History 579 – U.S. Foreign Policy Since 1898

Syllabus and Survival Guide

Fall 2012

Thursday 7:00 pm – 9:45 pm, Sierra Hall 268

 

 

Instructor

 

Dr. Thomas W. Devine

Phone: (818) 677-3550 Email: tom.devine@csun.edu

Office Hours: Sierra Tower 624, Tuesdays and Thursdays 2:30 – 3:30 pm and by appointment gladly given.

 

Reading

 

The following books – listed in the order in which we will read them – are available at the Matador Bookstore.  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

 

• Michael H. Hunt, Ideology and Foreign Policy, 2nd edition, Yale, 2009.

• H.W. Brands, What America Owes the World, Cambridge, 1998.

 • Tony Smith, America’s Mission, Princeton, 1995.

 • Anne Rice Pierce, Woodrow Wilson and Harry Truman, 2nd ed. Transaction, 2007.

• Kristin L. Hoganson, Fighting for American Manhood, Yale 2008.

• David Reynolds, From Munich to Pearl Harbor, Ivan R. Dee, 2001.

Justus Doenecke and Mark A. Stoler, Debating Franklin D. Roosevelt's Foreign Policies, 1933-1945, Rowman & Littlefield, 2005.

Ralph B. Levering, Vladimir Petchatkov, and Verena Botzenhart-Viehe, eds., Debating the Origins of the Cold War: American and Russian Perspectives, Rowman & Littlefield, 2002.

• Michael E. Latham, The Right Kind of Revolution, Cornell, 2011.

• Hal Brands, Latin America’s Cold War, Harvard 2012.

• Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War, Cambridge, 2005.

• Lloyd Gardner, The Long Road to Baghdad, New Press, 2010.

 

Spirit of the Course

 

This course will offer an interpretive survey of U.S. foreign policy since 1898.  For the most part we will proceed through the semester chronologically, but there will be some discontinuities in the timeline as we explore U.S. relations with particular nations and regions over an extended period of time. We will also spend the first few weeks of the semester looking at the often conflicting ideas, prejudices, and assumptions that have undergirded U.S. diplomacy throughout the nation’s history.

 

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.

 

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.

 

 

 Themes

 

Among the themes the course will highlight are the extent to which strategic, ideological, cultural, political, economic, and even psychological factors compete in influencing policy-making decisions; the challenges of establishing a coherent, long-term foreign policy within a democratic political culture; the tension between moral principles and national self-interest and the difficulty of pursuing policies that uphold and defend both; the struggle on the part of policy makers to recognize both the world’s interdependence and its pluralism (we’re all in this together, but we’re all profoundly and perhaps irreconcilably different in our beliefs, cultural traditions, and priorities).

 

Throughout the course we will also take into consideration that contingency, ideological rigidity, arrogance, inadvertent blundering, and even good old fashioned stupidity often have more to do with the shaping and implementation of policy than do the best laid plans of conspiring elites.

 

 

Grading and Requirements

 

Class Participation                                       --30%

 

Primary Source Assignment                          --10%

INSTRUCTIONS

 

Analytical Essay 1                                        --15%

 

[Option A due Oct. 6]

OPTION A PROMPTS

 

[Option B due Nov. 4]

OPTION B PROMPTS

 

Analytical Essay 2 [Due Dec. 8]                    --15%

 

Semester Project [Due Nov. 26]                     --30%

 

[Drafts accepted until one week before the deadline.]

 

 

Explanation of Requirements

 

Completing the Reading

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 unpersuasive), 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. It is also helpful to determine how many pages you can read in an hour and extrapolate to see how much time you should set aside to read a particular book.

 

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 first half of the discussion each week.  That person will compose a list of 6 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 the class 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.  The person who writes the précis should email it to me as an attachment at least 24 hours before the seminar 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 and thoroughness of your précis.

 

Primary Source Assignment

This assignment will allow you to go “digging” into a variety of primary sources (most of which will be accessible on line). You will critically read the sources and answer a series of questions I will provide.  This is not meant to be a formal essay. Rather, you will simply describe what you find and offer some plausible interpretations of the material.

 

Analytical Essays

These two 1500-word assignments will give you the opportunity to respond to a specific question in a concise, tightly argued essay. You will have several topics from which to choose. I will distribute the topics at least a week before the paper is due.  If you wish, you may do both first paper options and I will count the higher grade.

 

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. I recommend drawing on a variety of books, book chapters, and journal articles. 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.  After your reading has made you an “expert” on your topic, compose a 10-12 page historiographical essay assessing the various strengths, weaknesses, and emphases of the sources you have consulted. Then offer and defend your own thesis pertaining to your topic. If you wish, you may submit a complete draft up to one week before the deadline and I will give you feedback.

 

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 clever way to the week’s discussion topic. I can refrigerate or store the food for you if you need me to -- just give me advance notice.  Creativity and imagination in the selection of what to bring will be duly noted.

 

Surviving History 579…

 

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 either a précis of no more than 1500 words summarizing the reading for the class you missed or written answers to four of the six discussion questions.

 

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. 30   Introduction: An explanation of course objectives, mechanics, and procedures.

 

 

2. Sept. 6    Cultural Constructions and the Motivations of American Foreign Policy

                  

                   Reading: Hunt, Ideology and Foreign Policy

 

                   PRECIS

 

3. Sept. 13 Ideas and the Motivations of American Foreign Policy

 

                   Reading: Brands, What America Owes the World

 

 

4. Sept. 20  Democracy and the Motivations of American Foreign Policy

 

                   Reading: Smith, America’s Mission

         

                   PRECIS

 

 

5. Sept. 27  Mission and Power and the Motivations of American Foreign Policy

 

Reading: Pierce, Woodrow Wilson and Harry Truman

 

 

6. Oct. 4      Gender and the Motivations of American Foreign Policy

Reading:  Hoganson, Fighting for American Manhood

 

 

7. Oct. 11    “The Professor’s Long Shadow”: Wilsonianism, its Critics, and its Legacies

 

Reading:  Lloyd Ambrosius, “Woodrow Wilson and the Culture of Wilsonianism

                William C. Widenor, Henry Cabot Lodge and the Search for an American Foreign Policy, chapters 7-8, Epilogue

                Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson: Revolution, War, and Peace, chapters 4-5

Frank Ninkovich, “Wilsonianism After the Cold War: ‘Words, Words, Mere Words’”

 

8. Oct. 18    “Retreat or Reformulation?”: The Interwar Years and the Response to Wilsonianism

 

Reading: John M. Carroll, “American Diplomacy in the 1920s”

Warren I. Cohen, Empire Without Tears

Chapter 2

Chapter 4

Chapter 5/Epilogue

Benjamin D. Rhodes, United States Foreign Policy in the Interwar Period, 1918-1941, chapters 3-5

 

9. Oct 25     “Isolation or Intervention?” FDR’s Diplomacy and the Second World War

         

                   Reading: Reynolds, From Munich to Pearl Harbor

Doenecke and Stoler, Debating Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Foregin Policies, 1933-1945

 

 

10. Nov 1    “World War to Cold War”:

                  

                   Reading: Levering, et al., Debating the Origins of the Cold War

David G. Engerman, “Ideology and the Origins of the Cold War, 1917-1962”

John Lewis Gaddis, “Dividing the World”

 

 

11. Nov 8    “Teaching Them to be like Us”: Modernization and Cold War Diplomacy

 

Reading: Latham, Right Kind of Revolution

 

 

12. Nov. 15 “Masters of our Own Hemisphere”: Latin American, the US, and the Cold War

                  

                   Reading:  Brands, Latin America’s Cold War

 

 

13. Nov. 22           THANKSGIVING

 

 

14. Nov. 29 “Competing for Hearts and Minds”: The US, the USSR, and the Developing World

                  

                   Reading: Westad, Global Cold War

 

 

15. Dec. 6   “Oil, Sand, and Aggravation:” U.S. Misadventures in the Middle East

 

                   Reading: Gardner, The Long Road to Baghdad