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During the Great War, poetry played a more significant role in the war effort than articles and pamphlets. A campaign of extraordinary language filled with abstract and spiritualized words and phrases concealed the realities of the War. Archaic language and lofty phrases hid the horrible truth of modern mechanical warfare. The majority and most recognized and admired poets, including those who served on the front and knew firsthand the horrors of trench warfare, not only supported the war effort, but also encouraged its continuation. For the majority of the poets, the rejection of the war was a postwar phenomenon. From the trenches, leading Great War poets; Owen, Sassoon, Graves, Sitwell, and others, learned that the War was neither Agincourt, nor the playing fields of ancient public schools, nor the supreme test of valor but, instead, the modern industrial world in miniature, surely, the modern world at its most horrifying.

The decline of British influence in world affairs is one of the more pronounced political phenomena of modern times. Over the past century key territories subject to British rule have been slipping loose from their imperial moorings at an ever more rapid rate. Those remaining subject to British authority grow progressively more belligerent. In his search for an understanding or this eclipse or British sovereignty, the contemporary historian finds himself groping through a network of complexly interrelated social, political, economic, and psychological processes. One or another student or history has argued that specific instances or groups of these processes are the mechanisms motivating the collapse of the British hegemony. Among those more commonly cited is that group of influences intimately allied with and stimulated by the progressive maturation of voting franchise reform movements within the United Kingdom. In effect, this view argues that franchise reforms introduced radical changes in imperial attitudes in the United Kingdom and that these in turn led to long-range trends pointed at the splintering of the empire: e.g., the political decline of the landed aristocracy resulted in the creation of the Commonwealth; or, the rise or the Labor Party carried with it a campaign successfully aimed at the deliberate discarding of imperial holdings. It is the purpose or this study to examine this argument. Such an examination, it would seem, demands first of all a review of the more obvious factors concerned in the integration and disintegration of the British empire. This review should provide a context within which specific franchise reform within the United Kingdom can be related to other historical events contemporary with them but more specifically related to the disintegration of Britain's imperial hegemony. It is proposed that these relationships should lead to an effective basis for accessing the relative truth or falsehood of the argument that progressive franchise reform has been one of the historical trends largely contributory to the dismemberment of the British empire. Since the analysis to be presented is in part contingent upon a specialized understanding of the term empire, it would appear necessary to begin with a definition of this term.

This project analyzes the various opinions in the United States of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis during the 1930s and studies the amount of information that was available in the United States regarding Nazi Germany before entering World War II. Specifically, it seeks to understand why the United States did relatively little to influence German and European affairs even in the face of increasing Nazi brutality and bellicosity. The analysis has been divided into three different categories. The first focuses on the United States government, and the President and Secretary of State in particular. The second category analyzes the minority opinion in the United States that had Nazi sympathies. Finally, the third deals with the American public in general. The evidence suggests that there was enough information regarding Nazi Germany for Americans to make a reasonable judgment. Most of the United States was opposed to Nazism and the German government. In spite of this, the majority agreed that the United States should not intervene or enter war. This study is significant because it helps shed further light on a debate in the country that continues to the present day: what role should the United States have when it comes to world affairs? The research in this thesis suggests that, in spite of opposition by the American public, if there is enough verifiable evidence of a humanitarian crisis to justify intervention, the government should act.

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