HIST 5340
Issues and Interpretations in U.S. History
Spring 2011
Mon. 7-9:50
Room: UH 001
Professor: Sam Haynes
Office Hours: M, 4-7 p.m., Rm 650, Central Library
Phone: 817 272-3997
Email:
CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES:
The purpose of the course is to provide students with a solid understanding of major trends in U.S. historiography. Students will be required to familiarize themselves with the most important debates between historians over general topics, issues, and approaches in the study of the nation’s past. By the end of the semester they will be able to describe the basic contours of these debates, and identify the work of historians who have contributed most to them.
LEARNING OUTCOMES:
As students read the essays in Interpretations of American History, they will be asked to identify and describe the main issues being debated by historians of a particular subject or era. As the semester progresses, they will also be able to identify recurring themes and issues, and discern how an author builds and defends an argument. In addition, students will be asked to read selected books, and in short essays and oral presentations situate them within the relevant historiography.
REQUIRED BOOKS:
Francis G. Couvares, et al., Interpretations of American History, Volumes One and Two.
GRADING:
Students will write two book reviews (3-5 pages each); a comparative historiography paper of two books on the Jacksonian era (4-6 pages); and an essay on a major historiographical topic of their choice using a selection of three books assigned by the instructor (7-10 pages). Students will be required to make short presentations on their reviews and field questions from the class. In addition, all students will be asked to participate in general class discussion.
Two Book Reviews 30% (15% each)
Jacksonian Era Essay 25%
Historiographical Essay 35%
Class Participation 10%
Please Note: Students who miss more than one class will automatically have 5 points deducted from their oral participation grade.
Students are required to keep all test materials until the end of the semester.
Scholastic Dishonesty:
Scholastic dishonesty includes, but is not limited to, cheating, plagiarism, collusion, the submission for credit of any work or materials that are attributable in whole or in part to another person, taking an examination for another person, or the attempt to commit such acts. Students who violate university rules on scholastic dishonesty are subject to disciplinary penalties, including the possibility of failure in the course and dismissal from the university. In addition, students may not submit work they have already submitted for a grade in another class.
Withdrawals/Drop Date:
The instructor will not drop students for excessive absences. Students are responsible for
dropping a course before the cut-off date. The last day to drop this course with a W from the instructor is April 1.
Classroom Decorum:
Please turn off and put away all cell phones before coming to class. Laptops are allowed for note-taking purposes only. Students may not answer cell phones in class or use cell phones for text messaging. Students who leave the room to answer a cell phone will not be readmitted until the end of the class.
Disabilities
Students requiring accommodation on the basis of disability should meet with the instructor during the first week of class.
Student Support Services
The University supports a variety of success programs to help you connect with the University and achieve academic success. They include learning assistance, developmental education, advising and mentoring, admission and transition, and federally funded programs. Students requiring assistance academically, personally or socially should contact the Office of Student Success Programs for more information and appropriate referrals.
Reading Assignments:
Week One (1/17) Martin Luther King Day
Week Two (1/24) Interpretations of American History, I, ch. 1, Introduction to U.S. Historiography, 1-24
Week Three (1/31) IAH, 1, chs. 2, 25-40; 3, 60-72
Week Four (2/7) Revolution and Constitution, IAH, chs. 5, 127-44; 6, 165-81
Week Five (2/14) Age of Jackson, IAH, ch. 7, 202-16
Wilentz, Rise of American Democracy; Howe, What Hath
God Wrought (on library reserve)
Week Six (2/21) Wilentz, Rise of American Democracy; Howe, What Hath
God Wrought (on library reserve)
Week Seven (2/28) American Expansionism Handout; Antebellum Era, IAH, ch. 8, 235-249
Week Eight (3/7) Slave Culture, IAH, ch. 9, 274-89
Week Nine (3/14) Spring Break
Week Ten (3/21) Civil War and Reconstruction, IAH, ch. 10, 309-24; ch. 11, 347-62
Week Eleven (3/28) The Reform Eras, IAH, vol. 2, ch. 6, 165-79; ch. 7. 207-21
Week Twelve (4/4) Cold War/U.S. Foreign Policy, IAH, ch. 8, 246-64
Week Thirteen (4/11) No Class (work on historiography papers)
Week Fourteen (4/18) No Class (work on historiography papers)
Week Fifteen (4/25) Class Historiography Paper Presentations
Week Sixteen (5/2) Class Historiography Paper Presentations
Week Seventeen (5/9) Papers Due
Books for Review
Choose two books from the following list. Each review should be 3-5 pages in length
(see book review instructions for additional information). Prepare a five minute presentation of
for the class, in which you briefly summarize the book, its thesis, and your overall
impressions of it. Papers will be due on the day of the scheduled class presentations.
Week Three (1/31) Jill Lepore, The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the
Origins of American Identity
William Cronon, Changes in the Land
Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empire, and
Republics in the Great Lakes Region
Juliana Barr, Peace Came in the Form of a Woman
Laura Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife’s Tale
John Demos, The Unredeemed Captive
Edmund Morgan, The Puritan Family
John Demos, Entertaining Satan
Carol Karlsen, The Devil in the Shape of a Woman
Week Four (2/7) Lawrence Gross, The Minutemen and their World
Bernard Bailyn, Ideological Origins of the American Revolution
Gordon Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution
Edmund Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom
Jack Rakove, Original Meanings
Week Seven (2/28) Thomas F. Abernethy, From Frontier to Plantation in Tennessee
Daid Grimsted, American Mobbing
Patricia Cline Cohen, The Murder of Helen Jewett
Paul Johnson, Shopkeepers’ Millenium
Sean Wilentz, Chants Democratic
Amy Srebnick, The Mysterious Death of Mary Rodgers
Leonard Richards, Gentlemen of Property and Standing
Week Eight (3/7) Ulrich B. Phillips, American Negro Slavery
Kenneth Stampp, Peculiar Institution
Stanley Elkins, Slavery: A Problem in American Intellectual Life
John Blassingame, The Slave Community
Walter Johnson, Soul by Soul: Inside the American Slave Market
Week Ten (3/21) Michael Holt, The Political Crisis of the 1850s
David Potter, Impending Crisis
Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution
William Freehling, The Road to Disunion
C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow
Week Eleven (3/28) Richard Hofstadter, Age of Reform
Robert Wiebe, The Search for Order
Gabriel Kolko, The Triumph of Conservatism
Ellis Hawley, The New Deal and the Problem of Monopoly
Amity Schlaes, The Forgotten Man
Week Twelve (4/4) Walter LaFeber, America, Russia and the Cold War
Thomas Paterson, Soviet-American Confrontation
Robert McMahon, Colonialism and the Cold War