“The Legacy of WWI: The Making of the Modern World” is the title of the 2014 University of Idaho Borah Symposium.
The annual event will feature authors, university professors and a renowned military general informing audiences about historical and modern issues attributed to the First World War.
“The world that exists today — politically, economically and culturally — was built on this conflict,” UI history professor Richard Spence said.
The first presentation will take place at 12:30 p.m. today in the Whitewater Room of the Idaho Commons, followed by other presentations April 7-9. All Borah Symposium presentations are free to the public.
Spence said the Borah Symposium Committee was striving to choose personalities of varied backgrounds and perspectives when creating the roster of those who would speak at the symposium.
Gen. Richard B. Myers will deliver the symposium keynote address titled “The Changes of the Laws of War and the Control of WMDs” at 7 p.m. April 9 in the Student Union Building Ballroom.
Myers retired as the 15th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff after serving 40 years in the Air Force. He began his term just a few weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and served as principal military advisor to the President, the Secretary of Defense and the National Security Council.
“The committee decided that we didn’t want this to only feature academics,” Spence said. “We thought (Myers) could give a different perspective than a bunch of professors.”
The keynote address will conclude the symposium at 7 p.m. on April 9 in the Student Union Building Ballroom.
Other symposium topics will include a commemoration of WWI, analyzing the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, influenza’s impact on the war and the connections between conflict in the Middle East and WWI.
Assistant Veteran Adviser for the UI Veterans Center Scott Oplinger is a faculty member who expressed interest in this year’s Borah Symposium for many different reasons.
“I was an officer in the military while (Myers) was in charge, and I think he will have very interesting perspectives on the topic,” Oplinger said.
UI professor of microbiology Scott Minnich will lead the presentation “Lest We Forget: Influenza, The Great Pandemic of the Great War.” He served under Myers as a subject matter expert with the Iraq Survey Group WMD Inspection Team from Oct. 2003 to May 2004.
During that time, Minnich saw firsthand the destructive nature of disease in war time — although not quite to the extent of the influenza epidemic after WWI, which Minnich cites as killing somewhere between 50 million and 100 million people.
“The 1918 flu epidemic set the stage for a lot of public health policy on how we deal with worldwide epidemics today,” Minnich said. “It killed more people than the four years of combat, and did it more efficiently.”
Details on the location and time of the various 2014 symposium presentations can be found on the University of Idaho website, and they are also posted on fliers around campus.
Borah Symposiums have been held at University of Idaho every year since 1948, and the event was created in honor of former U.S. Idaho Sen. William Edgar Borah. The annual event has featured many themes, such as the connection between sports and peace, and activism through social media. Each Borah Symposium seeks to consider the causes of war and the conditions necessary for peace in an international context.
George Wood Jr. can be reached at [email protected]