1. Use lecture, Empires, Citizens, lecture, and Your Death Would be Mine to describe how the Great War affected those on the home front who never saw battle. Describe, using specific examples, how war changed and complicated their daily lives. Did the war have any positive as well as negative outcomes for them?
2. Use the lecture, Oxford Illustrated’s essay by Modris Eksteins, and the films shown in class, specifically All Quiet and Battalion, to discuss specific memory cultures that developed around World War I. Use examples to illustrate general tendencies of war memories and also address how these memories differed between different countries. How were American memories different from Russian, German or East European ones? How might middle-class memories have differed from working class memories (be careful not to generalize but to find specific examples here).
3. Using lecture, Lenin, Yashka, lectures, and other relevant materials, describe forms of dissent, opposition, protest, and resistance to engaging in or continuing or participating in the Great War. For which reasons did soldiers, civilians, countries, political parties, and politicians oppose the war and what forms did their resistance take?
4. Use Empires, Citizens, The Versailles Treaty, and Oxford Illustrated’s essay on Versailles to discuss the political consequences of World War I in Europe, on Germany and elsewhere.
The Great War changed gender roles, art, military technology and the use of it, politics in Europe, Russia and the United States, class relations, geography just to mention a few areas. Which area did you find to be the most important changed by this war? Briefly motivate your answer in 2-3 sentences.
