AP European History students will be learning about World War II during the next few days. We should be done with the course by next week. I hardly cover World War II because it is the one area that students have a familiarity and we need to get onto post World War Europe.
After two world wars, Europe was shaken and ruined. Many writers, such as Sartre and Camus tried to make sense--or simply said there was no use making sense, of the ruin that had been wrought in Europe over a 25 year time period.
Two generations of young men were dead and countless civilian life had ended because of famine and genocide. In 1942, in the depths of World War II, Albert Camus wrote about the myth of Sisyphus--a man who lived in the underworld whose past deeds lead him to be condemned to roll a stone up to the top of a hill only to have it roll back down again...not unlike the terrible wars which only repeated destruction.
