PROBLEMS IN EUROPEAN HISTORY:
THE FIRST WORLD WAR AND ITS IMPACT

HIST 3366-001
MonWed 3PM-4:20—157 Dallas Hall
Prof. Erin Hochman—56B Dallas Hall—214-768-3971   ehochman@smu.edu
 

As many young men enthusiastically enlisted at the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, Europeans believed that the soldiers would be home by Christmas.  Four years and over ten million deaths later, the Great War and the subsequent peace treaties had irrevocably changed the map of Europe and the everyday lives of its inhabitants. Through a variety of primary sources and scholarly literature, we will examine the cultural, social and geopolitical impact of the First World War.  Each week we will explore a different theme pertaining to the war and its outcome, including: the causes of the war, warfare on both the western and eastern fronts, experiences on the home front, the colonial dimensions of the war, changing conceptions of gender, mourning and commemorations for the dead, the war’s impact on high and popular culture, postwar attempts to spread democracy and create a new international order, as well as the collapse of the Russian, Austro-Hungarian, German, and Ottoman Empires. 

Readings include:  1) Eric Dorn Brose, A History of the Great War: World War One and the International Crisis of the Early Twentieth Century; 2) Marilyn Shevin-Coetzee and Frans Coetzee (eds.), World War I: A History in Documents; 3) Ernst Jünger, Storm of Steel; 4) additional primary and secondary sources