World War I research topic

I need help. I have a 15-20 page research paper due... before December.

Professor wants us to write about something, ANYTHING, that was affected by WWI. He wants us to take that THING (whatever it is) and write about it 10 years prior to the war, during the war, and how it was changed after the war.

This topic is so god damn broad, I don't even know where to start.

He said that the best paper he's ever read from a student was about the affect of the war on ballet dancing. Uh. Ok.

Any war history buffs wanna give me some suggestions? I don't care what it is, I just need it to have enough documentation on it that I'll have enough to write 20 pages about.

oh my gosh, you need to do the idea of isolationism.

America went from being a quiet, kept-to-itself country that focused on becoming the best in the sciences etc, to a world power that started having to rescue other countries from war or debt, thus thrusting itself into war and debt. You can even show how it affects us still today.

It is an unbelievably broad topic. One thing that might be well worth looking at would be the practices of war. WWI revolutionised the practice of war to an unbelievably large extent. Things like trench warfare, the use of chemical weapons, mines, pioneering use of airplanes, the development and first deployment of the tank, extensive use of machine guns, the tactics used (particularly by the British). Hell, just look at the initial British tactics of using horses at the start of WWI to using tanks at the end of it. Could possibly work in something about the build-up of arms in Europe, role of conscription and the naval race/challenge to British naval supremacy but I'm unsure how relevant/remarkable they are.

The political climate of Europe (and/or the world) might be a topic well worth considering too. Perhaps European-American relations. I say this because it would allow you to take the isolationism topic and perhaps make it slightly broader if you felt it was too limiting. I mean, this is a very broad topic too, so perhaps you could look at certain aspects of it. WWI had a large effect upon countries like Italy, Germany and Russia. You might even be able to explore the League of Nations as part of this which would, again, slot in quite nicely with the isolationism theme.

Role of women in western society could be another as I know that WWI, in part, paved the way for slightly more universal suffrage in Britain. During the war, women often took on the role of men's work and working in munitions factories and even worked as spies (Mata Hari, anyone?) during the war itself.

They're just three possibilities off the top of my head. Hope they help, though please feel free to ask me about anything else as I've always been interested in the first half of the twentieth century.

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Originally Posted by rubah

oh my gosh, you need to do the idea of isolationism.

America went from being a quiet, kept-to-itself country that focused on becoming the best in the sciences etc, to a world power that started having to rescue other countries from war or debt, thus thrusting itself into war and debt. You can even show how it affects us still today.

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That's not really correct, though. The US might have interfered during WWI, but after the war it went back into its non-interventionist policies. One of the reasons they didn't sign at Versailles. The flip really came when the Bomb was dropped.

Or you could do the huge impact it had on society! Which is yeah really broad and a pretty standard one. But there's so much fascinating exploration I find that comes out of this; British society -- the writings of Virginia Woolf which sorta show a country of people descending into madness and confusion and the loss of religion as a huge force in people's lives (because how could they believe in god when such horrors had happened? although this takes in a part of WWII as well...) and the whole idea of MODERNISM coming from it. The philosophical questions -- Albert Camus etc -- what the hell's the meaning of life etc. All this was brought on by the war(s)! How amazing would this be to do? It's like a great big cleft in time.

I don't know how much research you could find, but a report on how it changed the face of the classical music genre would be an interesting thing for your professor to read, if it really changed it much at all :p

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Originally Posted by Miriel

I need help. I have a 15-20 page research paper due... before December.

Professor wants us to write about something, ANYTHING, that was affected by WWI. He wants us to take that THING (whatever it is) and write about it 10 years prior to the war, during the war, and how it was changed after the war.

This topic is so god damn broad, I don't even know where to start.

He said that the best paper he's ever read from a student was about the affect of the war on ballet dancing. Uh. Ok.

Any war history buffs wanna give me some suggestions? I don't care what it is, I just need it to have enough documentation on it that I'll have enough to write 20 pages about.

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The coming of WW1 and its effect on Irish home rule/independance. Have to write an essay on that myself.

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Originally Posted by theundeadhero

I don't know how much research you could find, but a report on how it changed the face of the classical music genre would be an interesting thing for your professor to read, if it really changed it much at all :p

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oh! It changed classical music quite a bit. Went from early modernism to a cynical neoclassicism and obsession with form and a mocking display of artifice.

There have been many books written on that era, though, so you could almost paraphrase one for a paper.

You could establish economic conditions, and compare. There's cultural and social changes, as well (established Armenian self-determination).

There's also the rise of Leninist Communism with the Russian Revolution of 1917, but you would have to prove how it was affected by WWI, which shouldn't be that hard, since there's a whole treaty about it (Brest-Litovsk).

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Originally Posted by Tavrobel

There's also the rise of Leninist Communism with the Russian Revolution of 1917, but you would have to prove how it was affected by WWI, which shouldn't be that hard, since there's a whole treaty about it (Brest-Litovsk).

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I suppose that would mostly depend on how important a cause of the February/March and October/November Revolutions you consider WWI to be. The fact that the provisional government kept fighting the war certainly didn't help it's popularity.

Write about literary and artistic response to post-war economic & social boom, the Generation of Fire and modernism and film and alcoholism & drug use and advances in medicine and terrorism and imperialism and autocracy and the continued cover-up of war crimes and the beginnings of PTSD research and propaganda film and soooo much to pick from.

If I were you, I'd write about the psychological movement in investigating and treating PTSD.

Colonialism in Africa. Talk about how it further worsened things for the Africans. Very important.

I would just focus on how warfare changed because of it.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions.

Foa, I'm going with the PTSD topic. :)