Beacon Press 2005)