This course is designed to cover the topic of total war in the modern era as it applies to Europe (though the course occasionally discusses developments in the US as well). This course first looks at what constitutes total war. Students begin by tracing military developments since the age of industrialization and see how those developments impacted Europe and the conduct of modern warfare. The course juxtaposes these events against political developments and applies a theoretical framework to better understand these developments in the modern era. The course studies WWI, the interwar period, WWII, and the Cold War to analyze how the concept of total war applies to each of those eras.