Prof. Edwin E. Moise
Office: Hardin 102
Office phones: 656-5369, 656-3153
Home phone: 654-7087
e-mail: eemoise@clemson.edu
Messages can be left in my mailbox in Hardin 124, or in the box on my office door.
Office Hours
Monday 10:10-11:00, 2:30-3:20
Tuesday 11:00-12:15
Wednesday 10:10-11:00, 2:30-3:20
Thursday 11:00-12:15
Friday 10:10-11:00
I do not emphasize trivial factual details in this course. On tests and quizzes I will NOT ask you to tell me the date of the battle of Antietam, or even the name of the Union commander there. There are some facts you need to know, but they are more important things than dates and names. On the other hand, I will expect you to get an idea of the sequence of events, what came first and what came later.
The most important single part of your grade will be the course paper. You can write it on whatever topic you please, within the limit of the subject matter of this course. Most of the papers should be about eight to ten pages long typed double spaced, or the equivalent in handwriting. Longer papers acceptable.
For more detailed guidelines on the term paper, see Writing a Term Paper in Military History.
The paper is due Wednesday, April 26. It is late if I have not gotten it before I go home that day (definitely not before 4:30 PM, maybe later than that). There will be a five point penalty if it is handed in on April 27 or 28. The penalty will be fifteen points if it is not turned in by the time I go home on Friday, April 28.
You can have a pretty free choice of topics for this paper, within the limits of the subject matter of this course. You must come in and talk to me about your paper, and discuss the sources you will be using. It is not enough to say to me as we are walking out of the classroom one morning "Professor Moise, is it OK if I write about the Battle of Chancellorsville?" You will need to talk things over with me for ten or maybe even twenty minutes, not just a few seconds. After we have talked, you must give me a written statement of your topic, with a list of the main sources you plan to use. There will be a five point penalty if you have not given this to me by March 10, and an additional five points if it is not in by March 17. If it still is not in by March 31, I will either give you yet another five-point penalty, or else simply hand you a sheet of paper telling you what topic you must write on, and what sources you must use.
If you bring in a preliminary draft of your paper ten days or so before it is due, I will read it and then tell you what needs changing. You can then go home and re-write it. This will almost certainly improve the grades of the few students who bother to take advantage of this offer, so don't be one of the lazy majority who don't start work on the paper until a week before it is due, and then have no time for re-writing.
The paper is worth 150 points. The other written work will be:
--Two
newspaper research exercises, worth 40 points each.
--One essay quiz (20 points).
--The midterm test (70 points)
and the final exam (120 points),
which will be mostly essay questions.
This adds up to 440 points for the course.
The basic grade scale is that 90% (396 points) is the bottom of the
A's, 80% (352 points) is the bottom of the B's, and so on. Sometimes
I alter the scale in the students' favor, never against them.
Thus 396 points is a guaranteed A; 392 or even 388 points might be an A, if the
average for the class is low.
Academic integrity requires that we not try to pass off other people's work as our own. The ways students have gotten into problems of academic dishonesty in this course, in past years, have been:
Large portions of a term paper copied from a book or web site, without any indication that the material was copied. Typically this involves both large amounts of material quoted word-for-word, without quotation marks, and also a serious shortage of source notes pointing to the book from which the material came. Often there are misleading source notes claiming the material came from some source other than the one from which it was actually copied word-for-word. These false source notes are especially strong evidence of academic dishonesty.
Whole term paper obtained from some source (a commercial term paper service, or the Internet, or the collection of term papers that one of the fraternities used to have, and may still have).
One student copies another student's 40-point newspaper research exercise, maybe changing a few words and substituting synonyms, but leaving the two papers still so similar that it is obvious the resemblance could not be coincidence. I would be likely to bring charges both against the student who copied and the student who allowed his or her paper to be copied.
There are some ways in which it is perfectly all right for student to help each other. If two students want to study together getting ready for a test, great. Only after I have handed out the questions does help on a test become improper. But if two people work together on a newspaper research exercise, and turn in papers that are very similar because each has been getting a lot of help from the other in writing it, both will be in deep trouble. If one of your fellow students asks to look at your paper, to get a better idea of how the assignment was to be done, please say no. They should come to me to ask for further explanations of the assignment, rather than looking at a completed paper to give them their clues. If two papers are so similar it is obvious the author of one must have seen the other, I will file charges.
There will also be reading assignments that I will make available online.
In the listing that follows, items marked >>> are required reading; items marked --- are optional reading. Most optional items are simply books that you can look for in the library.
January 11: Introduction to the course.
January 13: >>> Read the chapter on Agincourt in Keegan, The Face of Battle
January 16: No Class
January 18: Gunpowder weapons change the nature of battle.
--- War in European History, by Howard, pp. 54-74
--- From Crossbow to H-Bomb, by Brodie,
January 20:
The American Revolution and the French Revolution
>>> Matloff, American Military History,
pp. 41-58.
January 23:
Napoleon, and the War of 1812.
>>> Keegan, The Face of Battle, pp. 117-203
--- On War, by Clausewitz
January 25: The Civil War Begins; QUIZ
>>> Matloff,
American
Military History, pp. 184-202, on the beginning of the Civil War.
January 27: The serious fighting begins
>>> Attack and Die, by Grady McWhiney and Perry D.
Jamieson (University of Alabama Press, 1982), Chapter One.
January 30: The battles of 1863.
>>>Matloff,
American
Military History, pp. 241-254, on the Battles of Chancellorsville
and Gettysburg, in the Eastern Theater, in 1863.
February 1: The Civil War, 1864-65
>>>Matloff, American Military History,
pp. 262-280.
February 3: Warfare in the Late Nineteenth Century
>>> Matloff, American Military History,
pp. 322-335,
describing the U.S. conquest of Cuba in the Spanish-American War.
February 6: World War I: 1914
>>> Start The Face of Battle, pp. 204-84
--- The Guns of August, by Barbara Tuchman
February 8: World War I: The meat-grinder
>>> Finish The Face of Battle, pp. 204-84
February 10: World War I: Air and Naval power
Please give source notes. I want to be able to tell in each section of your paper which article or articles you are discussing in that section. It is not enough to have a list at the end, if I can’t tell as I read the paper which article you are discussing where. Source notes must give page numbers. I don’t care about the format of source notes as long as they tell me what I need to know. Any format that allows me easily to discern the name of the author, the title of the article, the title of the publication, and the date and page, is OK.
There is no requirement that you use The New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, but those papers have the advantage that you can access them online through the Clemson Library's Articles Access Page. If you want to use newspapers other than those, your best bet is to go to the Microfilm Reading Room on level 2 of the Library, which has quite a few newspapers on microfilm.
February 13: Further comments on the ground war
--- Trench Warfare, by Ashworth, pp. 1-23
--- All Quiet on the Western Front, by Remarque
--- From Crossbow to H-bomb, pp. 173-80
February 15: The End of the First World War; legacies of the war.
February 17: The Beginning of the Second World War
--- To Lose a Battle, by Horne
--- Ultra Goes to War, by Lewin
--- Top Secret Ultra, by Calvocoressi
February 20: MIDTERM TEST
February 22: Second World War, continued
The reading will diverge from the lectures somewhat on the five days
February 24 and 27, and March 1, 3, and 6.
You will be expected to read Overlord, by Max Hastings, from beginning
to end during this period.
However, class discussion of the book will not take even close
to five days. The extra class time will be used for
general discussion of the nature of warfare in the European Theater
from 1943 to 1945, with particular reference to weapons technology.
>>> Overlord, by Max Hastings
--- Eisenhower's Lieutenants, by Weigley
March 8: World War II in the Pacific
--- At Dawn We Slept, by Prange
March 10: The War in the Pacific, continued.
Term Paper Topic Sheets Due
March 13: The Atomic Bomb and the Cold War
--- From Crossbow to H-Bomb, pp. 233-267
March 15: The Korean War
>>> Matloff, American
Military History, pp. 545-565, on the Korean War.
March 17: The Origins of the Vietnam War
>>> Moise, "The
Vietnam Wars"
The countryside of northern Vietnam
The countryside of southern Vietnam
March 27: The Americans in Vietnam.
>>> Read Baptism, by Larry Gwin, chapters 1-12,
and be prepared to discuss it.
March 29: The Americans in Vietnam.
>>> Read Baptism, by Larry Gwin, chapters 12-29,
and be prepared to discuss it.
March 31: Air war in Indochina
>>> Moise, "The Vietnam Wars"
April 3, 5: The Later portions of the Vietnam War
>>>Schwarzkopf, Chapters 9-11
April 7: The Media in Vietnam
On April 8,
hand in newspaper research exercise. Look at at least four
articles published in December 1972. You can deal with any part of the war going
on at that time in Indochina, or with the political arguments over the war that
were occurring in the United States. Aside from that, follow
the instructions for
the first newspaper exercise.
April 10: The world strategic situation during the Cold War; the Soviet Union in Afghanistan; the nature of limited war Moise, "Limited War"
April 12: The Arab-Israeli Wars
April 14, 17: The Post-Vietnam evolution of the US
armed forces; the Persian Gulf War.
>>>Schwarzkopf, Chapters 16-23
April 19: The end of the Persian Gulf War
>>> Schwarzkopf, Chapter 24 to end
April 21: Terrorism and the U.S. war in Afghanistan.
April 24, 26, 28: The U.S. war in Iraq.
April 26: HAND IN TERM PAPERS
Final exam: Monday, May 1, 8:00 a.m.
Other Links
Web site of the Perry-Castaneda Library Map Collection at the University of Texas
Military History Map Library (U.S. Military Academy, West Point) various countries and regions of the world.
Clemson University Academic Support Center, which provides help and tutoring for students encountering academic problems. It does not, however, have tutors specifically for History courses.
Revised November 3, 2005.
