This anthology traces the turbulent transformation of the modern world through the words, wars, and imaginations that defined it. From the legal genius of Napoleon and the revolutionary fires that reshaped Europe, to the rise of national identity under Bismarck and the global cataclysms of the twentieth century, these primary texts reveal how modernity was forged in struggle. Alongside them stand the great literary meditations on conscience and meaning—Shelley’s Frankenstein, Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, and Tolstoy’s Death of Ivan Ilyich—works that probe the soul amid progress and collapse. Together, they form a portrait of a world remade by power, doubt, and the enduring search for redemption.
Readings and Authors
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Laws of Napoleon — Code Napoléon (1804) — commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte, 1769–1821
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Primary Texts of the Napoleonic Wars — 1799–1815
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Primary Texts of the July Revolution (France) — 1830
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Primary Texts of the Reform of the English Parliament — 1832 Reform Acts and debates
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People’s Spring (Revolutions of 1848) Primary Texts — 1848
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Franco-Prussian War Primary Texts — 1870–1871
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Otto von Bismarck — “Blood and Iron” Speech (1862) — 1815–1898
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World War I Primary Selections — 1914–1918
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World War II Primary Selections — 1939–1945
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Sexual Revolution Primary Selections — mid-20th century writings on social change
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Samuel Taylor Coleridge — The Rime of the Ancient Mariner — 1772–1834
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Leo Tolstoy — The Death of Ivan Ilyich — 1828–1910
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Edgar Allan Poe, Poetry — 1809–1849
- William Butler Yeats, Poetry — 1865–1939