HIST 361
A Social and Cultural History of World War II Spring 2010
Division II Exploring Diversity Initiative
This is not the current course catalog

This course is not a military history of the war but an examination of the social and cultural impact of the war on the United States, and to a lesser extent, Europe and Asia. Through primary documents including memoirs, oral histories, novels, photographs, and films, as well as the current scholarship on the war, we will explore a range of experiences of Americans during the war, both on the American homefront and in combat. The course material will play special attention to the racial, ethnic, gender, sexual, class, and regional relationships that were affected by the war. Themes include the mobilization of the war effort, women and war production, the incarceration of Japanese Americans, the resistance of African Americans to segregation and inequality, the impact of combat on soldiers, the decision to use the atomic bomb and responses to its use, the enduring legacy of the Holocaust, how the war enabled the United States to emerge as a superpower in the postwar era, and various issues involving the historical memory of the war. This course fulfills the requirements for the Exploring Diversity Initiative because it examines how different racial, ethnic, and gendered/sexualized groups were affected by the war, how they transformed American society, and how America’s status in the world changed after the war, bringing about new relations between Americans and those they fought with and against during the war.