# Contemporary Civilization **Entity class:** Course (Columbia College Core Curriculum) **Domain:** Curriculum History / Historiography of the West **Concept Hub:** [[wiki/Authorship of the West|Authorship of the West]] **Aliases:** Introduction to Contemporary Civilization in the West; CC; War Issues course (predecessor) ## Definition **Contemporary Civilization is the Columbia College course introduced in the 1919–1920 academic year as "Introduction to Contemporary Civilization in the West," grown from the "War Issues" course that the U.S. Army commissioned Columbia to create in 1917 for the Student Army Training Corps.** War Issues was exported to Student Army Training Corps units on more than 200 campuses nationwide. ## Authorship Reading The sequence is a documented case of American institutions packaging, sequencing, and transmitting "the West" to American generations. Historian Gilbert Allardyce traced the broader Western Civilization course as a largely American institution (*American Historical Review*, 1982). [[articles/war with empire/Authorship of the West|Authorship of the West]] cites the course as evidence that the West was always written, and that America helped write it. ## Relationships - **Institution:** [[wiki/Columbia University|Columbia University]]. - **Concepts:** [[wiki/Authorship of the West|Authorship of the West]] · [[wiki/Generative Canon|Generative Canon]] · [[wiki/Narrative Authority|Narrative Authority]]. - **Source article:** [[articles/war with empire/Authorship of the West|Authorship of the West]] in [[collections/War With Empire|War With Empire]]. ## Sources / Provenance - Columbia University Libraries, [Insistent Change: Columbia's Core Curriculum at 100 — The 1910s](https://exhibitions.library.columbia.edu/exhibits/show/columbia_core_100/1910s) (accessed September 22, 2026). - Columbia College, [A Short History of the Core](https://core100.columbia.edu/article/short-history-core) (accessed September 22, 2026). - Gilbert Allardyce, [The Rise and Fall of the Western Civilization Course](https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/87/3/695/93349) (*American Historical Review* 87:3, June 1982).