History
574 – Recent and Contemporary
Syllabus
and Survival Guide
Spring
2008
Thursday
7:00 pm – 9:50 pm, Sierra Hall 102
Instructor
Dr. Thomas W. Devine
Phone: (818) 677-3550 Email
Office Hours:
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.
• Ralph P. Levering, et al., Debating
the Origins of the Cold War (Rowman & Littlefield, 2002)
• John
E. Haynes, Red Scare or Red Menace? (Ivan R Dee,1996)
•
Lionel Trilling, The Middle of the Journey (1947;
•
Reinhold Niebhur, The Irony of American History (1952; Scribner, 1985)*
• Sloan Wilson, The Man in the Gray
Flannel Suit (1955; Four Walls Eight Windows, 2002)
•
Thomas Hine, Populuxe (1986; Overlook TP Books, 2007)
• W. J.
Rorabaugh, Kennedy and the Promise of the Sixties (
• Gareth Davies, From Opportunity to
Entitlement: The Transformation and Decline of Great Society Liberalism (
• Clayborne Carson, In Struggle:
SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s (1981;
•
Michael H. Hunt, Lyndon Johnson's War (Hill and Wang, 1996)
• David Allyn, Make Love, Not War:
The Sexual Revolution, An Unfettered History (Routledge, 2001)
• Melvin Small, The Presidency of
Richard M. Nixon (
• Philip Jenkins, Decade of
Nightmares: The End of the Sixties and the Making of Eighties
• Robert M. Collins, Transforming
• John F. Harris, The Survivor: Bill
Clinton in the White House (Random House, 2005)
Spirit
of the Course
This course will offer
an interpretive survey of political, economic, cultural, and social trends in
the
Since the end of the cold war has forced historians
to re-think much of what has been said about the post-World War II period, I
have made a special effort to assign readings that represent the latest (if not
always the most widely held) views on various topics. You will notice that the readings throughout
the course come from various ideological and political 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.)
I have also tried to vary the kinds of sources we
will examine – you will read traditional historical scholarship as well as
fiction, personal memoirs, oral histories, contemporary works of political and
cultural criticism, song lyrics, primary documents, and – an old favorite of
mine – the story of “Tootle the Train.”
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 --40%
Critique --10%
Semester Project [Due by 11:59 pm May
11] --30%
FINAL ESSAY [Due by 11:59 pm
May 15] --20%
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.
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.
(This exchange can also be done via 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. Though this is not
required, to spice up your presentation, I encourage you to include some
audio-visual component in the discussion you lead. This could entail showing a short clip from
documentary footage or from a movie discussed in the reading, playing an
excerpt from a radio program, song, or musical performance, displaying
illustrations, primary documents, etc.
Feel free to ask me for suggestions.
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 will email an e-copy to me as an
attachment and I will provide each member of the seminar with a copy at the
beginning of 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. For
further instructions on how to write a précis CLICK HERE
Oral
Presentation/Written Critique
One person will be
responsible for producing a single-spaced 2-page critique of the assigned reading
each week. This may be handled in one of four ways:
1) a summary of the
book’s critical reception and your own reaction to it
2)
a historiographical review that explains where the assigned book or articles
fit within the existing secondary literature (you might counter pose the
assigned reading against a book or article that takes a contrary point of
view).
3)
a brief essay that focuses on a particular theme or argument in the week’s
reading that you found especially interesting and wanted to explore further in
other sources.
4)
a report grounded in primary sources in which you examine such sources to see
if they lead you to the same kinds of interpretations that the author offers.
I can provide you with
both primary source suggestions and historiographical background, so don’t
hesitate to ask. Also, though it is not
required, feel free to include an audio-visual component if you think it would
enhance your presentation. At some point
during class, usually right after the break, you will have the floor to present
your findings and field questions from the class. Please do not extend your
presentation beyond 15 minutes.
The written critique will be due a week from the date of your
presentation. Your grade will be based on the written product and the quality
of your oral presentation. The quality
of an oral presentation is judged on how organized and prepared you are in your
delivery.
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 books and
articles. 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 will likely produce a rather
thin piece of historical analysis.) After your reading has made you an “expert”
on the topic, summarize your findings and offer your own insights in a
double-spaced 10-12 page essay.
Final Essay
In a double-spaced
8-10 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
574…
Attendance
Since
class meets only once a week, it is important, and it is expected, that you
will be at 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 adversely
affect your final grade. 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 2-page, single-spaced précis
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.
Research Resources on
the Web
The Cold War International
History Project
The Harvard Project on Cold War Studies
The Stalin-Era Research & Archives Project
Literature and Culture of the
American 1950s
Discussion Topics and Assignments
Schedule
Jan. 24 Iron Curtains and Tin Ears: The Origins
of the Cold War
• Ralph Levering,
Vladimir O. Pechatnov, et al, Debating the Origins of the Cold War
(Rowman and Littlefield, 2002)
• Melvyn P. Leffler, “The
Interpretive Wars Over the Cold War, 1945-1960” from Gordon Martel, ed., American
Foreign Relations Reconsidered, 1890-1993 (
• John Lewis Gaddis, “Two
Very Different Empires,” from We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (
• Geoffrey Roberts, “Stalin
and Soviet Foreign Policy,” from Melvyn P. Leffler and David S. Painter, eds., Origins
of the Cold War: An International History 2nd ed. (Routledge,
2005)
Jan. 31 Reds
Under the Bed and in the State Department: The Politics and Culture of
Anticommunism
• John Earl Haynes, Red Scare or Red
Menace?
• Stephen J. Whitfield, The Culture of the Cold
War 2nd edition, pp. 1-51, 101-126, 231-241
• Gertrude Crampton, “Tootle” (Golden Press, 1945)
Recommended
Film:
“Point of Order”
Feb. 7 Retreat from Radicalism: “Progressives”
Confront the Cold War
• Lionel Trilling, The Middle of the
Journey
• Lionel Trilling, The Middle of the Journey [Introduction]
• Leslie Fiedler, “Hiss, Chambers, and the Age of Innocence”
1-26
• Arthur Koestler, “The Complex Issue of the
Ex-Communists” 49-56
[both from Alger
Hiss, Whittaker Chambers, and the Schism in the American Soul, ed. Patrick
A. Swan (ISI Books, 2003) ]
Feb. 14 Irony,
Ambiguity, Complexity: The Intellectual Foundations of Postwar Liberalism
• Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History
• Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Vital
Center (Houghton Mifflin, 1949) Chapters 1, 4, 7, 11
• Kevin Mattson, “Revisiting the Vital Center” Dissent (Winter 2005)
Feb. 21 NO
CLASS
Feb. 28 “I’ll
Take It!” ‘50s Consumer Culture from Tailfins to TV Dinners
• Thomas Hine, Populuxe
• William H. Whyte, The Organization Man, Part I
Web
Links on 1950s Popular and Material Culture
Mar. 6 “Company Men and Suburban Housewives”
Domestic Life in the ‘50s
Sloan Wilson, The
Man in the Gray Flannel Suit
Recommended
Film:
“The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit” (1957)
Recommended
Wilfred M. McClay, “The Hipster and the
Organization Man”
Mar. 13 “A Promising Time” Optimism and Idealism
in the Early ‘60s
W.J. Rorabaugh, Kennedy and the
Promise of the Sixties
Mar. 20 SPRING
BREAK
Mar. 27 “Building
a Great Society” LBJ and the Apex of
Postwar Liberalism
Gareth Davies, From
Apr. 3 “The Second Reconstruction:” Civil
Rights at the Grass Roots
Clayborne Carson, In Struggle
Recommended
Film:
“Freedom on my Mind” [Available
for viewing at Oviatt Library]
Apr. 10 “That
Bitch of a War:” The Vietnamese Conflict and the Shattering of the Liberal
Consensus
Michael H. Hunt, Lyndon
Johnson’s War
Gary R. Hess, “The Unending
Debate: Historians and the Vietnam War,” Diplomatic History 18 (Spring
1994)
Recommended
Film:
“The Fog of War” [Available
for viewing at Oviatt Library]
Apr. 17 “Everybody’s
Doing It:” The Counterculture and the Sexual Revolution
David Allyn, Make Love, Not War
Apr. 24 “…But When he was Bad he was Horrid:”
The Tragedy of Richard Nixon
Melvin Small, The
Presidency of Richard M. Nixon
May 1 “The Stewardess is Flying the
Plane!!!” Paranoia and Panic in the
1970s
Philip Jenkins, Decade of Nightmares
May 8 “The
Perils of Prosperity:” The Reagan ‘80s
Robert M. Collins, Transforming
May 15 “Prosperity and Prurience:” Bill Clinton
and the Postmodern Presidency
John F. Harris, The
Survivor