Wesleyan University
HISTORY 203: MODERN EUROPE
Topic for the Third Paper
Submit a typed four- to five-page paper on one of the following topics. Be sure to support and illustrate your argument with specific information from the reading and the lectures, and use quotations where they help make a point. Follow the guidelines on Preparing Papers. The paper is due on Monday, November 19, at class-time.
1. How much would you say the rise to power of Lenin, Stalin and Hitler was due to their individual qualities (their genius, perhaps), and how much to circumstances in their countries?
2. Bolshevik (Communist) Russia, Fascist Italy, and Nazi Germany are the three major examples of "totalitarian" systems in interwar Europe. Can you see what similarities might lead to the three regimes being lumped together under this heading? On the whole, do you think it is right to lump them together like this?
Members of the Special Writing Sections: The paper you hand in on November 19 must be an advanced draft, with your ideas worked out and mostly whipped into shape; among other things, that will make the writing tutor’s comments most useful to you. The draft will be returned to you in class after break, and later (on a schedule still to be worked out) you will meet with the writing tutor of your section to go over her or his comments. The final, revised paper is due at class-time on Monday, December 3. The revised paper is the one I will read and grade, but you are expected to hand in the marked-up draft along with it.
Take care while writing to:
Low grades in this course often come from lapses in these things!