The United States Since 1968

HISTORY 380B

THE UNITED STATES SINCE 1968

Spring 2010

M, W 11:00-12:15

LA 1-309

Dr. Gary W. ReichardOffice Hours:

FO 2- 224Monday and Wednesday,

e-mail: 1:00 - 2:30 and by apptmt.

Course Description

This course is an intensive study of political, economic, social, and cultural change in the United States, as well as the nation’s involvement in world affairs, in the years since 1968. Topics that will be examined include: the Vietnam War;the changing political balance, including the rise of conservatism; social and economic developments related to deindustrialization, suburbanization, and consumerism; the path to the end of the Cold War;the “war on terror”; and the impact of globalism.

Learning Outcomes

In this course, students are expected to demonstrate mastery of the skills essential to an undergraduate History major, including: asking and answering interpretive questions; analyzing primary and secondary sources; conducting historical research; and presenting the findings of that research in a persuasive manner and with proper formal citation of sources.

Course Requirements and Evaluations

Primary Document Analysis: This paper will analyze and compare twospeeches by United States presidents on a single broad subject. Links to the speeches that may be used for this assignment are on the “Websites” page of the class BeachBoard site. The document analysis should be approximately ten pages in length, with proper citations; it will be graded on both quality of content and style. Papers must be submitted both in hard copy and electronically on Turnitin.

Historiographical Essay: This essay will be based on critical comparative analysis of two books on a single broad subject. Books must be selected from the list on the “Assignments” page. Theessay should discuss and contrast the major themes, arguments, and viewpoints of the books selected, in the context of the literature on the subject. It should be approximately ten to twelve pages in length, with proper citations. The list of books from which students may select, as well as the grading rubric for this assignment, will be posted early in the semester on the “Assignments” page of the BeachBoard site. Papers must be submitted both in hard copy and electronically on Turnitin.

In-class Writing Exercises: There will be five classes during the semester that will begin with ten-minute in-class writing exercises on the assigned readings for that day. There will be no make-ups if these assignments are missed.

Mid-term and Final Examinations: There will be both a mid-term examination and a comprehensive final examination in this course. A study guide will be provided in advance for each of these examinations. The final examination will take place at the time announced in the University schedule of classes.

Class Participation: Since this class will be a mixture of lecture and discussion, regular attendance and participation in class discussions are expected. For many classes (including the days on which in-class writing exercises are scheduled), study guide questions related to assigned readings will be posted in advance; students should consult these to be prepared for class discussion. More than two unexcused absences from class will result in a reduction of the class participation grade by at least one letter grade. (NOTE: Please do not use cell phones, either for texting or for calls, during class.)

Grading: Grades in this course will be based on 700 possible points, as follows:

Primary Document Analysis150 points

HistoriographicalEssay150 points

In-class Writing Exercises (5)100 points

Class participation 50 points

Mid-term Examination100 points

Final Examination150 points

The grading scale for all assignments and for the final course grade will be: 90 percent or higher= A; 80 to 89 percent= B; 70 to 79 percent= C; 60-69 percent= D; below 60 percent= F. Consistent with the University Policy on Grades and Grading Procedures, a grade of Incomplete (I) will be possible only if a substantial portion of the required coursework (at least two-thirds) has been completed and the student’s inability to complete the remaining work within the prescribed period is “due to unforeseen, but fully justified, reasons.”

University Statement on Influenza-like Illnesses: Because of an anticipated increase in seasonal and H1N1 flu, any student who has influenza-like illness should stay home until 24 hours after fever is gone. Absent students should notify instructors prior to each missed class by email or telephone. As much as possible, instructors will accommodate students who are absent due to influenza-like illness, but it may not always be possible to make up work missed. In considering students’ requests to withdraw from courses, flu illness will be considered a “serious and compelling reason.” More information about influenza is available by following the “Medical Advisory, Flu information” link on the university home page, .

Policy on Academic Honesty: The University’s policy on cheating and plagiarism (Academic Senate Policy Statement 85-19) will be strictly enforced in this class. This policy may be found at:

It is also available on the Assignments page of the BeachBoard site for this class. In cases where cheating or plagiarism is found to have occurred, the minimum penalty will be a grade of “0” on the assignment.

Required Books

Four books are required for the course, and are available for purchase in the University Bookstore. Each has also been placed on Electronic Reserve.

Brzezinski, Zbigniew. Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower (2007)

MacLean, Nancy. The American Women’s Movement, 1945-2000 (2009)

Merrill, Karen R. The Oil Crisis of 1973-1974: A Brief History with Documents (2007)

Patterson, James T. Restless Giant: The United States from Watergate to Bush v. Gore (2005)

In addition, the following will be useful in preparation of course papers:

Benjamin, Jules R. A Student’s Guide to History (10th ed., 2007)

BeachBoardand Electronic Reserve Resources

The list of assignments and readings that follows includes a number of videos and documents that are on the BeachBoard site for this course (indicated as BB), as well as several supplemental reading assignments that are on Electronic Reserve (eR). You may access Electronic Reserve at:

Then search by instructor’s name and the course History 380B; student password is Hist380B.

All assigned videoscan be found on the “Websites” page of the course BeachBoard site. A number of primary documents from which you may select for the Document Analysis assignment (described above) are located on the “Course Documents” page of the site.

Schedule of Topics and Assignments

Week One

Mon, Jan. 25The World in 1968

Weds, Jan 27A New Political Era: Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” and the Silent Majority

(eR) – Isserman and Kazin, America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s (2008), ch. 12 (“1968”)

Week Two

Mon., Feb. 1[PRACTICE: IN-CLASS WRITING EXERCISE]

Winding Down: The End of the Vietnam War

(eR) – Lawrence, Mark A. The Vietnam War: A Concise International History (2008), 137-159

(eR) – Small, Melvin. Antiwarriors: The Vietnam War and the Battle for America’s Hearts and Minds (2002), ch. 8 (“The War and the Movement Wind Down”)

(eR) – Allen, Michael J. “’Help Us Tell the Truth About Vietnam’: POW/MIA Politics and the End of the American War,” in Bradley and Young, eds., Making Sense of the Vietnam War (2008), 251-275

Weds., Feb. 3 Nixon: Conservative or Reformer?

(eR) – Blum, John Morton. Years of Discord: American Politics and Society, 1961-1974 (1991), ch. 11 (“RN”)

(eR) – Greenberg, David. Nixon’s Shadow: TheHistory of an Image (2003), ch. 8 (“The Historians: Nixon as Liberal”)

Week Three

Mon., Feb. 8The “Oil Crisis” of 1973-1974: Causes and Impact

Merrill, 1-85

Patterson, 58-66

Weds., Feb. 10The Changed Face of Civil Rights in the 70s

Patterson, 15-44

(eR) – Lytle, Mark H. America’s Uncivil Wars: The Sixties Era from Elvis to the Fall of RichardNixon (2006), ch. 13 (“Identities of Race and Ethnicity”)

Week Four

Mon., Feb. 15IN-CLASS WRITING EXERCISE

Watergate and Its Consequences Patterson, 1-12, 76-92

(eR) - Greenberg, David. “Nixon as Statesman: The Failed Campaign,” in Logevall and Preston, eds., Nixon in the World: American Foreign Relations, 1969-1977 (2008), 45-66

Weds., Feb. 17Picking Up the Pieces: Gerald Ford and the Post-Watergate Hangover

Patterson, 13-15, 58-75, 92-107

Week Five

Mon., Feb. 22Women’s Rights and Issues of Gender and Family MacLean, 1-33 plus docs 10-22, 25-26, 28-32

Patterson, 45-58

(eR) – Carroll, Peter N. It Seemed Like Nothing Happened: America in the 1970s (1990), ch. 15 (“New Combinations for Intimacy and Support”)

(eR) - Bailey, Beth, “She ‘ Can Bring Home the Bacon’: Negotiating Gender in Seventies America,” in Bailey and Farber, eds., America in the 70s (2004), 107-128

Weds., Feb. 24Sunbelt, Rustbelt, and Suburbs: Demographic and Economic Transitions

(eR) –Abbott, Carl. The New Urban America:

Growth and Politics in Sunbelt Cities (1981), ch. 1 (“The Emergence of the Sunbelt”)

Week Six

Mon., Mar. 1NO CLASS – FACULTY FURLOUGH DAY

Diminished Expectations: Jimmy Carter, the Economy, and Environmental Issues

Patterson, 108-121

Merrill, 86-129

Weds., Mar. 3IN-CLASS WRITING EXERCISE

To Regulate or Not to Regulate: Public Policy and the Consumer Movement

(eR) – Cohen, Lizabeth. A Consumer’s Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America (2003), 357-397(“A Balance Sheet for the Consumer Movement”)

(eR) – Brandt. Allan M. The Cigarette Century (2007), ch. 8 (“Congress: The Best Filter Yet”)

Week Seven

Mon., Mar. 8PRIMARY DOCUMENT ANALYSIS DUE

From Nixon to Carter: Human Rights and American Foreign Policy

Patterson, 121-128

(BB) – “Cold War” Video 19: “Freeze (1977- 1981)”

Weds., Mar. 10Reagan and the Rise of the Right

Patterson, 128-151

MacLean, 33-36 plus docs 14, 24, 33

Week Eight

Mon., Mar. 15The “Reagan Revolution” and Its Limits

Patterson, 152- 178, 183-192

Merrill,129-133

(eR) – Schaller, Michael. Reckoning with Reagan: America and Its President in the 1980s (1992), ch. 4 (“Prophets [Profits] of De-regulation”)

Weds., Mar. 17MID-TERM EXAMINATION

Week Nine

Mon., Mar 22Sexual Revolutions and the AIDS Crisis

Patterson, 179-182

(eR) – Fox, Daniel. “The Politics of HIV Infection: 1989-1990 as Years of Change,” in Feeand Fox, eds., AIDS: The Making of a Chronic Disease (1992), 125-143

Weds., Mar. 24Reagan’s World: American Foreign Policy in the Eighties

Patterson, 193-217

(eR) Leffler, Melvyn. For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War

(2007), ch. 5 (“The End of the Cold War, 1985-1990”), 338-427

(Bb) – “Cold War” Video 22: “Star Wars (1981-1988)”

Week Ten

Mon., Mar. 29NO CLASS: SPRING VACATION

Weds., Mar. 31NO CLASS: SPRING VACATION

Week Eleven

Mon., Apr. 5A New World? The End of the Cold War

Brzezinski, 1-82

(eR) Leffler, Melvyn. For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War

(2007), ch. 5 (“The End of the Cold War, 1985-1990”), 427-450

(Bb) – “Cold War” Video 23: “The Wall Comes Down (1989)”

Weds., Apr. 7Squandering the Inheritance: The First Bush Presidency

Patterson, 218-253

Week Twelve

Mon., Apr 12IN-CLASS WRITING EXERCISE

“Don’t Stop Thinkin’ About Tomorrow”: The Illusion of Liberal Revival

Patterson, 318-334, 341-368

MacLean, 36-43 plus docs 37-40

Weds., Apr 14Culture Wars and Social Conflict in the Nineties

Patterson, 254-291, 305-317

(eR)- Ford, Richard Thompson. The Race Card: How Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse (2008), ch. 4

Week Thirteen

Mon., Apr 19Trials of the Lone Superpower: The U.S. and the World After the Cold War

Patterson, 334-341, 368-371, 399-402

Brzezinski, 83-133

Weds., Apr 21NO CLASS: CAMPUS CLOSURE DAY

Week Fourteen

Mon., Apr. 26IN-CLASS WRITING EXERCISE

Crises of American Politics: Clinton’s Impeachment and Bush v. Gore

Patterson, 371-379, 387-399, 402-425

(eR) –Adler, David Gray and Nancy Kassop, “The Impeachment of Bill Clinton,” in Adler and Genovese, eds., The Presidency & the Law: The Clinton Legacy (2002), 155-174

(eR) – John F. Harris. The Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House (2005), ch. 43 (“Argument Without End”)

Weds., Apr 28“Immigrant Nation” at the Turn of the Century: Persistent Issues

Patterson, 292-304

(eR)- Muller, Thomas, “Nativism in the Mid-1990s: Why Now?” in Juan Perea, ed., Innigrants OUT!

The New Nativism and the Anti-Immigrant Impulse

In the United States (1997), 105-118

Week Fifteen

Mon., May 3HISTORIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY DUE

9/11 and the Politics of Anti-terrorism

Patterson, pp. 379-386

(eR) – Fisher, Louis. The Constitution and 9/11: Recurring Threats to America’s Freedoms (2008), pp. 285-320

Weds, May 5The Iraq War and Its Complications

Brzezinski, pp. 135-177

(eR) – Hess, Gary R. Presidential Decisions for War: Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, and Iraq (2d ed.; 2009), ch. 8 (“George W. Bush as Commander in Chief: History Overpowers Ideology”)

Week Sixteen

Mon, May 10IN-CLASS WRITING EXERCISE

The Bills Come Due: Economic Challenges and “Climate Change”

Merrill, pp. 134-157

(eR) – Freidman, Thomas L. Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution-- and How It Can Renew America (2008), ch. 17 (“A Democratic China, or a Banana Republic?)

(eR) – Winograd, Morley and Hays, Michael D. Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American Politics (2008), ch. 15 (“Public

Policy in a Millennial Era”)

Weds., May 12The U.S. and the World in 2010: A “Change” Agenda?

Brzezinski, pp. 179-216

(eR) – Todd, Chuck and Sheldon Gawiser. How Barack Obama Won: A State-by-State Guide to the Historic 2008 Presidential Election (2009), 25-48

Monday, May 17FINAL EXAMINATION

10:15 a.m.-12:15 p.m.

1