1
Fall 2008 Gary Land
HIST 469 AMERICA AS A WORLD POWER, 1939-PRESENT
9:30-10:20 MWF
NH214
Credit Hours: / 3Office: / 122A Nethery Hall
Telephone: / Office (269) 471-3511
Home (269) 461-6613
E-Mail /
Office Hours / 3:30-6:00 p.m. T TH
and by appointment
Catalogue Description: / An examination of issues of national consciousness and cultural identity with major topics of the period such as World War II, the Cold War, Vietnam, the Civil Rights movement, Watergate, and various contemporary issues.
Course Objectives: / Through the reading and classroom activities, students will
1. Understand the domestic and international aspects of the Cold War.
2. Identify the major cultural and social changes of the period.
3. Explain the shift from political liberalism to conservatism in the late twentieth century.
4. Understand the development of the environmental movement and the issues that it addressed.
Textbooks: / Robert Griffeth and Paula Baker, Major Problems in American History since 1945, Third Edition (Houghton Mifflin,2007).
Steven Stoll, U.S. Environmentalism since 1945: A Brief History with Documents (Bedford/St. Martins, 2007).
Requirements: / 1. Reading: Students are expected to complete the reading assignments as listed on the schedule below.
2. Reading Journal: Students are to write a daily reading journal for each assignment, as described below, and turn it in to the teacher at the beginning of class. Students may skip four of these journal entries without penalty. Each journal entry is worth a maximum of 10 points. For primary document readings, student are to write a typed ½ page (12-15 lines) interpretation that draw out a major theme supported by specific examples. For secondary source readings, students are to write a ½ page (12-15 lines) critique that identifies the major thesis of each work and analyzes its validity in light of the documents previously read.
3. Book Reviews: Each student will read twoscholarly works (min. 250 pp.) of their choice addressing some aspect of American history since 1939 and write a 3-4 page critical review of each work. See instructions for the review at the end of this syllabus and the book review rubric distributed by the instructor. The bibliography contained in this syllabus gives a list of suggested books, but students are to choose secondary studies rather than primary source works such as memoirs and advocacy books. All books chosen by the student must be approved in advance by the instructor. Reviews are due as indicated in the course schedule and must include notes, rough draft, final draft, and rubric.
5. Document/Historiographical Analyses: Each student will write three 3-4 page analyses of primary source documents assigned in class. Further instructions will be given at least one week prior to the due date of each assignment as indicated in the course schedule. (50 pts each)
6. Article Analysis: Each student is to read two articles from the American Historical Review and two articles from the Journal of American History, as indicated on the course schedule,dealing with an aspect of the period covered in this course. For each article, students are to complete the article report form, and provide a print-out or photocopy of the article with the following elements marked and identified: thesis statement, subthesis statements (usually 3 or 4), and conclusion.
7. Examinations: Each student will take the midterm and final examinations. (50 pts. each)
Grades: / Reading Journal 20%
Book Reviews: 100 pts. 20%
Doc/Hist Analyses: 150 pts. 25%
Article Analysis: 40 pts. 10%
Examinations: 100 pts. 25%
Grades will be determined as follows:
A 96-100%; A- 91-95%; B+ 86-90%; B 81-85%; B- 76-80%; C+ 71-75%; C 66-70%; C- 61-65%; D 50-60%; F 0-49%
Class Attendance: / An attendance record will be taken each day. Students will lose class participation points if they are absent on a day that they are randomly chosen for questioning. As indicated in the Andrews University Bulletin (2008-09), p. 28, absences beyond 20% (8 class periods) will result in an F.
Missed Examinations: / Examination may be turned in late only in the event of illness, with a medical excuse signed by a physician or nurse, or a death in the student’s immediate family. The student must contact the teacher regarding late examinations prior to the time that the examinations are due.
Extra Credit: / Completing the course requirements with distinction will keep you occupied, for you should expect to spend about two hours in preparation for each class. I do not give extra-credit assignments.
Academic Honesty: / Please read the section on academic honesty in the Andrews University Bulletin. Any violations of this policy will result in a grade of 0 for the individual assignment.
Student E-mail: / Should I need to send a message to individual students or the entire class, I will be using your AndrewsUniversity e-mail address. If you do not use this as your primary address, it is your responsibility to set up your AU account to forward messages to your primary address so that you will receive my messages. You are responsible for any unread or missed messages.
Disability Accommodations: / If you qualify for accommodations under the American Disabilities Act, please see the instructor as soon as possible for referral and assistance in arranging such accommodations.
SCHEDULE
Date Lecture/Discussion Topic Assignment
Aug. 25 / Introduction27 / Isolationism and War
29 / The Two-Front War
Sept. 1 / LABOR DAY: NO CLASS
3 / The Home Front at War
5 / Victory and Consequences
8 / Origins of Postwar America / Griffeth/Baker, 1-24
10 / Postwar Politics / Griffeth/Baker, 24-34
American Historical Review article reports due
12 / Emergence of Containment / Griffeth/Baker, 36-54
15 / Korean War and Red Scare / Griffeth/Baker, 54-79
17 / Eisenhower and Modern Republicanism / Griffeth/Baker, 81-97
19 / Eisenhower and the Cold War / Griffeth/Baker, 97-124
22 / Conformity and Materialism/The Rise of Environmentalism / Stoll, 1-26
24 / Seeds of Rebellion/Wilderness Romanticism / Stoll, 31-53
Book Review 1 due
26 / Kennedy's Cold War / Griffeth/Baker, 125-48
29 / The New Frontier / Griffeth/Baker, 148-71
Oct. 1 / Origins of the Struggle for Equality / Griffeth/Baker, 173-92
3 / The Second Reconstruction / Griffeth/Baker, 193-209
6 / The Great Society / Griffeth Baker, 212-25
8 / The Stirring of Conservatism / Griffeth Baker, 225-42
Document Analysis 1 due
10 / MID-TERM EXAMINATION
13 / FALL RECESS: NO CLASS
15 / The New Left / Griffeth/Baker, 244-59
17 / The Making of a Counter-Culture / Griffeth-Baker, 259-79
20 / The End of Abundance / Stoll, 54-71
22 / Ecology and Society / Stoll, 72-103
24 / The Feminine Mystique / Griffeth/Baker, 280-97
27 / Women's Equality / Griffeth/Baker, 297-321
Historiographical Analysis due
29 / Kennedy, Johnson, and Vietnam / Griffeth/Baker, 324-38
31 / The Vietnam War Ends / Griffeth/Baker, 338-47
Nov. 3 / Nixon Conservatism/Green Politics / Stoll, 104-26
5 / The Watergate Crisis/Acting Locally / Stoll, 127-55
7 / The Carter Years / Griffeth/Baker, 350-72
10 / Reagan Conservatism / Griffeth/Baker, 372-92
Document Analysis 2 due
12 / Reagan and Latin America / Griffeth/Baker, 394-412
14 / Reagan and the Soviet Union / Griffeth/Baker, 413-433
17 / Bush and the End of the Cold War / Griffeth/Baker, 435-51
19 / Origins of the Culture Wars / Griffeth/Baker, 452-68
21 / Clinton and the Redefinition of Liberalism / Griffeth/Baker, 471-88
24 / Clinton and the Post-Cold War World / Griffeth/Baker, 488-507
Journal of American History reports due
26 / THANKSGIVING BREAK: NO CLASS
28 / THANKSGIVING BREAK: NO CLASS
Dec. 1 / Bush's Compassionate Conservatism / Griffeth/Baker, 509-27
3 / Terrorism and the Iraq War / Griffeth/Baker, 527-42
Book Review 2 due
5 / READING DAY: NO CLASS
8 10:00-12:00 a.m. / FINAL EXAMINATION
Griffeth and Baker Bibliography Items in JWL
Chapter 1: THE ORIGINS OF POSTWAR AMERICA
Acuna, Rodolfo. Occupied America: A History of Chicanos (1981).
Anderson, Karen Tucker. Wartime Women: Sex Roles, Family Relations, and the Status of Women During World War II (1981).
Berube, Allen. Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women In World War Two (1990).
Blum, John Morton. V Was for Victory: Politics and American Culture During World War II (1976).
Brinkley, Alan. Liberalism and Its Discontents (1998).
Capeci, Dominic J. The Harlem Riot of 1943 (1977).
Daniels, Roger. Concentration Camps USA: Japanese Americans and World War II (1971)
Divine, Robert A. Roosevelt and World War II (1969)
Fussell, Paul. Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War (1989)
Gluck, Sherna Berger. Rosie the Riveter Revisited: Women, the War and Social Change (1987).
Graham, Otis L., Jr. Toward a Planned Society: From Roosevelt to Nixon (1976)
Irons, Peter. Justice at War (1983).
Jeffries, John W. Wartime America: The World War II Home Front (1996)
Kennedy, David M. Freedom from Fear: the American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 (1999).
Leigh, Michael. Mobilizing Consent: Public Opinion and American Foreign Policy, 1937-1947 (1986).
Okihiro, Gary Y. Whispered Silences: Japanese Americans and World War II (1996).
O'Neill, William L. A Democracy at War: America's Fight at Home and Abroad in Word War II (1993).
Perett, Geoffrey. Days of Sadness, Years of Triumph: The American People, 1939-1945 (1973).
Pfeffer, Paula E. A. Philip Randolph (1990).
Polenberg, Richard. War and Society: The United States, 1941-1945 (1972).
Roeder, George H. The Censored War; American Visual Experience During World War II(1993).
Sherry, Michael S. In the Shadow of War: The United States since the 1930s(1995).
Terkel, Studs. "The Good War": An Oral History of World War II (1984).
Winkler, Allan J. Home Front U.S.A.: America During World War II (1986).
Wyman, David S. The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1941-1945 (1984).
Chapter 2: THE ORIGINS OF THE COLD WAR
Brands, H. W. The Devil We Knew: Americans and the Cold War(1993)
_____. Inside the Cold War: Loy Henderson and the Rise of the American Empire, 1918- 1961 (1991).
Callahan, David. Dangerous Capabilities: Paul Nitze and the Cold War (1990).
Davis, Lynn Etheridge. The Cold War Begins: Soviet-American Conflict over Eastern Europe (1974)
Eckes, Alfred E., Jr. A Search for Solvency: Bretton Woods and the International Monetary System, 1941-1971 (1975)
Gaddis, John Lewis. The Cold War: A New History (2005)
_____. The Long Peace: Inquiries into the History of the Cold War (1987)
Gardner, Lloyd C. Architects of Illusion: Men and Ideas in American Foreign Policy, 1941-1949 (1970)
Hamby, Alonzo L. Man of the People: A Life of Harry S Truman (1991).
Hogan, Michael J. The Marshall Plan: America, Britain, and the Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1947-1952 (1987).
Holloway, David. Stalin and the Bomb (1994)
Hunter, Allen, ed. Rethinking the Cold War (1998).
Isaacson, Walter, and Evan Thomas. The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made: Acheson, Bohlen, Harriman, Kennan, Lovett, McCloy (1996).
Kolko, Gabriel. The Politics of War: The World and United States Foreign Policy, 1943- 1945 (1968).
Kolko, Joyce, and Gabriel Kolko. The Limits of Power: The World and United States Foreign Policy, 1945-1954 (1972).
Leffler, Melvyn P. A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (1992).
Mastny, Vojtech. The Cold War and Soviet Insecurity: The Stalin Years (1996)
Offner, Arnold. Another Such Victory: President Truman and the Cold War, 1945-1953 (2002).
Paterson, Thomas G. Meeting the Communist Threat: Truman to Reagan (1988).
_____. On Every Front: The Making of the Cold War (1979)
Schrecker, Ellen. Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America(1999).
Walker, Martin. The Cold War: A History (1994)
Weinstein, Allen. Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case (1997)
_____, and Alexander Vassiliev. The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America—The Stalin Era (1999).
Whitfield, Stephen J. The Culture of the Cold War (1991).
Yergin, Daniel. Shattered Peace: The Origins of the Cold War and the National Security State (1977).
Zubok, Vladislav, and Constantine Pleshakov. Inside the Kremlin's Cold War: From Stalin to Khrushchev (1996).
Chapter 3: THE CONSUMER'S REPUBLIC: THE 1950S AND THE EMERGENCE OF A NEW ECONOMY OF MASS CONSUMPTION
Bailey, Beth L. From Front Porch to Back Seat: Courtship in Twentieth-Century America(1988).
Brandon, Barbara. The Passion of Ayn Rand (1986).
Carter, Paul. Another Part of the Fifties (1983).
Cohen, Lisbeth. A Consumer's Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America (2003).
Coontz, Stephanie. The Way We Never Were: American Families and the nostalgia Trap (1992).
Davis, Kenneth C. Two-Bit Culture: The Paperbacking of America(1984).
Doherty, Thomas. Cold War, Cool Medium: Television, McCarthyism, and American Culture (2003).
Englehardt, Tom. The End of Victory Culture: Cold War and the Disilllusioning of a Generation (1995).
Fox, Richard Wightman. Reinhold Niebuhr: A Biography (1986).
Henrikson, Margot A. Dr. Strangelove's America: Society and Culture in the Atomic Age (1997).
Lhamon, W. T., Jr. Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s (1990).
Marling, Karal Ann. As Seen on TV: The Visual Culture of Everyday Life in the 1950s (1990).
May, Elaine Tyler. Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era (1988).
Rose, Lisle A. The Cold War Comes to Main Street: America in 1950 (1999).
Whitfield, Stephen J. The Culture of the Cold War (1991).
Chapter 4: JOHN F. KENNEDY, THE CUBN REVOLUTION, AND THE COLD WAR
Allison, Graham T. Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (1971)
Dobrynin, Anatoli. In Confidence (1995).
Fursenko, Aledsandr, and Timothy Naftali. "One Hell of a Gamble": Khruschev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958-1964 (1997).
Higgins, Trumbull. The Perfect Failure. (1987)
Hillsman, Roger. To Move a Nation: The Politics of Foreign Policy in the Administration of John F. Kennedy (1967).
Kennedy, Robert F. Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis (19969)
Kkhruschev, Nikita. Khruschev Remembers: The Glasnost Tapes (1990).
LaFeber, Walter. Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America(1983).
May Ernest R., and Philip D. Zelikow, eds. The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis (2002).
McNamara, Robert. Blundering into Disaster: Surviving the First Century of the Nuclear Age (1986).
Nash, Philip. The Other Missiles of October: Eisenhower, Kennedy and the jupiters, 1957-1963 (1997).
Powers, Thomas. The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms and the CIA(1979).
Smith, Gaddis. The Last Years of the Monroe Doctrine, 1945-1993 (1994).
Chapter 5: THE AFRICAN AMERICAN STRUGGLE FOR EQUALITY
Baldin, J. M., and Bruce A. Ackerman. What Brown v. Board of Education Should Have Said (2001).
Bartley, Numan V. The Rise of Massive Resistance: Race and politics in the South During the 1950s (1969).
Belknap, Michal R. Federal law and Southern Order: Racial Violence and Constitutional Conflict in the Post-Brown South (1987).
Berman, Daniel M. It is So Ordered: The Supreme Court Rules on School Segregation (1966).
Branch, Taylor. At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68 (2006)
_____. Parting the Waters: Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-63 (1988).
_____. Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-1965 (1998).
Brauer, Carl M. John F. Kennedy and the Second Reconstruction (1977).
Cecelski, David S. Along Freedom Road: Hyde County, North Carolina, and the Fate of Black Schools in the South (1994).
Chafe, William H. Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Black Struggle for Freedom (1980).
Donato, Ruben. The Other Struggle for Equal Schools: Mexican Americans During the Civil Rights Era (1997).
Dudziak, Mary L. Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy (2002).
Eskew, Glen T. But for Birmingham: The Local and National Movements in the Civil Rights Struggle (1997).
Findlay, James F., Jr. Church People in the Struggle: The National Council of Churches and the Black Freedom Movement, 1950-1970 (1993).
Garrow, David J. Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (1986).
_____. Protest at Selma: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (1978).
Glen, John M. Highlander: No Ordinary School, 1932-1962 (1988).
Graham, Hugh Davis. The Civil Rights Era: Origins and Development of National Policy (1990).
Kellar, William Henry. Make Haste Slowly: Moderates, Conservatives, and School Desegregation in Houston (1999).
Klarman, Michael J. From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality (2004)
Kluger, Richard. Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality (1976).
Marsh, Charles. God's Long Summer: Stories of Faith and Civil Rights (1977).
McMillin, Neil. The Citizens Council: Organized Resistance to the Second Reconstruction (1971).
Morris, Aldon. The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change (1984).
O'Reilly, Kenneth. Nixon's Piano: Presidents and Racial Politics from Washington to Clinton(1995).
Patterson, James T. Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy (2001).
Payne, Charles M. I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle (1995).
Pratt, Robert A. The Color of Their Skin: Education and Race in Richmond, Virginia, 1954-1989 (1994).
Steinberg, Stephen. Turning Back: The Retreat from Racial Justice in American Thought and Policy (1995).
Tushnet, Mark V. Making Civil Rights Law: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme court, 1936-1961 (1994).
Van Deburg, William L. New Day in Babylon: The Black Power Movement and American Culture, 1965-1975 (1992).
Wilson, William Julius. The Truly Disadvantaged: The inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy (1987).
Woodard, K. Komozi. A Nation Within a Nation: Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) and Black Power Politics (1999).
Chapter 6: THE GREAT SOCIETY AND THE POLITICS OF LIBERAL REFORM
Andrew, John., III. Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society (1998).
Bernstein, Irving. Guns or Butter: The Presidency of Lyndon Johnson (1996).
Block, Fred, et al. The Mean Season: The Attack on the Welfare State (1987).
Burke, Vincent J., and Lee Burke. Nixon's Good Deed: Welfare Reform (1974).
Caro, Robert A. The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Means of Ascent (1900).
_____. The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power (1982).
Conkin, Paul. Big Daddy from the Pedernales: Lyndon Baines Johnson (1986).
Dallek, Robert. Flawed Giant: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1961-1973 (1999).
_____. Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1908-1960 (1991).
_____. Lyndon B. Johnson: Portrait of a President (2004).
Graham, Hugh Davis. The Uncertain Triumph: Federal Education Policy in the Kennedy and Johnson Years (1984).
Kotz, Nick. Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther king, Jr., and the Laws that Changed America(2005).
Levitan, Sar, and Robert Taggert. The Promise of Greatness (1976).
Lieberman, Robert C. Shifting the Color Line: Race and the American Welfare State (1998).