World War II

Course Description

World War II is an introductory course examining the Second World War, including its origins and consequences for both the United States and global history. The curriculum covers the people and events that caused the war from the end of the First World War, in 1918, to the signing of the surrender of Japan in 1945, and students analyse how this conflict shaped the post-war world. The course contributes to satisfying the Gordon Rule (State Rule 6A-10.030) writing requirement.

Within the SCNS taxonomy, AMH is the American History prefix. Daytona State publishes this at 3 credits, offered fall and spring, giving approximately 45 contact hours.

The course's stated starting point — 1918, not 1939 — is the analytically important choice. Treating the Second World War as beginning with an invasion makes it a story about one country's aggression; treating it as beginning with the settlement of the previous war makes it a story about how a peace failed, about economic collapse, about the appeal of extreme politics in desperate conditions, and about choices made by many governments over twenty years. That framing is what turns the subject from narrative into analysis.

Daytona State does not publish a lecture and laboratory split for its AMH courses. The prefix is entirely lecture-based, and its live members run at the standard 15 contact hours per credit — AMH2010 and AMH2020 are both published at 3 credits and 45 hours. This course is priced at that convention.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Describe the settlement of the First World War and its consequences.
• Describe the interwar economic and political crises.
• Describe the rise of fascism, Nazism, and militarism and explain their appeal.
• Describe the failure of collective security and the policy of appeasement.
• Describe the outbreak of war in Europe and in Asia.
• Describe the major theatres and campaigns of the war.
• Describe the strategic decisions of the principal combatants.
• Describe the role of technology, industry, and logistics in the outcome.
• Describe the United States' path from neutrality to belligerence.
• Describe the American home front and war mobilisation.
• Describe the wartime experience of women and of minority communities in the United States.
• Describe the internment of Japanese Americans and evaluate it.
• Describe the Holocaust and the machinery of genocide.
• Evaluate evidence concerning knowledge of and response to the Holocaust.
• Describe occupation, collaboration, and resistance in occupied Europe.
• Describe the war in the Pacific and its particular character.
• Describe the decision to use atomic weapons and the debate over it.
• Describe the war's civilian cost and the bombing of cities.
• Describe the war's conclusion and the immediate post-war settlement.
• Describe the origins of the United Nations and the post-war order.
• Describe the origins of the Cold War in the wartime alliance.
• Evaluate primary sources from the period critically.
• Construct a documented historical argument in writing.
• Cite sources accurately using an accepted style.

Optional Outcomes

• Describe Florida's role in the war effort.
• Describe the war crimes trials and their legal legacy.
• Describe the war's effect on decolonisation.
• Describe wartime propaganda and its methods.
• Describe the war in memory and commemoration.
• Conduct research using oral history collections.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• The First World War settlement
• Interwar crises
• Fascism, Nazism, and militarism
• Collective security and appeasement
• Outbreak in Europe and Asia
• Major theatres and campaigns
• Strategy of the combatants
• Technology, industry, and logistics
• American neutrality to belligerence
• The American home front
• Women and minority communities in wartime
• Japanese American internment
• The Holocaust
• Knowledge of and response to the Holocaust
• Occupation, collaboration, and resistance
• The Pacific war
• Atomic weapons and the debate
• Civilian cost and the bombing of cities
• Conclusion and settlement
• The United Nations and the post-war order
• Origins of the Cold War
• Evaluating primary sources
• Written historical argument
• Citation

Optional Topics

• Florida in the war effort
• War crimes trials
• Decolonisation
• Propaganda
• Memory and commemoration
• Oral history research

Resources & Tools

• Your college library's databases — free with enrolment, and the difference between a serious paper and a weak one. Ask a librarian for a subject-specific orientation; it takes fifteen minutes and saves hours.
• National Archives (archives.gov) — free digitised primary sources, including its DocsTeach materials.
• Library of Congress digital collections (loc.gov) — free; photographs, newspapers, manuscripts, and recorded interviews.
• State Archives of Florida and Florida Memory (floridamemory.com) — free Florida primary sources; genuinely excellent and under-used for local research.
• American Historical Association (historians.org) — free statements on professional practice, plus its guidance on writing and on careers for history graduates.
• Chicago Manual of Style citation guidance — the standard for history writing; the Purdue OWL summary is free.
• Your college writing centre — free, and essential for a Gordon Rule course.
• Go to the primary source. The habit of reading the document rather than a description of it is the most transferable thing this subject teaches.
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (ushmm.org) — free, rigorously sourced, and the authoritative public resource on the Holocaust, including its encyclopaedia and survivor testimony.
• The National WWII Museum (nationalww2museum.org) — free online oral history and teaching collections.
• Florida Memory's World War II collections — free; Florida's wartime training bases and home front are unusually well documented.

Career Pathways

• Transfer to a bachelor's degree — the primary pathway; an Associate in Arts guarantees admission to a Florida state university under the 2+2 articulation agreement.
• Secondary school teacher (history and social studies) — SOC 25-2031; requires teacher certification in addition to the subject degree.
• Postsecondary history teacher — SOC 25-1125; requires graduate study.
• Archivist, curator, and museum technician — SOC 25-4012 and 25-4013; competitive, and usually requiring a graduate qualification.
• Librarian and library media specialist — SOC 25-4022.
• Public history — historic sites, parks, preservation, and heritage tourism; Florida has an unusually large sector of this kind.
• Law — SOC 23-1011; history is a common and well-regarded pre-law route because the work is reading, evidence, and argument.
• Journalism, writing, editing, and research — the analytical and writing skills transfer directly.
• Government, policy, and analysis roles, including intelligence and foreign service.
• ⚠ Be deliberate about the pathway. A history degree develops research, argument, and writing — skills employers value highly and rarely advertise by name. The graduates who do well are the ones who can say what those skills are and show evidence of them; the ones who struggle assumed the degree would speak for itself. Pair it with internships, writing samples, and a clear plan.

Special Information

⚠ Florida's war is closer than most students expect

• Florida was one of the most heavily militarised states in the country during the war, with an enormous concentration of training installations, airfields, and support facilities — the state's climate made it a year-round training environment.
• ⚠ The war reached the Florida coast directly. German submarines operated in the Gulf and off the Atlantic coast in 1942, sinking merchant shipping within sight of shore, and coastal blackouts were imposed for that reason. This is genuine local history that most residents have never heard.
• The war transformed Florida's economy and demography — wartime construction, postwar veterans returning to a state they had trained in, and the beginnings of the population boom that defines modern Florida.
• Prisoner of war camps operated in Florida, and their records survive.
• Local archives, county historical societies, and Florida Memory hold material that makes an original research paper genuinely achievable at this level — which is unusual and worth taking advantage of.
• Oral history is still possible but the window is closing, and existing recorded collections are extensive.
• Local newspapers of the period are digitised and show how the war was reported and experienced week by week.
• A paper built on local primary sources is more original and frequently better than one built on the same widely available secondary accounts everyone else uses.

⚠⚠ History is an argument from evidence — not a list of what happened

• The single most common misunderstanding students bring is that history is a fixed body of facts to be memorised. The facts are the raw material; the discipline is the reasoned argument built from them, and that argument is genuinely contested.
• Distinguish a primary from a secondary source, and understand that a primary source is evidence rather than truth — every document was written by someone, for a purpose, for an audience.
• Ask who produced a source and why before asking what it says. That question does more work than any other in this subject.
• Recognise whose voices the surviving record contains and whose it does not. Absence from the archive is not absence from history, and it is frequently the most important thing about a body of evidence.
• ⚠ Historiography is part of the subject. Interpretations change as new evidence appears, as questions change, and as the present changes — and a claim that "historians now think" something is itself a claim requiring support.
• Beware presentism. Judging past actors purely by present standards explains nothing about why they acted as they did — and refusing to judge at all is its own evasion. Doing both carefully is the skill.
• Causation in history is multiple and contested. Single-cause explanations of large events are almost always wrong, and identifying which causes were necessary and which sufficient is much of the analytical work.
• Cite properly and quote accurately. Misquotation and selective quotation are the characteristic failures of bad historical argument, including in public debate.
• ⚠ Be careful with material found online. A great deal of confidently presented historical claim online is unsourced, out of date, or advocacy — and generative AI produces plausible citations to works that do not exist. Verify against the actual source.

⚠ This course carries Gordon Rule writing credit

• Daytona State states that this course contributes to satisfying the writing requirement of State Board of Education Rule 6A-10.030 — the requirement long known as the Gordon Rule.
• That makes it worth more than an equivalent elective, because it satisfies two requirements at once. Confirm with an advisor how it fits your particular plan before assuming it.
• ⚠ It also means substantial writing is required, with a minimum volume of written work and a standard it must meet. Students who choose the course expecting a lecture-and-test format are regularly surprised.
• Start writing early and use the writing centre. It is free, you have already paid for it, and it is used most by the students who write best.
• ⚠ Rule 11 applies — Florida's general education and Gordon Rule provisions have changed in recent years. Verify current requirements with an advisor rather than relying on this guide.

How Florida course levels affect transfer

The first digit of an SCNS number denotes the year of offering, not transferability. Courses at the 1000 and 2000 levels transfer transparently between Florida public institutions, and 3000 to 4000 is unproblematic since both are upper division. The boundary that actually matters is 2000 to 3000, where lower-division credit generally cannot satisfy an upper-division requirement.

AMH2058 is 3 credits and approximately 45 contact hours, offered fall and spring at Daytona State, and it carries Gordon Rule writing credit.

Use the local archives. Florida's wartime record is deep, digitised, and under-researched at this level.