War and National Security

  • 2 Weeks
  • Grades 9-12
  • 8 Lessons
Overview
Curriculum
Professor

About this course

Investigate modern challenges of national defense and security by examining the deeper human history of war.

Since World War II, the United States has played a major role in creating international institutions and rules that helped shape the globalizing world. Wayne Lee turns our attention to the causes of war, starting with the relationship between conflict and cooperation in human social organization, and ending with emerging problems and threats to both the United States and the liberal international order. 

Virtual Library

21 Videos

23 Readings

58 Additional Sources

History Lab

29 Writing Tasks

11 Comprehension Questions

40 Discussion Questions

10 Exit Ticket Questions

Standards Alignment

Coming Soon!

Course Curriculum

Day 1

Lesson 1: What is War?

Writing Tasks: 4

Comprehension: 1 Multiple-Choice Question

Discussion: 5 Questions

Exit Ticket: 1 Question

Videos: 6

Additional Sources: 8 (4 videos, 4 readings)

Day 2

Lesson 2: What is National Security?

Writing Tasks: 3

Comprehension: 1 Multiple-Choice Question

Discussion: 5 Questions

Exit Ticket: 1 Question

Videos: 1

Readings: 3

Additional Sources: 8 (4 readings, 4 videos)

Day 3

Lesson 3: The Long Human History of War: Conflict and Cooperation Feedback

Writing Tasks: 3

Comprehension: 2 Multiple-Choice Questions

Discussion: 4 Questions

Exit Ticket: 1 Question

Videos: 3

Readings: 1

Additional Sources: 4 (2 readings, 1 video, 1 sound recording)

Day 4

Lesson 4: Why We Think about War the Way We Do

Writing Tasks: 4

Comprehension: 1 Multiple-Choice Question

Discussion: 6 Questions

Exit Ticket: 2 Question

Videos: 3

Readings: 2

Additional Sources: 7 (6 readings, 1 video)

Day 5

Lesson 5: The National Security State after World War II

Writing Tasks: 6

Comprehension: 2 Multiple-Choice Questions

Discussion: 5 Questions

Exit Ticket: 1 Question

Videos: 3

Readings: 6

Additional Sources: 7 (5 readings, 2 videos)

Day 6

Lesson 6: What Happened after 9/11

Writing Tasks: 3

Comprehension: 2 Multiple-Choice Question

Discussion: 5 Questions

Exit Ticket: 2 Questions

Videos: 2

Readings: 1

Sound Recording: 1

Additional Sources: 12 (5 readings, 6 videos, 1 audio)

Day 7

Lesson 7: Crafting Strategy in the Modern World

Writing Tasks: 3

Comprehension: 1 Multiple-Choice Question

Discussion: 4 Questions

Exit Ticket: 1 Question

Videos: 2

Readings: 2

Additional Sources: 5 (2 readings, 2 videos, 1 audio)

Day 8

Lesson 8: Emergent Challenges to the World System

Writing Tasks: 3

Comprehension: 1 Multiple-Choice Question

Discussion: 6 Questions

Exit Ticket: 1 Question

Videos: 1

Readings: 8

Additional Sources: 7 (4 readings, 3 video)

Professor

Professor Wayne Lee

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Wayne E. Lee is the Dowd Distinguished Professor of History at the University of North Carolina, where he also chairs the Curriculum in Peace, War, and Defense. He is the author of Waging War: Conflict, Culture, and Innovation in World History (2016), Barbarians and Brothers: Anglo-American Warfare, 1500-1865 (2011), and Crowds and Soldiers in Revolutionary North Carolina (2001) as well as two edited volumes on world military history and many articles and book chapters.
 
Lee has an additional career as an archaeologist, having done field work in Greece, Albania, Hungary, Croatia, and Virginia, including co-directing two field projects. He was a principal author and a co-editor of Light and Shadow: Isolation and Interaction in the Shala Valley of Northern Albania, winner of the 2014 Society for American Archaeology's book award. In 2015-2016 academic year, Lee was the Harold K. Johnson Visiting Professor of Military History at the U.S. Army War College.