Topic: German Civilization: 1850 to Present
Order Description
Discuss why the different types of German expansionism (military, colonial, industrial) in the Wilhelmine period helped force Germany and Europe down the path toward war in 1914. What other cultural and sociopolitical factors also played a role in this context? Do you agree with those historians who argue that Germany was responsible for the outbreak of World War I? Why or why not?
please see that book : A Concise History of Germany by Mary Fulbrook, Chapter 5, pp. 104–154( i will send you this book , please see upload additional files needed for my order later at my account )
you may use any assigned readings, your notes, and other course-related materials to complete this assignment. Don’t use Wikipedia idea .
Your essay should be about 1,000 words long, double-spaced, with one-inch margins.
Grading will be based on the following considerations:
A good essay clearly and fully completes all parts of the assignment. Because some of the lesson essays specifically ask you to address several issues as part of the overall assignment, half a letter grade will be subtracted for each sub-question left unaddressed. For example, if you respond to only one of the three issues you’re supposed to include in your answer, your essay will be graded according to the quality of the answer provided, and then one letter grade will be subtracted, because you should have answered all three parts of the question.
Please keep in mind that although you are supposed to address all sub-questions listed in the task, this does not mean that you cannot add additional comments or observations of your own.
A good essay shows overall competence and excellent knowledge of the issues in question. This competence usually stems from a thorough understanding of all the issues raised in the commentary. It can be supplemented by some additional studies you undertake in excess of what is provided by the commentary (for example by looking up some of the additional references mentioned at the end of each lesson). In any case, the key point is that you should NOT simply copy the commentary, but rephrase the learning material in your original words as well as add original insights of your own.
A good essay is well organized and written in a clear and coherent style. Extra points are given if your essay provides a smooth transition between the different parts that address the questions. On the other hand, points are subtracted up to one letter grade for sloppy writing, grammatical and orthographic mistakes, and answers that are either too short or too long.
The following remarks are meant to help students compose their essays for the various progress evaluations of this course.
For most, if not all, of the progress evaluations in this course, there is no “correct” answer you are supposed to come up with. This is not a math or natural science course where one answer is “right” and the other answers are “wrong.” Rather, the questions you are addressing can usually be answered in different ways, and one can almost always make an argument in favor of one position as opposed to another. Therefore, what matters most when you write your essay is less what you argue for than how you argue for it. The crucial point is that you provide good reasons for the opinion you express, draw from the historical data and evidence provided in the lesson and the reading assignments, argue convincingly, and structure your essay coherently.
A good essay will, of course, address all the issues and related questions laid out in the progress evaluation. But all too often, students go through these issues as if they constituted a checklist of single, unrelated items that just need to be addressed one by one to produce a “correct” answer. That, however, is not the case. Rather, the specific points mentioned in the progress evaluations are only meant to provide some overall guidance for composing a comprehensive response to the essay prompt. Hence, you should not assume that all relevant aspects of a particular topic or question will be explicitly mentioned in the progress evaluations, and you should always feel free to refer to or include other points you regard as essential to the topic you discuss. But, most importantly, you must endeavor to weave all of the various aspects and ideas you discuss into a coherent whole in order to provide a convincing argumentative flow to support your views. You should never just rattle off your individual ideas without providing a sentence or two that connects these ideas and shows how all of them help address the issue. The overall goal for this course is for you to learn important facts about German history, but also to develop and express an informed opinion about this history.
Your essay should state a thesis or an opinion early on (usually in the first paragraph) that responds to the question or issue raised in the progress evaluation. The remainder of the essay should then try to provide convincing evidence in favor of this position you expressed. You must connect the evidence you cite to your overall thesis. All too often, students simply assume that the connection is “obvious” and requires no further explanation. Hence, they just list a number of historical facts or observations without spelling out exactly how and why these facts are relevant to the issue at hand. This approach will always result in a lower grade than one that remains focused on the overall question and presents a more coherently argued position. See Lesson 1 for detailed examples.
In your essay, do not just list or mention a number of historical facts or events without clarifying why these events are relevant for the position or opinion you are supporting. Otherwise, your instructor will get the impression that all you do in your essay is to regurgitate the information given to you in the Lesson without thinking through this information. Your objective in this course is not to repeat or memorize facts, but to critically discuss and evaluate these facts within a broad and complex historical framework. So, whenever you refer to an important event (say the dismissal of Bismarck in 1890), you must immediately tell the reader why this was important: What did the dismissal signify? What consequences followed? How does this support your argument?
Your closing paragraph should summarize as succinctly as possible the case you have been trying to make throughout the essay. You might also try to present a final comment or point to some other related issues to bolster the accuracy and importance of the views you have already expressed in the essay. However, you should never begin a new argument or present complex new evidence in favor of your position in your last paragraph. Still, students often end their essay with some big claim or general pronouncement because they (falsely!) believe that what they need is a “big bang” at the end to sound more convincing. The opposite is true: If you have presented a compelling and well-reasoned case throughout the essay, all you have to do in the end is to remind the reader about why your arguments support your view. That’s it. If you were unable to make your case in the body of the paper, you will only aggravate the situation by adding additional and unsupported statements at the end.
