Course Description
Introduces students to the history of one of the twentieth century’s defining tragedies, the First World War, covering its course, nature, and consequences.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students:
Graduate students will be required to complete in-depth additional readings in addition to those assigned in the syllabus for each class. The additional readings will amount to the page equivalent of one book per week. For evaluation, the graduate students will submit a bibliographical essay by mid-semester and one research essay at the end. The research paper should be built on primary and secondary sources, preferably from local archives, library databases, and/or oral interviews.
Athena Title
World War I: The Great War
Equivalent Courses
Not open to students with credit in HIST 4400, HIST 4401 or HIST 6400, HIST 6401
Undergraduate Pre or Corequisite
One course in HIST or SOCI or INTL or POLS or MILS or ENGL or RELI
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Student Learning Outcomes
- At the end of the semester, students should be able to assess the causes, experiences, and consequences of the Great War.
- At the end of the semester, students should be able to describe how policies, events, strategies, and historical processes occurring in one country impacted those in the others.
- At the end of the semester, students should be able to interrogate the multifaceted and complex impacts of warfare beyond the battlefield.
- At the end of the semester, students should understand the social construction of knowledge and how historians apply the social construction of knowledge to their research methods in efforts to avoid biases in the writing of history.
Topical Outline
- Part I: The Old World, 1789-1914
1. Revolution from Above and Below
2. The Fires of Industry
3. “I Serve No Prince”: Class and Cultural Upheaval in 19th Century Europe
4. Modernizing Europe’s Militaries
5. The White Man’s Burden: Imperialism and International Conflict
- Part II: The Old World Dies, 1914-1918
6. Europe’s Last Summer
7. The Battle of the Frontiers
8. The Marne: Massacre and Miracle
9. The Sun Sets in the East
10. War Beyond the Western Front
11. Stalemate and Slaughter, 1915-16
12. An End to Optimism: Verdun and the Somme
13. America and Armageddon
14. “Who Now Remembers the Armenian Genocide?”
- Part III: A New World Order, 1918-1922
15. The Wilsonian Vision
16. A Tortured Peace
17. The Rise of Authoritarianism
18. The Deepening Abyss
