Choose one question only. You may not answer the same question twice. Questions are as follows:
Can Austria’s attack on Serbia, the Soviet-Finnish War, and Russia’s attack on Ukraine be explained using the model of major-minor power wars?
Show the limitations of structural theories of World War I.
Show the limitations of institutional theories of World War I.
Show the logic of security dilemma explanations of European war.
Explain why fear does not explain combat sources.
For both the midterm and the final exams, you must answer the question using both lectures and readings.
How will the essays be graded?
There are multiple good answers for each question. Your graders will be looking for three things:
Does the essay present a clear and well-reasoned argument that answers the question?
Are there references to the readings and lectures to support the essay’s argument?
Is the text well-structured and in compliance with formatting and page limit requirements?
If your essay satisfies the three criteria above, you will do well regardless of which specific argument you use. Any citation of the course material that serves to support an argument that answers your question will be accepted as a valid source.
What formatting should I use?
Double spacing.
1 inch margins.
12pt Times New Roman or Helvetica.
No more than 1 inch of space dedicated to title and header.
No extraneous space between paragraphs or headers.
Do I need to cite both lectures and readings?
Yes. You should cite both the lectures and readings in your papers.
What are the readings for this course?
You are responsible for completing selected readings in the books below (editions do not matter.) You can purchase the required texts from the UCSD bookstore or from a third-party online bookstore.
You are expected to read the entire Fromkin. For the other books, you can read sections as you see fit for your papers.
Fromkin, David. Europe’s Last Summer: Who Started the Great War in 1914? Vintage Books. 2005.
Andrade, Tonio. The Gunpowder Age: China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History. Princeton University Press. 2016.
Kindsvatter, Peter S. American Soldiers: ground combat in the World Wars, Korea, and Vietnam. University Press of Kansas. 2003.
How should I distribute my citations between lectures and readings?
We are not looking for any particular ratio. It is ok to rely more on one source than the other, or to cite equally from them.
Can I use outside sources?
You may not use outside sources (i.e. a book that’s not assigned in the syllabus).
How do I cite a lecture?
You need to provide date of the lecture when you cite the lectures (Lecture, MM/DD).
How many citations do I need?
Approximately 3 citations per page.
When citing the book and lectures, do we have to paraphrase them? Or is it ok if we include quotes?
It is ok to include quotes, but they should be short and few. Ideally no more than one long quote (>4 lines of text) and no more than three short quotes (<4 lines of text) in the whole paper. You should prioritize using your own words to answer the question.
Please do not copy/paste lecture notes into the text of your response. Please do not simply paraphrase the lecture notes or
the book.
