Course description (Spring 2001): HIS 4995, Sect. 02 -- Topics in Comparative History: World War and Revolution, 1900-1925 (MWF 9:30-10:20 am)

Prof. Johnson

  1. Course Description: This undergraduate topics course will focus on the relationship between the First World War of 1914-1918, the many smaller wars that immediately preceded and immediately followed it in various parts of the world (in Asia, Africa, and Europe), and the wave of revolutions that swept the world during the first quarter of the twentieth century, from China to Mexico to Russia. We will compare the experience of war and revolution, on both winning and losing sides; and we will examine their causes and consequences: political, social, economic, technological, and cultural.
  2. Course Format and Work: The course will meet for three sessions per week, about 2/3 devoted to lectures and the rest to discussion of the readings or short oral reports by students (class participation will be worth 10%). The latter will be based on short papers (one required, 30%). There will also be a midterm and final essay examination (30% each).
  3. Readings: we will read and discuss the following works:

Ferguson, The Pity of War

Eksteins, Rites of Spring

Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front

[ordered, but canceled:  Sholokhov, And Quiet Flows the Don (book is out of print)]

Ferro, The Great War 1914-1918

Woollacott, On Her Their Lives Depend

Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution

             Wolf, Peasant Wars of the 20th Century