THE FIRST WORLD WAR AND THE SHAPING OF TWENTIETH-CENTURY EUROPE
The experience and legacy of the First World War has been linked to nearly every social, cultural, and political transformation that marked the short century that followed: mobilization and the experience of total war transformed the relations between governments and citizens, between men and women, and between social classes. Europeans experienced death on an unprecedented scale and came to terms with new forms of industrialized warfare, from the use of poison gas to modern practices of genocide. Europeans now learned to live with violence, both during as well as after the war, and found new ways to mourn or remember the dead. Using a wide variety of contemporary sources -- memoirs, essays, poems, or cinematic representations -- situates the upheaval of 1914-1918 within the larger framework of twentieth-century European history.
Prerequisites & course information
Requisites: Sophomore standing Course Designation: Core GenEd - Humanities & Arts Breadth - Humanities or Social Science Level - Advanced L&S Credit - L&S Liberal Arts and Science Grad 50% - Counts toward 50% graduate coursework requirement Repeatable for Credit: No Last Taught: Fall 2025 Learning Outcomes: 1. Identify and explain the major trajectories in twentieth-century European history and the ways in which they were affected by the First World War, and more broadly, engage critical questions that animate the field of war and society studies today. Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad 2. Identify and critically engage with the major interpretive frameworks that historians have used in their study of the First World War, and of total war more broadly. Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad 3. Analyze primary sources from the history of the First World War, both written and visual, and evaluate or critique interpretations of these sources. Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad 4. Produce original historical arguments, in both written and oral communication, and properly mobilize evidence to support these arguments. Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad 5. Evaluate interpretive frameworks, in both the historiography as well as the popular cultural memory of the war, and situate the emergence of such frameworks within a broader history of representations of the war and contestations over such representations. Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad 6. Interpret and evaluate key scholarly debates in the historiography of the First World War. Audience: Graduate Learning Outcomes: 1. Identify and explain the major trajectories in twentieth-century European history and the ways in which they were affected by the First World War, and more broadly, engage critical questions that animate the field of war and society studies today. Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad 2. Identify and critically engage with the major interpretive frameworks that historians have used in their study of the First World War, and of total war more broadly. Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad 3. Analyze primary sources from the history of the First World War, both written and visual, and evaluate or critique interpretations of these sources. Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad 4. Produce original historical arguments, in both written and oral communication, and properly mobilize evidence to support these arguments. Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad 5. Evaluate interpretive frameworks, in both the historiography as well as the popular cultural memory of the war, and situate the emergence of such frameworks within a broader history of representations of the war and contestations over such representations. Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad 6. Interpret and evaluate key scholarly debates in the historiography of the First World War. Audience: Graduate
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026-2027