HI2016: Themes in Modern American History
Michaelmas Term (First Semester) 2011/12
:
Prof. Ciaran Brady
Mr. Seán O’ Reilly
Contents:
(i) Important Course, lecture and tutorial information
(ii) Lecture Schedule
(iii) Essay list 2011/12
(iv)Suggested reading weeks 1-4
Students should be aware that additional information about American history,
including an extensive bibliography, is available in the module handbook for the
Junior Freshman course HI 2108 (American History: A Survey), also available online on the departmental website.
Course Description:
American history has been constantly defined (and redefined) by significant and
important events dating from its earliest beginnings to more recent times. The impact
of such events on the modern United States, as well as the entire world, cannot be
understated and as such this course will provide an introduction to some of the main
themes in American history. The course is arranged roughly chronologically, but the
goal here is not simply to bombard students with an extensive amount of facts and
figures, but rather to have them think critically and independently about the different
issues under examination. Therefore each week, lectures will focus on a specific
major theme from American history spanning from the beginnings of English
colonisation in the seventeenth century to the present.
Course Format:
The course is comprised of two (equally important) elements:
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1. Lectures will introduce students to the general history, main ideas and historical
interpretations behind the themes addressed each week. The primary goal of these
classes will be to grant students an insight into a specific historical theme, which in
turn will allow them to independently shape their own informed opinions and
arguments.
2. Tutorials or seminars will allow students to engage with specific primary texts
and secondary journal articles broadly concerned with the main issues addressed in
lectures. While tutorials can in some respects be seen as stand-alone classes, a
conscious effort has been made to ensure continuity throughout the entire course.
Discussion and debate are the fundamental catalysts of all tutorial sessions, and
thus there is a responsibility on students to read material and at least attempt to
form some opinion on the subject being studied.
Tutorials will begin in week 3 (week beginning 10 October 2011). A tutorial schedule
and reading materials will be issued to students then.
Please Note: Tutorials are an essential part of this course and regular attendance
and participation are mandatory. Students failing to meet the departmental
requirement on attendance in tutorials or failing to submit any required tutorial work
will be graded as ‘non-satisfactory’. Students should of course submit any
documentation of extenuating circumstances to the departmental office, either
themselves or through their College tutor.
Tutorials will be led by Mr. Seán O’ Reilly; e-mail: [email protected]
As part of the tutorial programme (and subject to class numbers) students will
participate in a class debate on the motion that ‘this House believes America is an
evil empire’.
The debate will be held in the latter part of term and will count toward attendance at
the final tutorial.
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Learning Outcomes:
On successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
• Interpret and engage with various themes in modern American history.
• Form and express opinions and arguments centred on various historical
debates and issues arising in American history.
• Evaluate and critically analyse both primary and secondary texts concerned
with the study and documentation of American history.
• Demonstrate an ongoing engagement with, and ability to contextualise the
latest developments on the main trends in American society throughout the
period.
Lecture Schedule:
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Week: Week beginning:
Theme:
1
Myth Makers: American myths in
26 September 2011
American History
2
3 October 2011
Natives and Newcomers
3
10 October 2011
Exiles and Evangelists: Religion and
Society
4
17 October 2011
Republicans: Political Thought and
Action
5
24 October 2011
Racists and Rebels: The struggle for
racial equality
6
31 October 2011
Conspirators and Traitors: The ‘paranoid
style’ in American history
7
7 November 2011
Reading Week
8
14 November 2011
Immigrants and Foreigners: The
American dream and the American
bloodstream
9
21 November 2011
Women: The search for gender equality
10
28 November 2011
Imperialists and Idealists: War, violence
and the making of modern America
11
5 December 2011
Presidents and Vice Presidents:
Executive power in American history
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12 December 2011
Warriors and Generals: The American
military tradition
HI2016: Themes in Modern American History
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Essay List 2011/2012
Students are required to submit an essay for this course in week 9, although this
should be confirmed in the departmental handbook. Normal departmental
submission procedures apply. Unless extenuating circumstances apply, deadlines
are strictly adhered to.
Students must consult the freshman handbook for the required reference and
bibliographical style and essays should be no more than 2,000 words in length (and
probably not less than 1,500 words).
Please answer any one of the following:
1. ‘It was religion rather than politics that made the American Revolution’. Discuss.
2. What was distinctive about American democracy in the first half of the nineteenth
century?
3. ‘Throughout its history, generals rather than presidents have shaped America, in
particular American foreign policy’. Discuss.
4. Is it fair to suggest that the nineteenth amendment to the Constitution of the
United States of America should really have come before the fourteenth
amendment?
5. ‘Beyond the melting pot’ – Nathan Glazer. Discuss this statement through your
own reading of American history, considering issues of immigration and national
identity.
6. “In attack on PEARL HARBOUR the U.S. Battleship OKLAHOMA capsized, a
destroyer in the dock was blown up and U.S. Battleship TENNESSEE, a destroyer
and a minelayer were set on fire. 4 aerodromes were attacked and hangars and
some A/C on the ground were set on fire. The power stations were also hit but not
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repetition not put out of action. Heavy casualties to personnel are reported. 1
submarine and at least 2 enemy A/C were destroyed.”
-Text of daily British military report: Lord Halifax, British Embassy
Washington D.C., to Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States
of America, 9 December 1941.
Discuss the idea of conspiracies in American history either in relation to the
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour and/or another such appropriate event.
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Suggested Reading: Weeks 1-4
Students should be aware that the following selected reading is in addition to the
bibliography mentioned at the start of this handbook. Further suggested reading will
be made available when appropriate in class from week 5 onward.
Suggested Reading:
Week 1: Myth Makers: American myths in American History
R. W. B. Adams, The American Adam
Daniel J. Boorstin, The Americans: the colonial experience
the national experience
the democratic experience
Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America
Richard Hofstadter, The American Tradition and the men who made it
Richard Slotkin, Regeneration through Violence
The Fatal Environment
Gunfighter Nation
Henry Nash Smith, Virgin Land
Robert Wiebe, Self –rule
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Week 2: Natives and Newcomers
James Axtell, Natives and newcomers : the cultural origins of North America
James Axtell, After Columbus : essays in the ethnohistory of colonial North America
Colin G. Calloway, New worlds for all : Indians, Europeans and the remaking of Early
America
John Grenier, The first way of war : American war making on the frontier, 1607-1814
Francis Jennings, The invasion of America: Indians, colonialism and the cant of
conquest
Francis Jennings, The ambiguous Iroquois empire : the covenant chain
confederation of Indian tribes with English colonies from its beginnings to the
Lancaster treaty of 1744
Karen Ordahl Kupperman, Settling with the Indians : the meetings of English and
Indian cultures in America, 1580-1640
Daniel K. Richter, Facing East from Indian country : a Native history of early America
Daniel K. Richter, The ordeal of the longhouse : the peoples of the Iroquois League
in the era of European colonization
Bruce G. Trigger, Wilcomb E. Washburn, (eds), The Cambridge history of the native
peoples of the Americas. Vol.1,; North America
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Week 3: Exiles and Evangelists: Religion and Society
Patricia Bonomi, Under the Scope of heaven: religion , society and politics in
Colonial America
Patricia Bonomi and Peter Eisenstadt, ‘ Church adherence in the eighteenth century
British American colonies’ in William and Mary Quarterly (1982), pp 245 – 86.
John Demos, Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the culture of early New England
John T. Ellis, Catholicism in Colonial America
David Hall, The faithful shepherd: a history of the New England ministry in the
seventeenth century
Alan Heimert, Religion and the American mind from the Great Awakening to the
Revolution
Rhys Isaac, The transformation of Virginia, 1720 – 60
Perry Miller, Errand into the wilderness
Perry Miller, The New England mind: the seventeenth century
Perry Miller, The New England mind: from colony to province
Edmund Morgan, The Puritan dilemma: the story of John Winhrop
Edmund Morgan, ‘The puritan ethic and the American Revolution’ in William and
Mary Quarterly (1967), pp 3 - 43.
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Week 4: Republicans: Political Thought and Action
Joyce Appleby, Capitalism and a New Social Order
Bernard Bailyn, Ideological Origins of the American Revolution
Lance Banning, The Jeffersonian persuasion : evolution of a party ideology
Linda Kerber, “The Republican Mother,” American Quarterly, 28 (Summer 1976),
187-205.
Drew McCoy, The Elusive Republic
J. G. A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment
Daniel Rodgers, Contested Truths, Ch. 3- 4
Sean Wilenz, Chants Democratic
Gordon Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1989
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