I agree that WWI does not get as much attention as WWII, despite being a significant point in history.  I also took this class to learn about the war from a literary perspective, which is a big reason for my decision, and which I forgot to mention in my own post.  I think having both a historical and a literary perspective on any historical event can help modern students understand these events better.

I also agree that WWI is vastly over-shadowed by WWII. In all of my education leading up to this course, I have had history nearly every year and have discussed WWI for roughly three chapters of reading in all. I think that is a shame as WWI offers much to be learned as far as being a far more modern war in style than any before it. WWII really was a continuation of WWI fighting styles, so WWI is more the genesis of modern war, and WWII is merely a continuation.

I completely agree, along with the previous two people. I even wrote about that a little bit in my blog entry. It does seem that WWII overshadows WWI. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that WWII directly impacted our generation, in the way that many of the people involved were around when we were children, I remember my grandfather being in WWII and telling certain stories about the war and my grandma telling the stories of going to work and being at home during the war. But the idea of total war was really implaminted during WWI. WWI shaped how WWII was fought and dealt with.

Welcome to the course, Will. Yes, one motivation for doing a course on WWI is the fact that we, as Americans, tend to identify more closely with WWII to the extent that we often underappreciate the impact of WWI. In terms of literary history, however, WWI changed everything, and we can gain a better understanding of the Twentieth Century as a whole by studying it. Many of the literary movements after WWII were continuations of revolutionary styles invented around WWI.