In this assignment, you will read an article that presents
several points of view about whether World War I was a cultural turning point.
You will consider each opinion as well as your own ideas about the effects of
the war on global culture, and then discuss the topic with your classmates. The
link between war and its effects on culture is an important one. Understanding
how world wars influence global culture, and taking it one step further to how
the global culture is influencing the current events of today, can help you
understand this modern world and the way global interactions influence and
change societies.

Historians do not always agree on historical matters,
especially when concerning causes and effects. Click the link to read a feature
on World War I’s effect on culture:  http://college.cengage.com/humanities/perry/humanities/1e/students/summaries/ch24.html

The two viewpoints described in the article are summarized
here.

•Viewpoint 2: It [WWI] left unforgettable landscapes of
destruction that marked the rupture from a safer past and produced a sense of
foreboding that the next decades amply justified.

•Viewpoint 3: The war intensified intellectual patterns that
already existed and helped to make sense of an experience that confounded any
notion of an ordered universe. The challenges that cultural modernism posed to
rationalism and objectivity before the Great War seemed validated beyond
criticism by the events of 1914-1918.

Assignment is to :  Choose one of
these viewpoints and defend it. Your defense should be at least one paragraph,
with specific examples.