Jacoby is VERY boring. Its a very interesting time period and something I'm very interested in studying but he bores you to sleep. His tests are really hard and require you reading the most obscure of the readings. you would be better off skipping lecture and the nap fest that is and just spend that time doing ALL the readings. he NEVER responds to emails and there is a complete disconnect between what seems to be the easy boring lecture and the final that you get put in front of you... I would avoid him and take a class with a professor that doesnt repeat his jokes until someone laughs. (a lot of awkward silences and repetition of jokes until someone laughed).

would not take this teacher again. he answers students' questions about midterm, paper, final etc with ambiguous jokes that leave students not knowing whether or not he is being serious. his lectures also seem to mirror wikipedia entries fact for fact. i found the videos to be the most interesting and informational part of the whole class, although they are mostly pbs/ken burns typical. as others have said, i had to fight for my grade because of the great disparity in grading criteria between readers - i have never gone to a teacher to complain about a grade before this class.

Having a passion for World War 1 and 2, I was excited to get this class. The lectures are very boring and the id's on the final were incredibly obscure. If you take this class, expect your gpa to most likely decrease due to his stringent grading. Except the id's, the final was rather easy. This professor is very smart, but not an effective teacher.

I feel compelled to respond to the last post. The material required for the class in question (121E Total War Era) is a fantastic collection of reading. The text book in question, as in the case of all history texts, is built on source materials like the novels in question. Two of the novels assigned were written by soldiers who fought in the First World War and the Spanish Civil War. All of the novels were written by people who lived through the events that we examine. This is an deeper history course than many. It requires insight and analysis based on various source materials and survey texts. Jacoby's lectures provide structure and context. He is professional in the field. He has real vision regarding his topics. He uses various materials to provide a broad collection of perspectives from which a legitimate narrative arises. This professor asks for a lot of reading and a willingness to apply analytical skills. He is thankfully a very funny lecturer and that keeps the very heavy topics lighter than they could be.

I'm currently taking this course and I just received my graded take-home midterm. If this guy's telling jokes in the lecture....it's because HE IS A JOKE. He assigns really colorful outside reading assignments that don't necessarily teach you anything about the facts of WWI and WWII. There is one book that is a real historical account of European history. The rest are novels such as Little Man What Now?, All Quiet on the Western Front, and some other stuff. These are really unnecessary readings if you just want to learn about history in the 12 weeks provided. The questions he then asks on the midterm are literary critiques of these novels. It was as if he cut and pasted the questions from my junior year of high school English. I've personally learned quite a lot just keeping up on the readings in Gilbert's End of the European Era. However, this knowledge is not reflected on the midterm because his questions are directed towards the non-essential novels, personal accounts,and softer readings. The guy likes to play a lot of videos from the history channel. So you would assume that since he puts little effort into his lectures, he couldn't require much for an A. Make sure you write the 8 pages for the take home midterm. The only comments you'll get back from the grader..."correct, but too brief." This guy is a big disappointment so far. And he looks like the farmer from "Babe."

I had Jacoby for Fall 2008 in his History of Total War class, and it was not the best experience. The first lecture he was funny, but that wears off rather quickly. The lectures soon became are very dry and I had a hard time not falling asleep.
The grading is all done based on the Midterm, Final, and a paper. I never found out what my Final and paper grades were because he never returned them or gave us no way of picking them up. The grading of the midterm I thought was fair.
Overall only take him if you need to, otherwise find a better professor.

If you are a History major looking for a thrilling class on Euro History from 1914-1945, then Jacoby's class is NOT for you. Lectures were dry and boring, leaving the students to assume responsibility for learning the required material from 6 books. He is also a VERY difficult grader, and i'm saying this as someone who received an A in his course. If you take Jacoby's class be prepared to argue your grade on the take home midterm, and always wonder how you did on the paper and final because he won't tell you. In the end, Jacoby is not a professor I would recommend because he does not engage the students with class lectures, and his difficult grading standards are not worth the fuss. Interesting subject, not a good professor.

If you want to learn anything, don't take this class. His lectures are boring and incredibly slow. When he tells a bad joke, he always repeats it at least once, and wastes plenty of time which he could use to lecture on the material. In a class which was about Europe from the beginning of World War I to the end of World War II, we covered very little material which was not covered in History 1C- Europe from 1770 to the present. He just moves too slowly to actually teach much of anything. As it did not fulfill any requirements for me, I am very disappointed that I wasted my time in his class. I would not recommend this class to anyone.

Jacoby's class is not as bad as everyone says.His lectures are repetitive and do get boring, but he doesn't test you on anything that is not in the lectures or the readings. This class requires a fair amount of work but it is worth it. There is a take home midterm, final paper, and in-class final, which are pretty straight forward. He doesn't give any study guides or hints as to the content of the final. The readings for the class are really interesting. I would take another one of Jacoby's classes.

Jacoby's lectures are extremely shallow, and he takes way too long to make a point. He rambles on and on about a subject, not necessarily giving more insight or detail about the subject, but rather phrasing the same thing in different words (ugh). You could easily summarize eacb of his lectures in a couple of sentences at the end. I was really looking forward to this class; sadly, it turned out to be dry/boring at best, and a waste of time. Oh, and his jokes get old REAL quick.