HIS-261 War and Society in the Age of Total War:

This course focuses on the era of global conflict between 1870 and 1945, from the Franco-Prussian War, the trenches of the 1914-18 Western Front and the beaches of WWII Normandy and Iwo Jima, to the Holocaust, the birth of the atomic age and the dawn of the Cold War. The First and Second World Wars were history's first modern, industrial, technological, multidimensional, total and global conflicts, whose legacy continues to shape the world today. Of particular interest will be the crucial interaction between war and society: how societies give form and substance to modern conflict and how wars, in turn, spark dramatic social, political and economic change. This course carries SUNY General Education credit in World History and Global Awareness.

Credits

Prerequisite

ENG-101 or Permission of Instructor

Department

Social Science

Course Rotation Schedule

Fall: In Person

For more detailed course information view the Course Outline

HIS 261: War and Society in the Age of Total War:

Department

Social Science

Course Description

Credit Hours

Contact Hours

Lecture	3
Lab	0
Other	0

Grading Scheme

Letter

Prerequisites

ENG-101 or Permission of Instructor

SUNY General Education Course

World Languages

Capstone Course

Yes

Course Learning Outcomes

Explain of the ways in which World Wars I and II reflect the distinctive features of Western civilization; its history, institutions, geography, economy, religions, society, and/or culture.
Connect developments in the West during WWI and WWII to that of other regions of the world.
Analyze some of the major events and themes of the Western and/or global experience during WWI and WWII.

Topic Outline

1. Conflict in the twentieth century: themes
2. Origins of the First World War
a. The First World War in context
i. Napoleonic roots: mobility, élan, and the offensive spirit
ii. Total war and the birth of German nationalism
iii. Clausewitz and 19th-century military doctrine
iv. Industrial revolution in warfare
(1) From musket to machine gun
(2) Transportation and communications revolution
(3) Naval developments: from ship of the line to dreadnought
v. Wars of Italian and German unification
vi. Imperialism and great power tension
vii. Social Darwinism, Lebensraum, and modernism
b. Short-term causes of the First World War
i. Formation of the alliance system
ii. Pan-Slavism and the Austro-Hungarian dilemma
iii. Bismarck, German unification, and the Dreikaiserbund
iv. Wilhelm II, Weltpolitik, and the Triple Alliance
v. Imperial German ambitions in the Middle East
vi. Franco-Prussian War, 1870–71, and its legacy
vii. Imperial Russia, the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, and the rise of
modern Japan
viii. British Empire in crisis: the South African War of 1898–1902, the
Anglo-German naval race, and the end of "splendid isolation"
ix. The Fashoda Crisis of 1898 and the formation of the Entente Cordiale
x. Anglo-Russian alliance and the Triple Entente
xi. First Moroccan Crisis (1905) and the Agadir Crisis (1911)
xii. Disintegration of the Ottoman Empire
xiii. Bosnian Annexation Crisis of 1908
xiv. Balkan crisis of 1911–12
xv. The July Crisis, 1914, and the outbreak of WWI
xvi. Apportioning blame
3. The First World War
a. Schlieffen Plan and opening moves, 1914
b. Trench warfare and the Western Front
c. Verdun, the Somme, and the inferno of 1916
d. The Eastern (Russian) Front, 1914–17
e. Peripheral campaigns: Dardanelles, Italy, Macedonia, Africa, and the
Middle East
f. The air war, 1914–18
g. Mobilizing science and technology: tanks, submarines, and chemical warfare
h. Total war on the home front
i. Rise of the modern interventionist state
4. Making peace and creating a new international order: the Paris peace
treaties of 1919
a. Germany and the Treaty of Versailles
b. The Habsburg Empire and the Treaties of Trianon and St. Germain
c. Remaking the Middle East: the Treaty of Sèvres
i. Arab nationalism, the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, and the rise
of modern Turkey
ii. Sykes-Picot: Franco-British mandates in Syria, Iraq, and Palestine
iii. Zionism, the Balfour Declaration, and a Jewish state
iv. Arab nationalism and the question of Palestine
d. Anticolonialism and self-determination in the Far East
i. China and the rise of Imperial Japan
ii. Ho Chi Minh and Indochina
e. League of Nations
5. Russian Revolution, 1917–21
a. Marxism and the Revolution of 1905
b. Lenin and the Bolshevik Revolution
c. Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, 1918
d. Russian Civil War
e. Emergence of the U.S.S.R.
f. Lenin's "revolution from above": one-party state, the Comintern, Red Army,
and the Cheka
g. The Soviet Union and the world: containment and the "First Cold War"
6. The 1920s: age of illusion
a. International instability and uncertainty, 1919–24
i. The "Lost Generation" and the trauma of the Great War
ii. German resistance to the Versailles Diktat: Scapa Flow, the Ruhr,
hyperinflation, and the communist threat
b. Stabilization and cooperation, 1925–29
i. The Roaring Twenties, mass consumerism and culture, and progressivism
ii. Rehabilitation of Germany: Weimar Republic, Dawes Plan, and the
Stresemann era
iii. International harmony and disarmament
(1) Washington Naval Conference, 1921
(2) Locarno Agreements, 1925
(3) Kellogg-Briand Pact, 1928
(4) Geneva Convention, 1929
7. Revisionism and the road to WWII
a. Stock market crash of 1929 and the global financial crisis
b. The Great Depression, 1929–39: economic, psychological, and political effects
c. Stalinist Russia
i. Modernization: "socialism in one country," the collectivization of
agriculture, and forced industrialization
ii. Repression: the NKVD, the "Great Terror," the Great Purges, ethnic
cleansing, and the war on religion
d. Mussolini's Italy
i. Italian fascism
ii. Italia irredenta, Italian revisionism, and the "Second Roman Empire"
iii. Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935
iv. The Axis forms, 1936
v. Invasion of Albania, 1939
vi. Invasion of Greece, 1940
e. Spanish Civil War, 1936–39
f. Rise of Nazi Germany, 1932–39
i. Hitler in WWI
ii. The Beer Hall Putsch, Landsberg, and Mein Kampf
iii. The Great Depression in Germany and the collapse of the Weimar Republic
iv. Gleichschaltung: the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP)
in power
g. Hitler and the road to WWII
i. Dismantling the Versailles Treaty: rearmament
ii. The Saar, 1935
iii. Remilitarization of the Rhineland, 1936
iv. Ideological, political, economic, and racial goals
v. Moving beyond Versailles, 1938–39
(1) Anschluss, March 1938
(2) Czech crisis, Munich Agreement, and the appeasement controversy,
October 1938
(3) The Polish crisis, August–September 1939
8. Second World War in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, 1939–45
a. The Second World War: its place in history
b. The Polish campaign, 1939
c. Soviet revisionism in Eastern Europe and the Baltic
d. Blitzkrieg in the West: Scandinavia, the Low Countries, and France, 1940
e. Operation Sea Lion, the Battle of Britain, and the Blitz, 1940
f. Barbarossa and the Eastern Front, 1941–44: Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad,
Kursk, and Bagration
g. Stalin and the Soviet war effort
h. North Africa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean, 1940–42
i. Italian campaign, 1943–45
j. Allied diplomacy: Casablanca, Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam
k. The air war, 1942–45
l. War at sea, 1939–45
m. Total war on the home front
n. Inside occupied Europe: Hitler's "New Order," collaboration, and resistance
o. Technology and intelligence
p. Overlord and the liberation of France, 1944
q. Long road into Germany: Arnhem and the Ardennes
r. Unconditional surrender: collapse of the Reich, 1945
s. Legacy of WWII: bipolarity, the Cold War, decolonization, and the
United Nations
9. The Holocaust
a. The Holocaust in history
b. Galut and diaspora: from Masada to the Middle Ages
c. European antisemitism in the age of Reformation, Enlightenment, and
nationalism
d. Zionism, the Russian Revolution, and the post-WWI Jewish-Palestinian conflict
e. Germany's scapegoat: the "November Criminals" and the Dolchstoss myth
f. Nazi antisemitism and the "Jewish Question"
g. Hitler's campaign against the Jews
i. Phase one: harassment, 1932–35
ii. Phase two: legal discrimination, isolation, and the Nuremberg Laws,
1935–38
iii. Phase three: violence, including Kristallnacht, expulsion, resettlement,
and ghettoization, 1938–41
iv. Barbarossa, the Einsatzgruppen, and "ordinary men" in Eastern Europe
and the Soviet Union, 1941
v. The Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution, 1942
h. Apparatus of genocide: the concentration and extermination camp system
i. German collaborators and allies and the Holocaust
j. Resistance and nonresistance to the Holocaust
k. Allied policy and the Holocaust
l. The "other" or "forgotten" Holocaust
m. Reckoning: the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal, 1945–46
n. Legacy: Israel, reparations, the United Nations, and ethnic cleansing in the
20th century
10. War in the Pacific, 1941–45
a. Imperial Japan: from the Meiji Restoration to the Russo-Japanese War, 1905
b. WWI in the Pacific
c. Interwar Japan: the "Twenty-One Demands" and the naval treaty of 1921
d. Depression-era Japan and the invasion of Manchuria
e. Sino-Japanese War and Indochina, 1937–45
f. The Rape of Nanking and the "Asian Holocaust"
g. U.S.-Japanese relations, 1937–41
h. "Days of infamy": Pearl Harbor, Singapore, and the Philippines
i. Turning the tide in the Pacific: Coral Sea, Midway, and Guadalcanal
j. The China-Burma-India theater
k. Island-hopping: New Guinea, the Gilberts, Carolines, Marshalls, and Marianas
campaigns
l. Closing in: Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and the return to the Philippines
m. Bushido and kamikaze: Japan and total war
n. Air war in the Pacific
11. Hiroshima and the birth of the atomic age
a. The Manhattan Project
b. The total war and "unconditional surrender" dynamic
c. Roosevelt, Truman, and the decision to use the A-bomb
d. Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 1945
e. Postwar Japan: surrender, occupation, and nation-building
f. The atomic age begins
g. The A-bomb controversy and the legacy of Hiroshima