The Destruction & Rebirth of Cities: Built Landscapes in the Age of Total War
The final paper must be at least ten pages double-spaced, 12 point, Times New Roman font. It must citeat least five scholarly sources, at least three of which should come from the course readings. You mustcite each source at least once, and whenever necessary (see below: "When to cite").
You may usesources other than those which we read in class, but should ensure that they are adequately scientific orscholarly in nature.
You may use whatever citation system you are most comfortable with, but must be consistentthroughout your paper.
You must include a bibliography which gives the full author name, title, journalor publisher, and year for everything you cite in your paper.
In your footnotes or in-text citationswithin the paper, you may use short-form citations which can easily be related to their full bibliographyentries.
For example:
Hubbert, 1949 (in-text or footnote)
Hubbert, M. King. "Energy from Fossil Fuels."Science, 1949. (bibliography at end of paper)
Schabas, 1990 (in-text or footnote)
Schabas, Margaret. A World Ruled by Number: William Stanley Jevons and the Rise of Mathematical
Economics. Princeton University Press, 1990. (bibliography at end of paper)
There are three purposes to this assignment:
1. Demonstrate your writing ability through the presentation of a narrative argument about the historyof architecture and war.
2. Demonstrate your comprehension of the lectures and readings by incorporating what you've learnedinto a narrative argument.
3. Demonstrate your ability to properly use and cite sources in support of a narrative argument.
When to cite:
1. Whenever you quote directly from a source.
2. Whenever you paraphrase (put in your own words) a source.
3. Whenever you pull specific quantitative data or specific facts from a source.
4. Whenever you refer generally to a source and its arguments.
Writing Prompts:
How has the economic function of the city changed over time? How has the economic function ofthe city (a fortress for protecting people and capital, a center of industrial production, a center ofconsumption and services) interacted with changing military attitudes towards the city?
Under whatconditions does it "make sense" for war planners to target cities directly with organized politicalviolence?
You must make a narrative argument. "Narrative" means thatyou convey a sense of historical change over time: your subject starts in one time and ends in another,altered by events. "Argument" means that you make a statement about the type of change that
occurred and/or the reasons for that change, and support your statement with evidencefrom sourcematerials.
A thesis statement is a simple declarative claim about your subject, which you then provide evidencefor. For example: "Science was used as both an ideology and as apractical tool for those seeking totake power in a societies in a number of major political conflicts in Europe over the last 400 years."