History 80000 Literature of American History, II KC Johnson Wednesdays at 6.30Pm
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
History 80000 Literature of American History, II KC Johnson http://kc-johnson.com Wednesdays at 6.30pm This course completes the first-year literature survey, incorporating books from Reconstruction through the 20th century. Books: All available for purchase through the course website. Alan Brinkley, End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War Nancy Cott, Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation Donald Critchlow, The Conservative Ascendancy: How the GOP Right Made Political History Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution Colin Gordon, Dead on Arrival: The Politics of Health Care in 20th Century America Patrick Hagopian, The Vietnam War in American Memory: Veterans, Memorials, and the Politics of Healing Michael Klarman, From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality Fredrick Logevall, Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the Escalation of War in Vietnam David Nasaw, The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst Charles Postel, The Populist Vision Daniel Rodgers, Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age Judith Stein, Running Steel, Running America: Race, Economic Policy, and the Decline of Liberalism Thomas Sugrue, Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit Requirements: Historiographical Paper, 18-20pp. Topics due by February 23. (40%) Participation (30%) Supplementary Reading/ Study Questions. Each student will put together and post to the course website a set of study questions for one of the assigned readings, plus a 2-3pp. bullet-point outline for three of the supplementary readings. (30%) My Contact Information: email: [email protected] cell: 207-329-8456 Office Hours, Wed., 4.00-6.00pm, 5102 Schedule: Week 1: Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877, paperback edition (Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2002) Week 2: David Nasaw, The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst (Mariner Books, 2001) Supplementary readings: Morton Keller, Affairs of State: Public Life in Late Nineteenth Century America (Harvard University Press, 1977) Sven Beckert, The Monied Metropolis: New York City and the Consolidation of the American Bourgeoisie, 1850-1896 (Cambridge University Press, 2001) Rebecca Edwards, New Spirits: Americans in the Gilded Age, 1865–1905 (Oxford University Press, 2010) Week 3: Charles Postel, The Populist Vision (Oxford University Press, 2007) Supplementary readings: Robert C. McMath, Jr., American Populism: A Social History, 1877–1898 (Hill and Wang, 1996) Joe Creech, Righteous Indignation: Religion and the Populist Revolution (University of Illinois Press, 2006) Lawrence Goodwyn, The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America (Oxford University Press, 1986) Week 4: Daniel Rodgers, Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age (Harvard University Press, 2007) supplementary readings: Melissa R. Klapper, Small Strangers: The Experiences of Immigrant Children in America, 1880- 1925 (Ivan R. Dee, 2007) Michael McGerr, The Decline of Popular Politics: The American North, 1865-1928 (Oxford University Press, 1986) Robert Wiebe, The Search for Order, 1877-1920 (Hill and Wang, 1966) Week 5: Alan Brinkley, End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War (Vintage, 1996) supplementary readings: Lizabeth Cohen, Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919-1939 (Cambridge University Press, 1991) Colin Gordon, New Deals: Business, Labor, and Politics in America, 1920-1935 (Cambridge University Press, 1994) Jason Scott Smith, Building New Deal Liberalism: The Political Economy of Public Works, 1933- 1956 (Cambridge University Press, 2005) Week 6: Michael Klarman, From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality (Oxford University Press, 2004) supplementary readings: Ira Katznelson, When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold Story of Racial Inequality in 20th Century America (Harper’s, 2005) Kevin McMahon, Reconsidering Roosevelt on Race: How the Presidency Paved the Road to Brown (University of Chicago Press, 2003) Jonathan Rosenberg, How Far the Promised Land?: World Affairs and the American Civil Rights Movement from the First World War to Vietnam (Princeton University Press, 2005) Week 7: Thomas Sugrue, Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (Princeton University Press, 1998) supplementary readings: David Freund, Colored Property: State Policy and White Racial Politics in Suburban America (University of Chicago Press, 2007) Robert Beauregard, When America Became Suburban (University of Minnesota Press, 2006) Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era (Basic Books, 1990) Week 8: Colin Gordon, Dead on Arrival: The Politics of Health Care in 20th Century America (Princeton University Press, 2004) supplementary readings: Allen Matusow, The Unraveling of America: A History of Liberalism in the 1960s (Perennial, 1985) Owen Gutfreund, Twentieth-Century Sprawl: Highways and the Reshaping of the American Landscape (Oxford University Press, 2005) Susan Levine, School Lunch Politics: The Surprising History of America’s Favorite Welfare Program (Princeton University Press, 2008) Week 9: Fredrick Logevall, Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the Escalation of War in Vietnam (University of California Press, 1999) supplementary readings: Tim Naftali, “One Hell of a Gamble“: Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy,1958-1964 (WW Norton, 1997) Stephen Rabe, U.S. Intervention in British Guiana: A Cold War Story (University of North Carolina Press, 2005) Thomas Alan Schwartz, Lyndon Johnson and Europe: In the Shadow of Vietnam (Harvard University Press, 2003) Week 10: Judith Stein, Running Steel, Running America: Race, Economic Policy, and the Decline of Liberalism (UNC Press, 1998) supplementary readings: Jefferson Cowie, Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class (New Press, 2010) Nelson Lichtenstein, The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit: Walter Reuther and the Fate of American Labor (Basic Books, 1995) Judith Stein, Pivotal Decade: How the United States Traded Factories for Finance in the Seventies (Yale University Press, 2010) Week 11: Donald Critchlow, The Conservative Ascendancy: How the GOP Right Made Political History (Harvard University Press, 2007) supplementary readings: William A. Link, Righteous Warrior: Jesse Helms and the Rise of Modern Conservatism (St. Martin’s Press, 2008) Joseph Crespino, In Search of Another Country: Mississippi and the Conservative Counterrevolution (Princeton University Press, 2007) Matthew Lassiter, The Silent Majority: Suburban Politics in the Sunbelt South (Princeton University Press, 2007) Week 12: Patrick Hagopian, The Vietnam War in American Memory: Veterans, Memorials, and the Politics of Healing (University of Massachusetts Press, 2009) supplementary readings: Sean Wilentz, The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974-2008 (Harper, 2008) Kim Moody, From Welfare State to Real Estate: Regime Change in New York City, 1974 to the Present (New Press, 2007) Linethal and Engelhardt, eds., History Wars: The Enola Gay and Other Battles for the American Past (Holt, 1996) Week 13: Nancy Cott, Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation (Harvard University Press, 2002) supplementary readings: Karl Boyd Brooks, Before Earth Day: The Origins of American Environmental Law, 1945–1970 (University of Kansas Press, 2009) Louis Hyman, Debtor Nation: The History of America in Red Ink (Princeton University Press, 2010) Saul Cornell, A Well-Regulated Militia: The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control in America (Oxford University Press, 2006) Week 14: Review Learning Objectives: By the end of the course, successful students should be able to: Discuss major problems in American history since 1865 and how scholarly interpretations of these problems have changed over time. Summarize and critically evaluate historical monographs both verbally and in writing. Synthesize a historical argument based on the course readings. Demonstrate an in-depth understanding of the concept of historiography by writing an essay that analyzes the scholarly literature on a particular topic. .