This is the catalog of all courses offered. Ready to sign up? Go to the current courses page to see which courses are in the current rotation.
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The Cold War
Course Description
The Cold War was not merely an ideological contest between two rival ways of life, it was also a profound geopolitical struggle for control and influence in every part of the world. As such it exerted powerful political, cultural, and even psychological energies that continue to reverberate even after the Cold War has ended. This course examines the development of the Cold War struggle between the Soviet Union and the United States after World War II, how political and ideological battles took place in key spots around the world, and the extensive cultural and political anxieties the Cold War unleashed at home. Topics covered include, among other things: the build-up of post-WW2 tensions between the US and USSR; the development of the Marshall Plan; the construction of the national security state (DoD, CIA, NATO, etc.); proxy wars in Korea, Vietnam, and elsewhere; McCarthyism and political/cultural paranoia at home; détente; and the Reagan years and final collapse of superpower rivalry. |
American Empire:
What It Is and Why It Matters Course Description
Can a democratic republic also be an empire? Many Americans hold a view of their country that sees it as a benevolent influence in the world, opposed to the ambitions and tyrannies with which they associate empires. But a long history of expansiveness, acquisition, political and cultural domination, and militarism calls into question this benign view of American history. This course examines what an empire is (beyond the cartoon parodies of American pop culture), surveys a long history of American imperial behavior, traces imperial imagery and affirmations in American popular culture, and considers the consequences for American civic life when we understand the United States as an empire. |
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The New Deal:
Watershed in American Life Course Description
Beginning in 1929, Americans experienced for over a decade the worst depression in their history. Their answer to this challenge, given in 1932, was to elect Franklin D. Roosevelt as president, whose promises of a “New Deal” pledged not merely the return of prosperity, but a guarantee that privation itself would be relegated to history. But the New Deal was much more than one economic program. It was in fact an array of responses to economic collapse, including relief, employment, subsidy, and stimulus. It also incorporated and promoted a broad array of new regulatory powers, new public goods and public works programs, consumer protections, and labor and civil rights. As such, the New Deal revolutionized how Americans related to their government, their civil and political expectations, their understanding of their rights, and their ideas about citizenship. It also had far-reaching cultural and ideological repercussions. Given all this, it is not surprising that the New Deal also touched off political conflict that has endured for close to a century. This course examines the New Deal in its full context as the Roosevelt administration battled the Great Depression, its successes and notable failures, and the ensuing political controversy that has so profoundly shaped our world. |
World War II:
The Fight for Democracy at Home and Abroad Course Description
World War II was a watershed in American life. It radically altered the United States’ position in the world, unleashing a global American hegemony in which we still operate. It also radically transformed the role and extent of the federal government, reset American gender norms and expectations, and shifted economic and professional life. This course examines the American experience in World War II, including Americans’ military experiences at home and abroad, the social impact of the war, how the war was expressed in American culture, and the long-term consequences of the war. |
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Reading Adam Smith
Course Description
Adam Smith was one of the great Enlightenment thinkers and philosophers, one whose work has had particular resonance in the United States. He is also one of the thinkers whose work is most often misunderstood and misquoted. Smith's great book, The Wealth of Nations, provided the first sustained examination of how capitalism works and the many benefits market freedoms can provide to society. He is thus to his most devoted disciples sometimes considered the “father of capitalism.” Smith's metaphor of the “invisible hand” remains a persuasive image for how markets function and the apparent freedoms they bestow. However, Smith’s extended discussions of capitalism extended far beyond one trenchant metaphor and his consistent embedding of the mechanics of capitalism within a broader moral philosophy has been all but forgotten, most especially among his most devoted followers. This course provides an introduction to The Wealth of Nations, and also other of Smith's important texts that put his ideas about capitalism and markets into proper perspective. Based on deep readings into Smith as well as a wealth of new scholarship that has appeared only in the last few years, this course deepens our understanding not only of this still-vital philosopher, but of our current social, economic, and political systems. |
History of the Constitution/Federalism Debates
Course Description
Coming soon! |
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History of the Welfare State in Comparative Perspective
Course Description
In the United States, traditions of private enterprise and individualism have contributed to a social system with very little of what is usually called a “social safety net.” The countries of western Europe, however, have developed very extensive systems of social provision that we collectively refer to as “the welfare state.” These include, for example, national health services, generous maternal provisions, heavily subsidized education, broad workers’ protections, state pensions, and other “cradle-to-grave” protections. In a twist of irony, these systems developed over the course of the twentieth century precisely at the time that the United States maintained its greatest political, cultural, and economic influence in Europe. This course examines the growth and development of European welfare systems, from their early nineteenth century forebears, to pre-World War II experimentation, to their full emergence after World War II. Key developments include the refinement of Catholic and socialist political outlooks and influence, the shared experience of war and occupation during World War II, and the ironic influence of the enveloping Cold War. We will consider key differences between prevailing social systems in the U.S. and Europe, and consider why policies such as national health care, social insurance, maternal protections, and a broad array of workers’ rights have taken strong root in Europe, much less so in the U.S. |
American Political Realignments
Course Description
Prior to the 1980s, the southern states of the US voted reliably for the Democratic party. Since the 1980s, however, the “solid south” has transferred its allegiance to the Republican party. Partisans on both sides continue to argue about why this happened and what it means, but it is only the most recent political realignment in American history. While generally maintaining the two-party system (sometimes three), American politics has nevertheless witnessed several moments of intense political and ideological transformation. This course provides a survey of American political history with particular attention given to the handful of moments when a major political shift or realignment has taken place. These include the emergence of the two-party system itself in the late 18th century; the flowering of the Whig Party and consequent reorientation of the Democrats in the mid-19th century; the emergence of the Republican party in the 1850s; the transformation of the Democratic party in the 1930s; and the final contemporary shift in ideological orientation between the two parties in the 1960s and 70s. These shifts define the main contours of American political reality and explain much about our polarized contemporary politics. |
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US Diplomatic History I: Continental Expansion
Course Description
At the beginning of the 19th century, the United States’s western boundary was the Mississippi River, and all its significant population centers clustered close to the Atlantic seaboard. By the end of the century, the United States had not only established formal political control across the continent all the way to the Pacific coast – also including Alaska – it had slipped its continental bonds and annexed colonies and territories in Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and elsewhere. The achievement of what by the middle of the century had come to be known as the country’s “Manifest Destiny” was accomplished in competition (and sometimes cooperation) with powerful British, French, Spanish, Mexican, and Native American empires and peoples. In so doing, the United States became an empire itself. This course surveys American diplomatic history after the achievement of independence, focusing on continental expansion throughout the 19th century. We will attend not only to the diplomatic and military aspects of conquest and expansion, but also to the domestic political and cultural environments in which expansion was pursued and justified. |
US Diplomatic History II: A Global Power
Course Description
Coming soon! |
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Reconstruction: The Most Crucial Decade
Course Description
Coming soon! |
The Life and Times of Muhammad Ali
Course Description
Coming soon! |
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Who Were the Founders?
Course Description
Coming soon! |
The Civil Rights Movement in Perspective
Course Description
Coming soon! |
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The Vietnam War(s)
Course Description
Coming soon! |
The Golden Age of Hollywood
Course Description
Coming soon! |
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History of Capitalism
Course Description
Coming soon! The Marshall Plan
Course Description
Coming soon! |
The European Union
Course Description
Coming soon! The American Revolution
Course Description
Coming soon! |
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Sports History
Course Description
Coming soon! |
The American Philosophical Tradition
Course Description
Coming soon! |
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Who Was Jim Crow?
Course Description
Coming soon! |
Modern American Literature
Course Description
Coming soon! |
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Propaganda
Course Description
Coming soon! |
American Feminism
Course Description
Coming soon! |
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Civil Defense
Course Description
Coming soon! |
McCarthyism
Course Description
Coming soon! |
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US Economic Diplomacy
Course Description
Coming soon! |
Soviet Union/Russia
Course Description
Coming soon! |
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The Jazz Age in Perspective
Course Description
Coming soon! |
Survey of US History I
Course Description
Coming soon! |
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Survey of US History II
Course Description
Coming soon! |
Survey of US History III
Course Description
Coming soon! |