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The First World War: Interrogating the Myths

Module description

The First World War remains a standard feature of most GCSE and A-Level History and English Literature syllabi in the UK. As a result, many of you will have some idea of the war and what it entailed. However, these impressions are largely based on post-1945 historiography that emphasises particular features of the war such as the Western Front, the soldier-poet, and the futility of the war at the expense of a more complicated and detailed interrogation. Those educated in Britain will tend to have an overtly Anglo-centric view of the war, exacerbated by recent centenary coverage (2014 – 2018) in the national media and entertainment outlets. Taking some of the most well-established myths in turn, this module will challenge what you think you know about the First World War. It will provide you with a well-rounded and in-depth understanding of the war from the British perspective, although additional European and non-European comparative perspectives will be integrated at appropriate points.

Module aims - intentions of the module

The aims of this module are two-fold:

• You will explore the ways in which the British public currently understand the First World War. The centenary period 2014-2018 was a particular gift in helping you to see, very visibly, what popular ideas and perceptions exist about the war. Art, literature, film, television, drama and comedy, such as John Boyne’s The Absolutist, Pat Barker’s Regeneration trilogy, War Horse, Downton Abbey, and Blackadder, are also important cultural outputs through which the war is ‘imagined’;

• You will relate these popular ‘imaginings’ to academic research both since the Second World War and the more recent ‘revisionist’ approach that emerged in the 1990s (and beyond). With a heavy focus on primary sources, this course will seek to introduce you to the latest research and allow you to apply your knowledge in analysing primary material. You will examine the latest revisionist historiography mainly from a socio-cultural perspective and be actively encouraged to contrast it with traditional interpretations.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Display a deepened historical understanding of important events and themes in the history of the First World War from a national and comparative perspective
• 2. Appraise competing historiographies and understand key aspects of the revisionist cultural turn;
• 3. Understand and critically evaluate the available sources relating to the First World War and relate them to the wider historiography;
• 4. Contrast and assess the information provided from contemporary and post-war sources and to consider how memories of the war are formed.

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 5. Formulate appropriate questions relating to a body of source material and utilise that material to answer these questions
• 6. With minimum guidance, develop and sustain historical arguments in a variety of literary forms, using appropriate terminology
• 7. Display a command of comparative perspectives
• 8. Analyse at a close and sophisticated level original sources and assess their reliability as historical evidence
• 9. Evaluate critically the reasoning of discourses current in the period under studyy

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 10. Set tasks independently and solve problems, formulating appropriate questions and marshalling relevant evidence to answer them;
• 11. With minimum guidance, digest, select and synthesise evidence and arguments to produce, to a deadline, a coherent and cogent argument.

Syllabus plan

Whilst the content may vary from year to year, it is envisioned that it will cover some or all of the following topics:

• Popular understandings of the First World War
• Revisionist historiography and the ‘cultural turn’
• The approach of war
• Popular reactions to war
• Industrialised warfare and the Western Front, 1914-1917
• The soldiers’ experience
• A global war? Beyond the Western Front
• Gender in wartime
• Victory, 1918: Why did the allies win?
• The Paris Peace Conference and post-war international relations
• Historians, commemoration and the centenary of the First World War

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Audoin-Rouzeau, Stephane and Annette Becker, 14-18: Understanding the Great War (2002)
• Beckett, Ian, The Great War, 1914-1918 (2001)
• Bond, Brian, The Unquiet Western Front (2002)
• Bourne, J.M., Britain and the Great War 1914-1918 (1989)
• Gregory, Adrian, The Last Great War: British Society and the First World War (2008)
• Horne, John (ed), State, Society and Mobilisation in Europe During the First World War (1997)
• Horne, John (ed), A Companion to the First World War (2010)
• Kocka, Jürgen, Facing Total War: German Society, 1914-1918 (1984)
• Neiberg, Michael S., Fighting the Great War: A Global History (2005)
• Prost, A. and J. Winter, The Great War in History: Debate and Controversies (2005)
• Sheffield, G.D., Forgotten Victory: The First World War, Myths and Realities (2002)
• Smith, Leonard V., S. Audoin-Rouzeau and A. Becker, France and the Great War 1914-1918 (2003)
• Strachan, Hew (ed), The Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War (1998)
• Stevenson, David, 1914-1918: The History of the First World War (2004)
• Todman, Dan, The Great War: Myth and Memory (2005)
• Winter, J.M. and Jean-Louis Robert (ed), Capital Cities at War: Paris, London, Berlin 1914-1919 Vols 1 and 2 (Cambridge: CUP, 1997 & 2007)

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE page: https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=11317
• www.historial.org (Historial de la Grande Guerre, Péronne)
• www.iwm.org.uk (The Imperial War Museum, London)
• http://www.museedelagrandeguerre.eu/en (Musée de la Grande Guerre du Pays de Meaux)
• http://www.firstworldwarstudies.org/?page_id=875 (International Society for First World War Studies Collaborative Bibliography. Join and ‘Like’ on Facebook for automatic updates of literature.)
• http://battlefields1418.50megs.com
• www.1914-1918.net
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/wwone/
• http://ww1centenary.oucs.ox.ac.uk/

The library has also made recent investments in online resources for the First World War. Via the electronic library, subject ‘History’, please consult:

• The First World War: Personal Experiences (Adam Matthew Digital): A digital collection of primary sources.
• UK World War One Collections: An accessible online database which captures information on UK university, archive, library and museum holdings relating to the conflict.

Key words search

First World War, memory, culture, perception, myths, Britain, comparative