History 579
–
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:
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.
• 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
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%
Analytical Essay 1 --15%
[Option A due Oct. 6]
[Option B due Nov. 4]
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
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
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”
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
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