The Great War and Versailles/Assignment One

Please note that I have included both a long and a short assignment so students can determine their involvement in the course based upon their own time commitment. It is not required to do both, but please at least try to accomplish the shorter one. Also, let me know if anyone is having a problem obtaining the Howard book so we can work something out. I'll be assigning other sections from that book in the future, as that is the main book of the class. --Polizano 17 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Short assignment: Read pages 1-31 in The First World War by Michael Howard (Oxford University Press, 2003) ISBN 0192804456.
 * Longer assignment: Read (or skim) The Long Fuse: An Interpretation of the Origins of World War I  by Laurence Lafore (Waveland Press, 1997) ISBN 0881339547 -- This book is 284 pages. It is a little too soft on Germany and Austria-Hungary, focusing on strict mobilization schedules as the cause of the war, and totally trashes Serbia. Still, it does an excellent job of chronicling each of the prewar crises and how they affected the view of each power going into the crisis of 1914. It does an especially notable job breaking down the makeup of Austria-Hungary. It also goes through the diplomacy of 1914, though takes a rather superficial look at Germany's actions.
 * Supplemental: Timeline of the July Crisis.