AP European History is designed to be the equivalent of a TWO-SEMESTER introductory college or university European history course. In AP European History students investigate significant events, individuals, developments, and processes in four historical periods from approximately 1450 to the present. Students develop and use the same skills, practices, and methods employed by historians: analyzing historical evidence, contextualization, comparison, causation, change and continuity over time, and argument development. The course also provides six themes that students explore throughout the course in order to make connections among historical developments in different times and places: interaction of Europe and the world, poverty and prosperity, objective knowledge and subjective visions, states and other institutions of power, individuals and society, and national and European identity. The course will prepare the student to take the Advanced Placement examination and earn college credit in European history. The opportunity to experience college-level work while still in high school is another advantage of this course.

CLICK HERE for the AP European History Home Page on the College Board's website.

Units of study include:

• The Renaissance, Reformation, Exploration, and Religious Wars

• Absolutism and Constitutionalism

• 18th Century Thought, Science, and Economics

• The Age of Revolution and Industry

• Nationalism and Imperialism

• World War I and the Age of Anxiety

• World War II and the Cold War

• Post-Cold War Europe

Note: This TWO-SEMESTER college course is completed in ONE high school semester, resulting in a heavy workload for this course.

Note: A summer assignment is assigned at the end of the prior school year and is expected to be completed by the first day of class. It is the student’s responsibility to listen for announcements about this assignment and to secure the necessary materials before the end of the prior school year.

The textbooks used for AP European History are Bedford/St. Martin's A History of Western Society 11th edition, Glencoe/McGraw Hill's Western Civilization, and Heilbroner's Worldly Philosophers. Each of these texts is available in hard copy form only.