Course Work
After reading Richard W. Bulliet, et al. The Earth and Its Peoples, Chapters 26 & 27, and one of the web enrichments below,
Alexandra Kollontai (1872-1952),
The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman (1926) https://www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/1926/autobiography.htm
Read the “Prefatory Note,” “The Aims and Worth of My Life,” and “The Years of Political Emigration.”
Testimony of Hiroshima Survivor Akihiro Takahashi (1986)
https://www.inicom.com/hibakusha/akihiro.html
Testimony of Hiroshima Survivor Kinue Tomoyasu (1986)
https://www.inicom.com/hibakusha/kinue.html
Please answer the following questions:
Does Kollantai’s autobiography surprise you? What do you find most striking? Which issues seem especially important to her? What do you make of the crossed out passages (they are in italics on the webpage)?
The textbook discusses the new character of warfare in World War II. What was new about this warfare and how did science contribute to it? How do the Hiroshima survivors’ stories illustrate these points?
Your initial response should be about 500 words, which is plenty of space to articulate a thesis and substantiate it with direct evidence from the readings.