HIST 245 World War II on the Home Front
When students enroll in this course, they enlist “for the duration,” in order to “reconstruct” the Home Front from Pearl Harbor to “V-J” Day. Daily exercises in recreating the home front include music of the period, letters, diary entries, columns by war correspondent Ernie Pyle, excerpts from oral histories, and incorporation of WWII home front artifacts. Besides this “hands-on” approach to history, students critically analyze WWII as “The Good War” and the debate over WWII as a “watershed” in the 20th century, addressing the question, was WWII’s impact on society an “example of continuity or change?”