HISTORY 329 Assignment 2
I want a 4 page assignment. The detailed instructions and question is given in the attached file. Thanks.
History 32900 — 20th Century Europe
Essay #2 — The Fall of Classical Liberalism
Instructions
:. Please proof-read for grammar, spelling and syntax.
Part I – 80% of assignment to be complete in an essay of three to four pages typed, double-spaced pages.
In chapter 4 of The Age of Extremes, titled “The Fall of Liberalism,” Eric Hobsbawm defines liberal values as “distrust of dictatorship, and absolute rule; a commitment to constitutional government … guaranteed rule of law; and an accepted set of citizens’ rights and liberties … State and society should be informed by the values of reason, public debate, education, science and the improbability … of the human condition” (pp. 109-110).
By 1939, however, many European countries (Germany, Italy, the USSR, and most of the smaller states of Central Europe and the Balkans) were governed by authoritarian regimes of one type or another: Fascist/Nazi ones (Italy, Germany, Portugal); conservative-authoritarian strong-man regimes (Hungary, the Balkan countries, Poland, Spain); and in the case of the USSR by a revolutionary party dictatorship. Except in the USSR, these authoritarian regimes promoted notions of race, ethnicity, religion, and in some cases (Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy) overt violence and domination as the foundations of their state and society.
What in your judgement explains the collapse of classical liberalism as defined above by Hobsbawm, and the willingness of many people to accept dictatorship and absolute rule, to abandon ideas of citizens’ rights and liberties, and to deny that reason, public debate, education and science should be the foundations of how state and society should be organized by the late 1930s? In addition to economic and political factors such as the Great Depression or fears of Communism discuss what might be some of the psychological or emotional factors behind the rejection of classical liberal values by so many at that time.
Part II — Answer each question below in short-answer format in four to five sentences. 20% of exam.
1. Identify some of the positive moral benefits that war brings to a society according to Benito Mussolini in The Social and Political Doctrines of Fascism.
2. Explain why Mussolini had such contempt for democratic politics, socialism and democracy in his theory of Fascism.
3. What is the role of the State and of State authority in Mussolini’s Fascism?
4. Name two reasons why some people might be attracted to an ideology glorifying war, condemning democracy and celebrating authoritarian leadership.
Mussolini’s essay is available at
http://www.historyguide.org/europe/duce.html