American Society and Politics

Where to find the readings:

= Firestone Reserve. =University Store
= World Wide Web (hyperlink). = Pequod packet

Part I. The Way We Were, Still The Way We Are?

February 3. Introduction

February 5-10. The Social Basis of American Democracy
Gordon Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (Random House, 1991), Parts I (Monarchy) and II (Republicanism).
Seymour Martin Lipset, Continental Divide: The Values and Institutions of the United States and Canada (Routledge, 1990), preface, Chs. 1-3.

February 12. Civic Life, Morality, and Religion (1)
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, vol. 1, ch. 12 ("Political Associations in The United States"); vol. 2, Sec. 2, Ch. 2 ("Of Individualism in Democratic Countries"), Ch. 4 ("That the Americans Combat the Effects of Individualism with Free Institutions"), Ch. 5 ("Of the Uses which the Americans Make of Public Associations").
Lipset, Continental Divide, Chs. 5-6.

February 17. National Identity, Ethnicity, and Regionalism
Michael Lind, The Next American Nation (Free Press, 1995), Chs. 1-2.
Lipset, Continental Divide, Chs. 10-11.

February 19. The Color Line
James F. Davis, Who Is Black? One Nation's Definition (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991), pp. 1-80.
Douglas S. Massey and Nancy A. Denton, American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass (Harvard University Press, 1993), pp. 17-59.

February 24-26. Class, Status, and Politics (1)
Lipset, Continental Divide, Chs. 7-9.
Walter Dean Burnham, "Party Systems and the Political Process," in Theda Skocpol and John Campbell, eds., American Society and Politics (McGraw-Hill, 1995), pp. 158-167.

March 3. The Family and the Life Course (1)
Stephanie Coontz, "The Way We Wish We Were," in Arlene S. Skolnick and Jerome H. Skolnick, eds., Families in Transition, 8th ed. (HarperCollins, 1994), pp. 71-82.
Arlene Skolnick, "The Life Course Revolution," ibid, pp. 62-71.
David Hackett Fischer, Growing Old in America (Oxford University Press, 1978), pp. 3-25, 77-112.

March 5. Education and Society (1)
Lawrence Cremin, Traditions of American Education (Basic Books, 1977), 41-128.

March 10. Health and Medicine(1)
Paul Starr, The Social Transformation of American Medicine (Basic Books, 1983), Bk. 1, Chs 1-4.

March 12. Midterm exam.

Part II. What's Changed? What Hasn't?

March 24. American Culture and Politics Since World War II
Daniel Bell, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (Basic Books, 1976), Chs. 1-3.
Tom W. Smith, "Liberal and Conservative Trends in the United States Since World War II," Public Opinion Quarterly (1990) 54:479­507.

March 26. National Identity, Ethnicity, and Race
Lind, Next American Nation, 3-4.
Thomas E. Ricks, "The Great Society in Camouflage," The Atlantic Monthly (December 1996), 24-38.

March 31. Debate: Is Affirmative Action (Still) Necessary?
[Christopher Edley and George Stephanopolous]," Affirmative Action Review: Report to the President," Chs. 2-4.
Shelby Steele, Jr., The Content of Our Character (St. Martin's Press, 1990), pp. 21-35, 111-125.

April 2. Class, Status, and Politics (2)
Sheldon Danziger and Peter Gottschalk, America Unequal (Harvard University Press, 1996), Chs. 1-5.
Robert B. Reich, The Work of Nations (Alfred A. Knopf, 1991), Chs. 17, 23-24.

April 7-9. Civic Life, Morality, and Religion (2)
Robert Putnam, " The Strange Disappearance of Civic America," The American Prospect no. 24 (Winter 1996), 34-48.
Michael Schudson, "What If Civic Life Didn't Die," The American Prospect no. 25 (March-April 1996), 17-20.
Robert Wuthnow, "Old Fissures and New Fractures in American Religious Life," in David G. Hackett, ed., Religion and American Culture (Routledge, 1995), pp. 369-382.

April 14. The Family and the Life Course (2)
Lenore J. Weitzman and Ruth B. Dixon, "The Transformation of Legal Marriage Through No-Fault Divorce," in Skolnick and Skolnick, eds., Families in Transition, 8th ed., pp. 216-229.
David H. Demo, "Parent-Child Relations: Assessing Recent Changes," ibid, pp. 294-314.
Kristin Luker, "Motherhood and Morality in America," ibid, pp. 503-520.

April 16. Debate: Is Feminism History?
Jo Ann Freeman, "The Women's Liberation Movement: Its Origins, Organizations, Activities, and Ideas" in Skocpol and Campbell, eds., American Society and Politics, pp. 426-434.
Christina Hoff Sommers, Who Stole Feminism? (Simon and Schuster, 1994), preface, Ch. 2.
Wendy Kaminer, "Will Class Trump Gender?" The American Prospect (November-December 1996), pp. 44-52.

April 21. Education and Society (2)
Lawrence A. Cremin, Popular Education and Its Discontents (Harper & Row, 1989), pp. 85-127.
David C. Berliner and Bruce J. Biddle, The Manufactured Crisis (Addison-Wesley, 1995), Ch. 1.

April 23. Health and Medicine (2)
Starr, The Social Transformation of American Medicine, Bk 2, Chs 3-5.

April 28-May 1. The Way We Are, The Way We'll Be?
Final review and discussion.