Course Schedule
take home midterm due Thurs
Week 8: Oct 27-31 NO CLASS FALL BREAK
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Brad Simpson, Ph.D.
History 380 The U.S. and the World - 1898 to the present
Time: Tues-Thurs 1:30-2:20
Office: 112 Dickinson
Email: bsimpson@princeton.edu
Office Hours: W 10-12 or by appointment
Precept: Neil Young (njyoung@princeton.edu) Office Hours: M 1:30-2:30, W 12:30-1:30
Course Description
Who and what are the people and forces that have shaped the United States’ foreign engagement with the world during the twentieth century? How do we describe the U.S. role in the world (are we an empire, a hegemon, a superpower, or something else?) What are the sources of American power, and how has the U.S. wielded that power over the last hundred years? Why did the United States go to war in Europe (twice!), Korea, Vietnam, and the Gulf, intervene throughout Central America and engage in a Cold War with the Soviet Union and China? Are Donald Duck and Coca Cola agents of U.S. hegemony? How did the international system, America’s conception of its role in the world and U.S. foreign policy change with the end of the Cold War?
In exploring the rise of the United States to global superpower status over the span of "the American Century," we will consider these and other questions. Some of the themes we will explore are traditional topics of diplomatic historians: ideology, national security, political economy, and policymaking. But we will also investigate themes emphasized by a new generation of transnational historians, including race and gender, Orientalism, social movements, non-governmental organizations, immigration, modernization and development theory, and popular and consumer culture. We will emphasize the Cold War and post-Cold War eras and U.S. relations with the USSR and with the Global South.
Lectures will provide some narrative and chronological structure, but the emphasis in this course is on exposing students to the wide range of approaches and sources that historians use to apprehend, research and write about U.S. foreign relations. This course should therefore help students refine their abilities to compare, contrast and evaluate often conflicting interpretations of important events and problems.Some Questions We Will Explore
Learning Method:
Students will have an opportunity to work on a weekly basis with colleagues to discuss documents and readings online and in precept. Students will learn from working collaboratively to explore important central questions using recent scholarship and evidence, understanding and evaluating arguments they hear in class, constructing arguments, drawing conclusions, defending those conclusions, and receiving feedback on their thinking. With several significant developments, students may use the case method to explore some of the challenges U.S. officials faced in understanding a complicated world and to play advisors.
Required books:Michael J. Hogan, Ed. Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations, 2nd Edition
Michael J. Hogan, The Ambiguous Legacy: U.S. Foreign Relations in the "American Century"
Nicholas Cullather, Secret History: The CIA's Classified Account of Its Operations in Guatemala, 1952-1954Recommended: Thomas G. Paterson, American Foreign Relations: A History, Brief Edition, Volume 2, Since 1895 (Paperback)
Online readings:
Next you will want to go to the Blackboard site for this class. Almost all other readings and case studies will be available on blackboard and can be accessed by going to the "Course Documents" section and clicking on each week's readings.
. I would get the latest version of Acrobat,where you can cut and paste directly from the documents.
You may also want to purchase (if you have not done so already) a copy of Strunk and White, The Elements of Style; a good dictionary if you do not already have one (e. g., The American Heritage Dictionary. College Edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, most recent edition); and a good world atlas.
What Does the Course Promise You?
This class will consider some of the most controversial questions of twentieth century U.S. and international history. You will read scholars debating scholars and learn to analyze disagreements and agreements in a systematic manner. You should emerge from the course with a better understanding of some of the major developments of the twentieth century, events that continue to shape our lives and the lives of millions of others around the world whom most of us never think about (and that is the point). You should emerge also with an enhanced ability to analyze arguments and to make tentative judgments about other people's judgments. Ideally, the course will help you become a more critically intelligent, creative, and curious person, capable of making rational decisions based on extensive and accurate information.
If you are concerned about how well you think, you should also be concerned with your ability to write. We will spend plenty of time writing (which is just another way of thinking) and in different formats, which is how historians practice and hone their craft
You are responsible for keeping a copy of each paper or other materials you give me. Do NOT give me your only copy of anything!
Reading and Discussing
Your goal is to develop a thorough knowledge and understanding of the thesis, arguments, and major pieces of evidence of the major interpretations we encounter; to be able to determine the ways in which these interpretations agree and disagree; to make well reasoned evaluations of those interpretations; and to develop some well reasoned, albeit tentative, conclusions of your own (with supporting evidence and arguments) in consultation with primary and secondary sources.
There is much to read about the United States and the world in the twentieth century and especially since 1945. You will want to read as much as possible and to discuss other items with your colleagues (see below). I will also give you copies of some items. It is never wrong to identify additional reading on any topic.
Learning Opportunities
You will find on the course web page more details about learning opportunities and evaluation. To achieve the promises of the course you will write three short papers and a book review, participate in precept, and write a take-home midterm and final exam. These writing opportunities are not for the regurgitation of facts or what you may think I want to see, but a chance for you to demonstrate your ability to think broadly, comparatively about your own thinking. Click here for a schedule. Occasionally, I will ask you questions about what I have explained in class and/or about a particular item you have read. You should take notes in class and on everything you read.
Working with Other Students on the Reading
Reading is the best way to learn, but it is better done in conjunction with writing and discussion. Each student will therefore be part of an online blackboard group with other students in their precept that will have a discussion "group page" in Blackboard. Most weeks you will be asked formally to respond to questions regarding course readings and documents posted in Blackboard to prepare for precept. It is important that you learn how to read critically and that you understand the arguments and major pieces of evidence we will encounter in class.
Your involvement with the class is extremely important. I will try to make class time valuable. You should come to every class and plan to participate. If you do not find class valuable, please let me know. Please do not simply skip class. If you already know you will miss more than one class this term, you probably should not take this class this quarter. If you miss too much, I will probably assume that you are no longer taking the class and I will probably drop you from the class. It is essential that everyone in the class attend all precepts.
Evaluation:
The final grade will assess each student's ability--as reflected in written and oral work--to draw and defend historical conclusions, to think historically, and to apply that thinking to the issues raised in the course.
This will break down roughly along the following lines:
Short Papers: 15%
Precept: 25%
Book review: 10%:
Midterm exam: 20%
Final exam: 30%: