History 4473
Recent
Spring 2006
This course will offer you an opportunity to analyze the
major cultural, social, and political trends in the
I have designed the content of this course with the assumption that you have taken HIST 2112 (US History Since 1865) or the equivalent, and that you have a basic understanding of modern American history, as well as previous experience in historical writing and the analysis of primary and secondary sources. This class will offer you the opportunity to expand your knowledge of recent American history by examining historical concepts in more depth than a survey class permits.
Learning Outcomes:
This course will help you to develop
critical thinking skills and the ability to analyze opposing points of
view. By the end of this course, you
should have an understanding of the major events and trends in postwar
Assessment:
Students’ final grades will be determined as follows:
Midterm exam 15%
Book analyses 20%
Research paper 25%
Class participation 20%
Final exam 20%
Exams: There will be one midterm exam and a take-home final exam. The midterm exam will consist of essay questions and I.D. terms, and it will emphasize broad themes presented in the lectures, discussions, and readings. One week before the exam, you will receive a study guide that will give you more information about the material covered on the test. I will give a make-up exam only in cases of a pre-arranged, excused absence for which documentation must be provided, or in cases of a legitimate health or family emergency that must be documented with a doctor’s note, dean’s note, or similar measure of proof. In all other cases, a make-up exam will not be an option.
The take-home final exam will consist of two essay questions. I will give you the exam on Monday, May 1, and you will have until 1pm on Wednesday, May 3 to write 6-10 pages in response to the essay questions.
Book analyses and research papers: You are required to write four 1-2 page summaries of the books that you read for class discussion, and each of those analyses is due on the date on which the class discussion for the book is scheduled. A book analysis should give a brief summary of the book, highlighting the author’s thesis or point of view, and it should examine the work in the broader context of the historical trends discussed in Boyer’s Promises to Keep and the class lectures.
You will also be expected to write one 6-8 page research paper for this course. Consult the guidelines for research papers for more information about this assignment.
Papers that are turned in after the assigned date will be marked down 1/3 of a letter grade for each day they are overdue.
It should go without saying that all papers that you write must be your own work, and that any students who are caught plagiarizing another student’s work, a paper from a web site, a textbook, or any other source will automatically fail this course and may be subject to further disciplinary action. Plagiarism is a serious offense that will not be tolerated.
Class participation: Classes will consist of interactive lectures, which will give you a chance to ask questions and discuss the ideas presented in the readings. In addition, there are five class periods reserved for discussion of the assigned books. It is very important for you to read these books prior to the class discussions so that you can come to class prepared to participate.
Required
readings:
Peter Applebome,
and Culture
James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time
Paul S. Boyer, Promises to Keep:
The
Ron Kovic, Born on the Fourth of July
Chana Kai Lee, For Freedom’s Sake: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer
Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era
Bruce Schulman, The Seventies:
The Great Shift in American Culture, Society, and
Politics
Course Schedule:
1/9 Introduction
1/11
Boyer, 4-34.
1/13 The Origins of the Cold War
Boyer, 35-64.
Primary source: The Truman Doctrine (http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/trudoc.htm)
1/16 No Class (Martin Luther King, Jr., Day)
1/18 Anti-Communist Hysteria: From HUAC to McCarthy
Boyer, 80-96.
Primary source: Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s Speech on Communists in the State Department (http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/06/documents/mccarthy/)
1/20 Truman and Postwar Liberalism
Boyer, 65-80.
1/23 Gender and Sexuality in the 1950s: How Conservative Was the Decade?
Boyer, 97-128.
May, 80-142 (ch. 4-6).
1/25 Growing Up in the 1950s: From Howdy Doody to Rock ’n’ Roll
Boyer, 132-147.
1/27 Religion in the Age of Billy Graham and Norman Vincent Peale
Primary source: Billy Graham’s Scotland Crusade, 1955 (http://64.34.176.235/sermons/SID4495.mp3)
1/30 The Eisenhower Presidency
2/1 Discussion
of May’s Homeward Bound (read pp.
ix-29, 80-208; skip ch. 2 & 3).
(Book analysis of
May’s Homeward Bound due).
2/3 Civil
Rights Activism Before Brown
Boyer,
148-159.
2/6 Brown v. Board and the Liberal
Integrationist Ideal
Primary source: Brown v. Board (http://www.nationalcenter.org/brown.html)
2/8 Desegregation and the Civil Rights Movement, 1955-1958
Primary source: Interview with Rosa Parks (http://www.npr.org/dmg/dmg.php?mediaURL=/atc/19920301_atc_rosaparks&mediaType=RM) or http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/par0int-1.
2/10 John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier
Boyer, 160-184.
Primary source: John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address
(http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres56.html)
Topics
for research papers due.
2/13 Pursuing the Dream: The Civil Rights Movement, 1960-1963
Boyer, 214-240.
Primary source: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech
(http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/Ihaveadream.htm)
2/15 Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society
Boyer, 185-213.
Primary source: Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” speech, 1964
(http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/13/documents/lbj/)
2/17 Discussion
of
analysis of
2/20 Cold War Foreign Policy in the Fifties and Sixties
Primary Source:
Excerpts from the CIA’s probe into the failure of the
2/22 Why
Was the
Boyer, 263-290.
Primary source: Kennedy’s NBC Interview, 1963
(http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon2/ps38.htm)
2/24 Film:
2/27 Film:
Source
list for research paper due.
3/1 The New Left and the Antiwar Protests
Primary source: Carl Oglesby, “Let Us Shape the Future” (1965)
(http://www.hippy.com/php/article-131.html)
3/3 Youth Rebellion in the 1960s: An Assessment
Boyer, 242-262, 291-306.
3/6 Discussion
of Kovic’s Born on the Fourth of July.
(Book analysis of Kovic’s
Born on the Fourth of July due).
3/8 Black Power
Primary source: Black Panther Party Program
(http://www.hippy.com/php/article-202.html)
3/10 The Sexual Revolution and the Gay Rights Movement
Primary source handout
3/13 The Feminist Movement in the 1960s
Primary source: Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique
(http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/leadership/Pdf/TheProblemThatHasNoName.pdf)
Casey Hayden and Mary King, “Sex and Caste”
(http://www.cwluherstory.com/CWLUArchive/memo.html)
3/15 The
Achievements of the Feminist Movement
Boyer, 322-335.
Schulman, ch. 7 (pp. 159-189)
Primary source:
Interview with Gloria Steinem
(http://www.feminist.com/resources/artspeech/interviews/gloria.htm)
3/17 Midterm Exam
* * * Spring Break, 3/20-3/24
3/27 The Environmentalist Movement
Primary source: Gaylord Nelson, “Earth Day ’70: What it Meant”
(http://www.epa.gov/history/topics/earthday/02.htm)
3/29 Rights
Consciousness in the 1970s
Schulman, ch. 2 (pp. 53-77).
Primary source: Mirta Vidal, “Women: New Voice of La Raza”
(http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/wlm/chicana/)
3/31 The Silent Majority
Primary source: Ronald Reagan, “A Time for Choosing” (1964)
(http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/reaganatimeforchoosing.htm)
4/3 The Nixon Presidency
Boyer, 307-321, 335-348.
Schulman, ch. 1 (pp. 23-52)
Primary source: Transcript of Nixon’s “Smoking Gun” Tape (1972)
(http://www.hpol.org/transcript.php?id=92)
First
draft of research paper due.
4/5 The Seventies Slowdown
Boyer, 350-357.
4/7 The Carter Presidency and the Rise of a New Conservatism
Boyer, 358-383.
Schulman, ch. 5 (pp. 121-143)
Primary source: Jimmy Carter, “Crisis of Confidence” Speech (1979)
(http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/filmmore/ps_crisis.html)
4/10 Discussion
of Schulman’s The Seventies.
(Book analysis of Schulman’s The
Seventies due).
4/12 The Christian Right
Excerpt
from Jerry Falwell’s
(http://www.wwnorton.com/college/history/archive/resources/documents/ch36_02.htm)
4/14 Reaganomics
Boyer, 384-391.
Primary source: Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address (1981)
(http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/rreagandfirstinaugural.html)
4/17 Assessing Reagan’s Foreign Policy
Boyer, 391-404.
Primary source: Ronald Reagan, “Evil Empire” Speech (1982)
(http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1982reagan1.html)
4/19 Decades of Greed: The Economy, Culture, and Society in the Eighties and
Nineties
Boyer, 404-424.
Primary source: “Greed is Good” Speech from Wall Street (1987)
(http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechwallstreet.html)
4/21 No Class (Instructor at a Conference)
4/24 Discussion
of Dixie Rising (read pp. 3-147,
322-345). (Book analysis of
Applebome’s Dixie Rising due).
4/26 The
Boyer, 425-478.
Primary source: Bill Clinton’s 1999 State of the Union Address
(http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/01/19/sotu.transcript/)
4/28 Neoconservative Foreign Policy
Boyer, 479-510.
Primary
source: George W. Bush, Graduation Speech at
(http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/06/20020601-3.html)
Research
paper due.
5/1
Primary source: Robert Reich, “The Two Great Forces of the Future” (1999)
(http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/1999/12/reich-r-12-01.html)
Take-home final exam distributed.
5/3 Take-home
final exam due.