POLI 212 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Nazism, Authoritarianism, Government Simulation Game

• School: McGill University
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POLI 212
• Professor: Hudson Meadwell

Document Summary

Reading notes for topic i: the historical stage. Readings and lectures on this topic are designed to provide some historical perspective on. As i mentioned in class this week, our focus is contemporary europe. But the political dynamics of contemporary europe have histories, there are legacies of history which have consequences for the present. Most of the course material deals with european politics from 1945 onwards, whether we are looking at the political dynamics of capitalist democracies such as france, britain, Germany or italy, the consequences of the collapse of communism or the evolution of economic and political integration and the institutions of the european union (eu). But to do this -- to fully understand the present -- we need to understand the past, we need to put the dynamics of contemporary europe in historical perspective. The readings on this topic are intended to provide some of this needed perspective.