World War 1 is said to have been the first ‘total’ war. What does that mean? And what does it mean for people and nations trying to pick up the pieces and resume normal life?

Hello Class,

Welcome to Week 1!

This week, we will be discussing the totality of World War I.

Along with your textbook reading for the week, here’s some additional reading to consider about this era:

Phillip Blom: The Vertigo Years: 1900-1914

Barbara Tuchman: The Guns of August

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: August, 1914

Paul Fussell: The Great War and Modern Memory

David M. Kennedy: Over Here

Margaret McMillan: Paris, 1919

John Maynard Keynes: The Economic Consequences of the Peace

Remember to use an outside resource in the main post, which needs to be on or before Wednesday.

By the end of the week you should be able to understand and apply the following course outcomes:

• Given the deliberate distortion and misuse of history in 20th and 21st century secular and religious ideology and propaganda, formulate a set of principles to govern historical research and the teaching of history to minimize the risk of ideological distortion and political misuse of history.
• Given a present-day national or international situation with apparent negative consequences for the future, apply the tools and resources of history to assess the probable short and long-term outcomes of the situation and to propose rational solutions.

Don’t forget to look over the discussion rubric as a reference when you are writing your discussion posts. If you have any questions, please post in the Q&A forum or email me:

Let’s get started!

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