SPRING 2000
This information effective for Spring 2000.
Check with instructor the first day of class for any changes.
SPRING 2000
This information effective for Spring 2000.
Check with instructor the first day of class for any changes.
MWF 12:30-1:40 J Baskin 152
Alice Yang Murray
Office Hours:
W 2-4, Merrill 31
459-3967
Email ayang@cats.ucsc.edu
Course Description:
The course focuses on major political, social, economic, and diplomatic developments in the United States since 1877. Important themes include debates about the government's proper economic and social role, especially in the Progressive, New Deal, Great Society and Reagan periods; changing views of ethnicity, race and gender, particularly during the 1880s, 1920s, the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s, and in the 1990s; and the determinants of United States foreign policy, notably in the Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II, the Cold War, Vietnam, and the Middle East.
Reading:
All reading will be available at Slugbooks (near the 7-11 off High Street) and on reserve at McHenry Library
Evaluation Criteria:
attendance and participation - 30%
weekly 1-2 page short response papers - 30%
final exam: 40%
Week 1
Section
Discussion Topic: No section meetings
Introduction to the Course: Syllabus Review, American History
Standards, and the Struggle to Control Representations of the
Past
Reconstruction, the "New South" and Jim Crow
Week 2
Section
Discussion Topic: Was Reconstruction a success?
film: "Birth of a Nation"
The Gilded Age: Workers and Life in the City
Americanization and the New Immigrants
Week 3
Section
Discussion Topic: Were nineteenth-century entrepreneurs "robber
barons" who exploited the masses or marketing innovators who
strengthened the nation's economy?
"Civilizing" the West
Expansionism, Empire-Building, and the Spanish-American War
Latin America, the Caribbean, and World War I
Week 4
Section
Discussion Topic: Does early twentieth-century American foreign
policy fulfill FDR's description of a "good neighbor" policy?
Suffrage, Prohibition, and the Crash
film: "The Great Depression"
The "Roaring 20s"
Week 5
Section
Discussion Topic: Did the Progressives fail?
Alternatives to the New Deal?
Onset of World War II
World War II: the Home Front
Week 6
Section
Discussion Question: Was the New Deal an Effective Answer to the
Great Depression?
World War II: the War Front
Atomic Culture
Cold War Policies and Life in the Suburbs in the 1950s
Week 7
Section
Discussion Topic: Was it necessary to drop the atomic bomb to end
World War II?
McCarthyism, "Loyalty," and the Suppression of Dissent\
film: "Eyes on the Prize"
From Civil Rights to Black Power
Week 8
Section
Discussion Topic: What is the legacy of the Civil Rights
Movement?
America's Involvement in Vietnam\
film: "Vietnam: a Television History"
The "War on Poverty" and the Great Society
Week 9
Section
Discussion Topic: Could the US have won the war in Vietnam?
The Feminist Movement
Watergate, Nixon's Fall and the Resurgence of Conservatism under
Reagan
End of the Cold War, the New World Order, and War in the Persian
Gulf
Week 10
Section
Discussion Topic: What is the legacy of the end of the Cold War?
Clinton, Gingrich and the Contract with America
Clinton, Starr, and Impeachment
Review Session and Course Evaluations
Quarter: Spring 2000
Instructor: Edmund Burke, III
This course is the second in a two-quarter sequence on the history of the world and its interactions with the West. It explores the origins of the modern world from a new perspective. It is an ideal course for history majors and others looking for a chance to integrate their understanding of modern world history. Beginners can also learn much. (See below for more on this course).
The aim is to encourage the student to develop a sense of the patterns of modern history. Nonetheless, since a basic factual and geographical knowledge is imperative, there will be weekly quizzes on terms and geographical places drawn from lists to be handed out.
Topics include: revolutions in the Americas (the U.S., Haiti, Latin America), slavery & abolition in the Atlantic world; race and class in South Africa and the Old South; self-strengthening in Turkey and Japan, progress and cultural conflict in Mexico; the culture of colonialism, the environment and modern history; nationalisms in India, Turkey and China; the Cold War and the Third world; economic globalization and the future of history.
Here's some thoughts on my approach: By 1750, Europe was on the verge of global hegemony as a result of far-reaching changes deriving from the industrial and democratic revolutions. The 19th and 20th centuries witnessed the export of this dual revolution to the rest of the world. One result, despite continual resistance, was the establishment of an international division of labor and the incorporation of most world societies into the world economy. A second result was the division of the globe by the chief European states into spheres of influence, and formal and informal empires, and the unprecedented expansion of white settlement in the Americas, Southern Africa, and Australia. How this occurred, and to what effect, forms the subject matter of this course.
Two concepts, nationalism and imperialism, will provide us with a way of discussing the interaction of the world and the West during the past two centuries. What is imperialism? What was its impact upon the old societies of Asia and Africa? What is nationalism? How did world societies seek to resist Western domination, and how were they eventually able to achieve independence?
Two short papers, a midterm and choice of either a final exam or a term paper on an approved topic. (Term papers must go through two drafts.)
The following required books have been ordered by the Bay Tree Bookstore. All are in paperback. There will also be a Required Course Reader.
1. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (Verso)
2. Eric Foner, Nothing But Freedom (Louisiana State University Press)
3. George Frederickson, White Supremacy (Oxford)
4. Kenneth Pyle, The Making of Modern Japan 2nd edition. (D.C. Heath)
5. Alfred Crosby, Ecological Imperialism (Cambridge)
6. Rabindranath Tagore, The Home and the World
At this writing (February 2, 2000) I have not decided if I'll use a textbook. If I do, it will probably be: Peter Stearns, et al., World Civilizations, Vol. 2. (Harper-Collins).
Gail Hershatter
TA: Wenqing Kang
MWF 8-9:10 AM
Social Sciences 2 Room 179
This course will explore the history of China in the twentieth century, focusing on the end of imperial rule, the sources and development of revolution, attempts at socialist transformation, and the course and consequences of economic reform. We will draw upon novels, short stories, and films as well as translations of original documents.
The following books have been ordered at the Bay Tree Bookstore:
Spence, Search for Modern China
Cheng and Lestz, Search for Modern China: A Documentary
Collection
Chen Yuan-tsung, Dragon's Village
Yang, Spider Eaters
Dutton, Streetlife China
We will be reading all these books except Spence's Search and Cheng and Lestz's companion volume in their entirety. (These two books, however, are the basic texts for the course.) Although backup copies are on reserve in the library, it is strongly recommended that you purchase all the books. In addition, a reader will be sold in conjunction with the course.
We will meet three times a week for a combination of lectures and discussion. Weekly discussion sections are also required. Course requirements include:
Mindful reading and wakeful attendance. Complete the assigned readings before each class session, and come prepared to share your opinions, observations, and questions. Class sessions will be devoted to contextualizing as well as analyzing the required readings. We will cover material in class that enhances but does not duplicate the course reading; therefore attendance and selective (not compulsive) note-taking are essential.
Writing. You will be asked to write weekly one-page reading responses and two five-page essays on assigned topics, drawing upon the course readings. You will also complete a map quiz, a midterm, and a final.
Talking. Most class sessions will be divided between lecture and discussion, while sections will be devoted entirely to student debate and discussion. Prepare to question, opine, and defend!
You can obtain more information about the course by contacting the instructor at 9-4041 or by email at gbhers@cats.ucsc.edu.
Instructor: David Brundage, Associate Professor.
Email: brundage@cats
The course is geared mainly to the needs of Americanists in the
history graduate program, but it is
open to graduate students in other areas and disciplines as well.
The goal of this seminar is to provide graduate students with an introduction to some of the key issues and debates in the field of American working-class history and to give them a sense of where the field is heading. We'll begin with some readings on E.P. Thompson and the "new labor history" in the U.S. and with a look at some of the main critics of this approach. We'll come back to these larger debates throughout the course as we examine the following topics: emancipation and the emergence of wage labor after the Civil War; immigrant cultures and proletarianization in the late 19th-early 20th centuries; the character of the labor movement in the late 19th century; work cultures, workers control and scientific management in the early 20th century; the evolution of labor law and the state's role in shaping class relations in the 20th century; gender and community as ways of understanding the emergence of the Congress of Industrial Organizations in the 1930s; and black-white relations in the CIO and in the post-war era.
Writing will include short weekly papers responding to the readings (essentially annotations); and a paper at the end (15-20 pages), analyzing the literature on a topic of the student's choice.