Current course offerings

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Course description

The course will examine key topics and themes in the history of the modern United States of America. The first part deals with historical origins and includes the initial European contact in the Americas, the colonial period and the displacement of native Americans, the Declaration of Independence, and American principles of representative government. The second part examines the expansion of American settlement, the Civil War and Reconstruction. It will discuss the idea of `Manifest Destiny', the role of slavery in the economy, the Civil War, reconstruction, and its failure in terms of the Jim Crow laws, the Second Industrial Revolution and rise of Big Business, and the emergence of reform movements. The third and final part of the course deals with the American century: American isolationism in the 1930s and its emergence after World War II as a global superpower, the Cold War and Civil Rights, the rise of Nixon and Reagan and Southern Conservatism, the perceived end of history with the fall of the Soviet Union and view of the USA as a hyperpower. Learning about key events and incidents in America's past will equip students to better understand the making of modern America, the centrality of cultural and global conflict in its history, the influence of ideology on American foreign policy, how trade and investment have been used as instruments of foreign policy, and the role of the US in the world today. Is the USA in decline? Is it more inward looking in the 21st century? The US economy and financial markets, its scientific research and technology, its competitiveness, its military power, and its attractiveness to talented immigrants continue to be its major strengths and buoy perceptions of American exceptionalism. But how will the US balance its interests with those of other countries and what impact will US foreign policy have on global stability and security?