Raymond Jonas is a Professor of History at the University of Washington. Finally, he will ask us to ponder the responsibilities of the powerful, viewed with the eyes of the young men they had persuaded to fight. Jonas will explore the political culture that obliterated tolerance for difference, finding the foundations of power in nation and race. Pursuing the story of this crisis across themes of domination, integration, and betrayal, Professor Jonas will consider the rivalries that underpinned the war and the bleak geopolitical thinking that informed them. The Great War signaled the terminal crisis of the European old regime–a crisis more than a century in the making. In a series of lectures, faculty from the University of Washington Department of History offer four perspectives on the Great War one hundred years after it began. The status of great powers, the hierarchy of peoples and nations, the security of domestic ties, the assurance of roles for men and women, and the rightness of colonial rule-nothing remained as it had been. When it was over, it had left few beliefs unshaken. The war that broke out in 1914 was both a global war and a total war. Online videos now available! Find links below for the entire lecture series.
