Join four esteemed professors as they discuss various points of view around the implications of World War I, the military strategy, and the war's legacy for both America and for the world.
Forgotten War: The Lasting Legacy of World War I
Feel the still-reverberating aftershocks of World War I, thanks to four distinct POVs on the war's legacy for America and the world.
Rated 5 out of
5
by
the professor from
A Forgotten War with Lasting Collateral Damage
As I write this brief review of a long forgotten war, it's lingering, permanent and collateral damage continue. Very few people these days know of the horrible human losses suffered by all the combatants and the residual lingering impact World War I has had on civilization. Happy to see The Great Courses created a 36 lecture set on World War I. Everyone of TGC's lecture sets on war and conflict are first rate with the finest professors. Always worth the investment!
Date published: 2025-02-22
Rated 4 out of
5
by
BerengariaXXXY from
The naming of parts
I first Experienced the impact of the First World War tangentially, and accidentally. That is to say I was not engaged in an active study of either that War or wars in general. My encounters were sporadic, unsystematic, but paradoxically the more potent, and they extended over many years.
I remember the shock of looking at a War Memorial in a small village near Lancaster UK. This was an octagonal structure and on one of the sides the first eight names recorded were of one family, a renowned family, The Kaye-Shuttleworths. I had not appreciated the devastation of young lives squandered in that war.
My next encounter happened shortly afterwards when a lady came to visit it. She went by the name of Mrs.McFadden but she was the daughter of a cadet branch of nobility of The Austro-Hungarian Empire. To the observation of my Father, a German and a refugee from Hitler's Germany, a Physicist,, to the effect that the war was absurd, she replied,
'Yes, indeed but for me and for women ,it was a special moment of release from my society, from the subordination of women. I went to University, like your Vera Britain, I was allowed to go, because of the War, and towards the end of the war I was asked to Nurse an Amero-Indian, because I had English and he introduced me to America,, and after the war I went there, I married an engineer, became an American Citizen and the next time I went to Europe I wore an American Uniform and was on the strength of the American contingent at the Nuremburg War Crimes Tribunal.. The USA in the wake of that War. Reminded me such much of the eve of War in Vienna, it was the Jazz Age so beautifully captured by Scott Fitzgerald, especially in that beautiful Chapter in 'Tender is the Night' My Father was on the Balkan Desk of the Imperial Staff, before he returned to his Regiment he said something I have never forgotten
I feel sorry for you Julia, you will grow up in a Europe of small nations with obsessional notions of Nation, but weak, and unable to defend themselves and with misbegotten parents, The Fatherland and Mother Russia.
and of course that was how it turned out .
My next encounter was in France where I was educated in the latter part of my secondary Education and some higher Education. I was there when the Fourth Republic and I remember DeGaulle's speech on resuming office and I had just read French Novels,about Youth, 'Le Grandes Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier, and Fromentin's 'Dominique' both of which conjured up the young people striving to experience life on their own terms in their own times and Collette's 'Sido' and Proust's 'Acote de chez Schwann
.By inferences, by extrapolation I had an idea of how things were before the War, later I read an account of the Childhood of Grafin Marion Dönhoff in Prussia, and by virtue of these, and Vera Britain's 'Testament of Youth' and Hartley's 'The Go between' is encountered the paradox of the War, the disaster, but also the new horizons it offered to women and an entire social class and I was cured of nostalgia for the eve. I realised that the beautiful dresses which decorated women were also a confinement.
The next time was even more accidental in a Forestry lecture when the lecturer was talking about Fire and the evidence of ire in Forests, and the lecturer recalled that forest fires had the same effect as the First World War, because there entire cohorts of trees as of of young men because of War were absent from the Eco-system and from the society..
The First World War as not just a war, it was not just a political episode, It is properly called the First World War because its impact was social, cultural, as well as political and its aftermath was incremental, it had sequels in every facet of life, and Vera Britain was right when she said that perhaps the 'Home Front' experienced the more permanent impact of the war in dire, dramatic and potent change and yet the title of your piece s well chosen. We continue to forget that the fount of change still resonates, still infiltrates into our thinking without attributing the them to initial cause, and so the culpability is transferred from the cause to the symptom and diverts attention from the Phenomenon and problems that it bequeathed almost unsuspected, with which honest people sought to grapple.
I encountered the War several times in tangential and abstract ways, not always aware of the resonances, but I will recall one plangent reminded that teaches lessons and requires that we take fresh stock of Total War. The unpalatable Grass Nardus stricta flourished on the Welsh uplands because of the dentition of lambs as distinct from the mature sheep, the metabolism of the mature animal is different, and so as a result of the disintegration of the great houses as domestic staff were released from service the cooks switched from Mutton to lamb, and the results for the Welsh uplands was profound; the disintegration of the great houses, was but one of a sequence of processes that created a criss for Welsh Grasslands . As T.S. Eliot wrote in his 'Journey of the Magi
'And so they returned to their Kingdoms no longer at home in the old Dispensation'
He was writing of the Birth of Christ but the ramifications of that War still reverberate and are still operating, unsuspected, unbeknown, unrecognised and it gives birth to a conspiracy which diverts attention from the origin of the problems and so to the creation of the wrong culprits for the wrong reasons. Any one that wants to understand how the War impacted on a trans-Atlantic Society could read to their advantage Lucy Montgomery's 'Rilla of Ingleside' and D.H. Lawrence's 'Lady Chatterley's lover' not for the sex, but, because of the personal tragedies as well as the opportunities created by a war that was not necessary but was the culmination of social processes, many of which had been frustrated by vested interests. 'The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there. We need to think why. I welcome this discussion but what is required to recover the forgotten war are the reverberations in the aftermath
Date published: 2025-02-14
Rated 5 out of
5
by
billh73 from
Great Analysis
Captures all the key issues in a clear and interesting format.
Date published: 2025-01-16
Rated 5 out of
5
by
thanky2156 from
very eye-opening
i would love to see this turn into a 12-ep course, it’s so interesting and important to understand this period in histodury
Date published: 2023-02-19
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Thanuja from
Short intro to great subject!
It is a short introductory for WWI subject. I wish Wondrium could create a full length course on the WWI.
Date published: 2022-04-26
Rated 5 out of
5
by
xrebx from
Excellent short subject on WW1
Is a great lead in to the Great Courses present courses on this subject.
Date published: 2021-05-23
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Laurence F from
A gap that needs to be filled
I agree completely with the other reviewers that there needs to be a full course. Considering the breadth and depth of the history courses carried by TGC, the absence of a course on WWI represents a glaring hole in the catalogue.
Date published: 2021-05-12
Rated 5 out of
5
by
logicalpositiv from
great but short
Need a full length course. The teaching company had a great one in the past
Date published: 2021-05-10
Overview Course No. 7441
01: Forgotten War: The Lasting Legacy of World War I
Four esteemed professors—Edward T. O’Donnell, David R. Stone, Craig L. Symonds, and Patrick Allitt—with different historical specialties discuss the implications of World War I, the military strategy, the triumphs and failures, and the war's legacy for both America and for the world.
21 min
