AN AMERICAN CENTURY? AMERICA IN THE WORLD SINCE 1898

This course surveys the United States' interactions with the world in what Luce (and others) called the “American century”. Starting with the US emergence as an imperial power at the turn of the twentieth century, it traces the evolution of American foreign relations through the First World War, the Great Depression, the Second World War, and the Cold War. It considers how the United States came to rise to its present position of power within the international system, and how the exercise of American power (military, political, economic, and cultural) in turn came to transform the lives of millions. Throughout the course, key themes in American international history are touched upon, such as isolationism, the “new world orders” proposed by Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt, the emergence of the Cold War, and subsequent challenges to American hegemony, from Vietnam to Iraq. The course also considers the different ways that historians have evaluated and interpreted the history of American foreign relations. The course relies heavily on the use of primary sources, which students are asked to incorporate both in their class readings and in their written work. It also features an archive excursion.