Assignment Instructions

The Exam is designed to build understanding of course content by asking you to make connections between readings, lectures, and course themes.
In crafting your response to the Exam prompt, only use evidence from assigned readings and lectures. Include in-text citations for any sources quoted, paraphrased, or summarized. Avoid including lengthy quotes. Instead, paraphrase and explain the relevance and significance of the selected passages, lectures, or video segments in your own words as much as possible. For in-text citations, use MLA format by providing the author’s name and the page number, if there is one. Include a Works Cited as the last page of your document.
Word Count: 400-500 words per answer

Assignment Prompt
The exam is designed as a 3-hour exam with a 24-hour submission window. Please answer three of the following questions.
1. David Bell argues that charisma is an essential but neglected way to study modern history. Describe why the eighteenth century was a time when the “cultural and intellectual” conditions necessary for the emergence of modern charismatic leadership evolved. Discuss the charismatic qualities of Simon Bolivar, Napoleon Bonaparte, Toussaint L’Overture, or George Washington. Evaluate Bell’s claim at page 218 that charismatic leadership “only fully emerged in the crucibles of revolutionary crisis, founding of new states, and warfare on a titanic scale.”
2. Historians describe the era between 1776 and 1815 as the era of “democratic revolutions.” Describe the “revolutions” in three settings: the American colonies, France, and Haiti. Consider the following issues: resistance to empire; social classes involved; racial groups involved; and the ultimate resolution of the revolution. Highlight the role played by specific charismatic leaders in each revolution. How should historians measure the relative success of each revolution?
3. The female body has often served as a marker of differences between social classes. Discuss the fate of Fantine in Les Miserables. How should the social historian “read” this fictional personality? Is Victor Hugo’s depiction of Fantine intended to be a critique of the “double standard” only, or also a critique of broader social trends in nineteenth-century Europe? Name three other characters in the novel/film which made an impression on you. What was the historical and moral “message” of each of the three characters? What did you learn about French revolutions from watching the film?
4. Compare the historical and fictional characters Olaudah Equiano, Ourika, and Belle. What insights into slavery do you gain from studying these three individuals? Which figure do you admire the most, and why? Which figure do you pity the most, and why? In which situations did their white patrons help each of them, or act in ways which injured them?
5. If you were an economist living in nineteenth or twentieth-century China or Japan, how would you have viewed the long processes which made the English Industrial Revolution possible? Consider the role of capitalist agriculture, the rural domestic system, the availability of slave trade profits through the British banking system in the rapid transformation of the British economy between 1780 and 1820. If France and Germany could imitate Britain’s industrial path, could Japan and China also imitate Britain?

6. Historians have pointed out how many scientific inventions were created in China long before Europe industrialized in the early nineteenth century. Moreover, rice production in China helped prevent a Malthusian crunch there. So why do we see a “Great Divergence” between China and Europe in this era? Why were the many inventions not sufficient to spark an industrial revolution in China during the modern era?

Note: This course read “Worlds Together, Worlds Apart,” Chapter 20, specifically pages 513-526, 614-618, 618-620, 647-648, 663-666, 624-631, 687-689, 633-635, 638-641, 720-723, 620-622, and 811-814. Use more MLA in-text citations

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