Courses

This course explores the experience of men and women in Europe during the two world wars using written sources, films, memoirs, and popular cultural artifacts. This course covers the major transformations in European politics, technology, culture, philosophy, economy, art, and music in the first half of the century. Topics include the rush to arms in 1914; treatment of shell shock; the war poets; life on the home front; women's roles; pacifism between the wars; Nazi "blitzkrieg" and total war; terror in everyday life; civilian reactions to aerial bombing and psychology in war; the Holocaust, and postwar reconstruction and the treatment of refugees.