History
573 – The
Syllabus
and Survival Guide
Fall
2008
Thursday
7:00 pm – 9:50 pm, Sierra Hall 184
Instructor
Dr. Thomas W. Devine
Phone: (818) 677-3550 Email
Office Hours: Sierra
Tower 624, Wednesdays 3:00 – 4:00 pm, Thursdays 5:00 – 6:00 pm, and by
appointment gladly given.
The
following books – listed in the order in which we will read them – are
available at the Matador Bookstore (with the exception of those marked with an
* which are out of print). All other
readings will be provided in class. To subvert the system and to save yourself
some money, you should consider buying used copies of the books. You are likely to find used or discounted
copies at significantly lower prices at the following websites:
www.bookfinder.com; www.half.com; www.amazon.com; www.campusi.com
• Charles Postel, The Populist Vision (
• Kristin Hoganson, Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics
Provoked the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars (Yale, 1998)
• Joshua David Hawley, Theodore Roosevelt: Preacher of Righteousness
(Yale, 2008)
• Robert D. Johnston, The Radical Middle Class: Populist Democracy and
the Question of Capitalism in Progressive Era
• Lewis Erenberg, Steppin’ Out:
• Thomas Bell, Out of this Furnace (Pittsburgh, 1976 [1941])
• Emily
• Robert H. Ferrell, Woodrow Wilson and World War I, 1917-1921
(Harper Collins, 1985)*
• William E. Leuchtenburg, The Perils of
Prosperity, 1914-1932 2nd edition (
• Kevin Boyle, Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and
Murder in the Jazz Age (Henry Holt, 2004)
• James R. McGovern, And a Time for Hope: Americans in the Great
Depression (Praeger, 2000)
• Frank A. Warren, Liberals and Communism: The “Red Decade” Revisited
(Indiana, 1966 or Columbia, 1993)
• William L. O’Neill, A Democracy at War: America’s Fight at Home and
Abroad in World War II (Harvard, 1998)
Spirit
of the Course
This course will offer
an interpretive survey of political, economic, cultural, and social trends in
the
I have made a special effort to assign readings that
represent the latest (if not always the most widely held) views on various
topics, though I have also included a few “old chestnuts” that have stood the
test of time. You will notice that the
readings throughout the course come from various ideological and methodological
perspectives. I encourage you to be
critical of both the readings and what I say in class when you find the
arguments expressed to be unpersuasive. (More often that not, what I’m saying is
meant to provoke a critical rejoinder and I will eagerly defend the most
outrageous positions just for the joy of playing devil’s advocate.)
Themes
Though we will be covering a wide variety of
topics, there are certain themes that we will be revisiting throughout the
course of the semester:
You will also have the opportunity to follow
the historiography that has developed around the topics we will explore. Though the emphasis of the course will not be
on historiographical issues, I will introduce and we will all discuss scholarly
controversies where appropriate.
Grading
Class Participation --35%
Oral Presentation/Analytical Essay --10%
Semester Project (Due December 13) --30%
Final Essay (Due December 16) --25%
Explanation
of Requirements
Completing
the
There’s no getting
around it – this class requires a lot of reading. But, as a Masters level seminar, it is
supposed to. To succeed in this course,
you will need to complete the reading, but you will also need to have given it
some thought. Read with a pencil in hand
– take notes in the margins. Record
terms that are unfamiliar to you or that you don’t understand, points that you
find interesting or surprising, arguments with which you strongly agree or
disagree, methods of research or analysis that seem especially creative or
insightful (or misguided and silly), or ideas that connect to things we’ve
talked about in previous classes. Also,
read smart – don’t read every single word of the first 4 chapters and nothing
thereafter because you ran out of time. If you catch the argument the author is
making, don’t sweat all the details or supporting examples – skim over them and
get on to the next major point. It is
more important to have gotten the gist of an entire book than to master every
aspect of the first one-third of it.
Participation in
Discussion
This is a
seminar-style course in which active participation in the weekly discussions is
crucial to the class’s success. Our
meetings will be conversations – free, open, and informal exchanges of ideas
based on the assigned readings – and I expect everyone to take
part. I will do my best to insure each
student has ample opportunity to contribute, but, ultimately, it will be
up to you to make certain that you remain an active participant rather than a
passive observer. At the mid-point of
the semester, I will provide each student with a brief, written evaluation of
his or her class participation.
Leading Discussion
One person will be
responsible for leading the discussion each week. That person will compose a list of 8 questions
that address the major themes and issues raised in the reading. Each discussion
leader should meet with me briefly to go over his or her questions. (If need
be, this exchange can be done over email.) Optimally, the discussion leader
will have finished writing the questions at least 24 hours before the seminar
so I can distribute them to everyone via email attachment. If you have not led
a discussion before, I recommend setting up an appointment with me so we can
discuss some strategies for leading effective discussions. Your leading of
discussion will not receive a grade per se, but will be taken into
account in the calculation of your participation grade.
Précis
One person will be
responsible for producing a single-spaced 2-page précis of the readings for
each week. This assignment is meant to
be a summary rather than a review, though you may give an overall
evaluation of the book in the final paragraph.
The person who writes the précis should email it to me as an attachment
at least 3 hours before class so I can proofread it and make copies for the
rest of the class. This assignment, too, will not receive a grade per se,
though in calculating your participation grade, I will take into account the
quality of and amount of effort you appear to have put in to your précis.
Oral Presentation/Analytical Essay
Each week one person
will be responsible for completing some additional reading on our topic. Often,
though not always, this reading will present arguments or interpretations that
run counter to those in the assigned reading. I will supply the supplementary
reading to you well in advance of your presentation date. At some point during class, usually right
after the break, you will have the floor to present a summary and assessment of
the supplemental reading. As part of
your presentation, you should explain how the reading you have done relates to
the common reading – how does it add to or challenge the perspective of that
week’s book? You should allow a few minutes at the end of your presentation to
field questions from the class. Please do not extend your presentation
beyond 15 minutes and do not read your presentation verbatim from a prepared
text. Keep in mind that no one likes to sit through a boring
presentation or one that is disorganized because it has been thrown together at
the last moment. Out of respect for your classmates, allow yourself enough time
to prepare a polished presentation. I will evaluate your presentation based on
organization and content as well as on the quality of your delivery. Within a week, you should email me an essay
of no more than 1500 words that reflects the content and analysis of your oral
presentation.
Semester Project
Select
a topic from the period covered in the course that you find to be of interest and
do some outside reading on it. Your
choice of focus need not be directly related to the material covered in the
course. Indeed, this is your opportunity
to investigate a subject area that the course may neglect. I recommend drawing on a variety of book
chapters and articles. After your
reading has made you an “expert” on the topic, summarize your findings and
offer your own insights and analysis in a double-spaced 10-12 page essay. The paper should be analytical rather than
narrative – that is, it should make an argument rather than tell a story. The more sources you incorporate, the more
thorough your essay will be. There are no hard and fast rules regarding the
number of sources, but anything under five major sources will likely produce a
rather thin piece of historical analysis. Also, since this is a semester project, not a “last two weeks
of the semester project,” your final product should reflect a semester’s worth
of work and will be evaluated accordingly.
So as to prevent you from putting this
assignment off until the last moment (and confronting the dreaded
“incomplete”), we will approach this in a three step process. At week five, I will ask for a tentative
annotated bibliography. During weeks ten and eleven, I will schedule individual
meetings with each student to discuss his or her topic. At this point, you
should have completed nearly all of the reading for your project and be well on
your way toward completing a first draft. I highly recommend submitting a
complete draft by the end of week 12 (two weeks before the due date). Though
submitting a draft is not required, having the chance to respond to my comments
is likely to improve the finished product.
Final Essay
In a double-spaced
10 page essay due at the end of the
semester, you will answer a question that will be directly related to the major
themes of the course. In responding, you
will draw only from material in the assigned reading; no outside reading or
research will be necessary.
Bringing Food
On
one occasion during the semester, each person will bring a snack for the entire
class to enjoy at the break. Optimally, your culinary contribution will be
related in some way to that week’s discussion topic. Creativity and originality
are always appreciated.
Surviving
History 573…
Attendance
It
is important, and it is expected, that you will attend every session. Inevitably, an occasion may arise when you
are unable to attend. Out of fairness to
your classmates who do attend every week, however, each absence past the first
two will bring down your final grade.
Any absences beyond four will put you in jeopardy of failing the course.
Also, given the heavy weight placed on in-class discussion, any absence is
likely to detract from your participation grade. To make up for a missed class, you may turn
in a précis of no more than 1500 words summarizing the reading for the class
you missed.
Problems
I
appreciate that most CSUN graduate students are stretching themselves quite
thin, often working full time while taking classes at night. If you are feeling overwhelmed, find yourself
falling behind, or are having any problems outside of class that are adversely
affecting your performance in class, be sure to let me know. Do not wait until the end of the semester
when it will be too late.
I am more than willing to work with you to insure you “survive,” but I
need to know you are having difficulties.
You will find that as long as you keep me up to speed, I will be very
sympathetic.
Discussion Topics and Assignments
Schedule
1. Aug. 28 An Alternative
Charles Postel, The Populist Vision
Oral Presentation
Richard
Hofstadter, “The Folklore of Populism”
Lawrence Goodwyn, “The
Irony of Populism”
Oscar Handlin,
“Reconsidering the Populists”
Martin Ridge, “Populism
Redux: John D. Hicks and The Populist
Revolt”
Robert C.
McMath, Jr., “Another Look at the ‘Hard Side’ of Populism”
[Reviews
in American History review of Postel, The
Populist Vision]
2. Sept. 4 Red
Bloods, Mollycoddles, and Chocolate Éclairs: Gender and the Spanish-American
War
Kristin Hoganson, Fighting for American
Manhood
Oral
Presentation
Richard Hofstadter,
“Cuba, the Philippines, and Manifest Destiny”
Walter LaFeber, “The
Business Community’s Push for War”
Paul S. Holbo,
“Economics, Emotion, and Expansion: An Emerging Foreign Policy”
Michael H. Hunt, “American
Ideology: Visions of National Greatness and Racism”
Louis A. Pérez, Jr.,
“Meaning of the Maine”
3. Sept. 11 Race, Reform, and Righteousness:
Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Impulse
Joshua David Hawley, Theodore Roosevelt
Oral Presentation
John R. Chamberlain,
“The Progressive Mind in Action”
Richard Hofstadter,
“Theodore Roosevelt: The Conservative as Progressive”
Frederick W. Marks III,
“Theodore Roosevelt, American Foreign Policy, and the Lessons of History”
Frank Ninkovich,
“Theodore Roosevelt: Civilization as Ideology”
4. Sept. 18 Revolt
of the Bourgeoisie: The Middle-Class Response to Industrialization
Robert D. Johnston, The Radical Middle
Class
Oral Presentation
Peter G. Filene, “An
Obituary for ‘The Progressive Movement’”
Richard L. McCormick,
“Progressivism: A Contemporary Reassessment”
Daniel T. Rodgers, “In Search
of Progressivism”
Richard M. Abrams, “The
Failure of Progressivism”
Thomas K. McCraw, “The
Progressive Legacy”
5. Sept. 25 The
Emergence of the “New Modern”: Urban Nightlife and the Decline of Victorian
Culture
Lewis Erenberg, Steppin’
Out
John
Higham, “The Reorientation of American Culture in the 1890s”
Oral
Presentation
Christina Simmons,
“Modern Sexuality and the Myth of Victorian Repression”
Kevin White, “The New Man
and Early Twentieth-Century Emotional Culture in the United States”
Margaret Marsh, “Suburban
Men and Masculine Domesticity, 1870-1915”
Henry Seidel Canby, The Age of Confidence: Life in the Nineties,
Chapter 10
6. Oct. 2 “From the Boat to
the Mills:” Immigrant Workers’ Experiences
Thomas Bell, Out of this Furnace
Oral Presentation
James R. Barrett,
“Americanization from the Bottom Up”
David Brody, “Slavic Immigrants
in the Steel Mills”
Paul Krause, “Silenced
Minorities”
John F. Berko,
“Thomas Bell (1903-1961): Slovak-American Novelist”
7. Oct. 9 “We’re Here to Help”: Imperialism
American Style
Emily S.
Rosenberg, Financial Missionaries to the World
Oral
Presentation
Frederic C. Howe, “Dollar Diplomacy
and Financial Imperialism Under the Wilson Administration”
Martin J. Sklar, “Dollar
Diplomacy According to Dollar Diplomats”
Michael H. Hunt, “Grand
Projects: 1898-1920”
8. Oct. 16 “Safe
for Democracy?”: Wilsonian Idealism and
Robert H. Ferrell, Woodrow
Wilson and World War I
Oral Presentation
John W. Coogan,
“Wilsonian Diplomacy in War and Peace”
Robert M. Crunden, “A
Presbyterian Foreign Policy”
Joan Hoff, “The Faustian
Impact of World War I on U.S. Diplomacy”
Walter A. McDougall,
“Wilsonianism, or Liberal Internationalism (so called)”
9. Oct. 23 “The Decade of our Discontent”: American
Society and Culture in the 1920s
William E.
Leuchtenburg, The Perils of Prosperity
Oral Presentation
10. Oct. 30 The Persistence of the “Negro Question”:
The NAACP, the KKK, and Jazz Age Justice
Kevin Boyle, Arc of Justice
Oral
Presentation
11. Nov. 6 “Hard
Times and High Hopes”: Surviving the
Great Depression
James R. McGovern, And
a Time for Hope
Oral Presentation
Robert Bendiner, “The
Exhilarating Depression of Franklin Roosevelt”
Caroline Bird, “The
Ivisible Scar”
Lizabeth Cohen, “Workers
Make a New Deal”
Melvyn Dubofsky, “Not
So ‘Turbulent Years’: Another Look at America in the 1930s
12. Nov. 13 “That
Man in
Excerpts from David M. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear
Chapters
5-10 to be distributed in class
Oral
Presentation
Jim
Powell, FDR’s Folly, Chapter 1
William E.
Leuchtenburg, “The Achievement of the New Deal”
Anthony J. Badger, “The
Unanticipated Consequences of New Deal Reform”
13. Nov. 20 “A Better World?”: American
Intellectuals Confront Stalin’s
Frank A. Warren, Liberals
and Communism
Oral Presentation
Norman Holmes Pearson,
“The Nazi-Soviet Pact and the End of a Dream”
Nov. 27 THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY
Dec. 4 NO CLASS
Dec. 11 “Don’t You Know There’s a War On?”:
The American Experience in World War II
William L. O’Neill, A
Democracy at War