HIST 315 - World War 1 & World War 2

Credit Hours: 3

This course will cover the era of the two great world wars of the first half of the 20th Century. Both of these conflicts not only reached a global scale, but also portended and predicted much of the conflict that would occur in the 20th century and even to the present day. Industrialization, mechanization and mass mobilization of societies and economies to fight on this new level of Total War upended much of the traditional understandings, practices and strategies of war and wartime, and led to many new “fronts” of the battlefield in efforts to win the war. Social structures, mores, and roles all shifted, as did the West’s role in and control over much of the world. As such, special attention will be paid to the legacies of World War I, as well as the developments of Fascism, and the ramifications of the World Wars in creating the Cold War and the present context