History of the United States since 1945

CENTRAL WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
History of the United States since 1945

Instructor: Thomas Wellock

Office: LL-100
Class: LL-106E
Class Hours: M-F 12-1:00
Office Phone: 963-1290
Office Hours: T 9-10 am & W 1-2 pm.
E-mail: Wellock@cwu.edu
Home Phone: 925-4405 (Before 9 pm.)
Final Exam: Dec. 11 12-2 pm
Course Description | Objectives | Learning Outcomes | Required Texts | Evaluation | Exams | Email Discussion Lists | Short Essays | Book Reviews | Attendance and Participation | Course Schedule

COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course is an intensive three-week survey of political, diplomatic, economic, social, and cultural history of the United States since World War II. In particular, we will identify how force emanating from World War II and America's postwar affluence created a fundamentally different society.

OBJECTIVES:

(1) To identify the major events, trends, people and ideas that shaped the history of the United States since 1945.
(2) To analyze primary and secondary sources and explain their historic significance.
(3) To develop critical and analytical skills in written and oral exercises.
(4) To develop a broader view of America's role in world events and the interdependence of American society with countries around the globe.
(5) To highlight the contributions and attitudes of diverse members of society.
(6) To relate the contributions of the past to recent events.

LEARNING OUTCOMES:

(1) To evaluate opposing arguments and interpretations of historic issues and compare the main points of each position.
(2) To weigh and distill evidence, organize your thoughts, and present a clear argument in written and oral form.
(3) To understand the difference between fact, inference, and opinion.
(4) To understand key concepts, principles and facts important for understanding recent United States history.
(5) Present historic arguments and information within the limited timeframe of examinations.

REQUIRED READING:

Brinkley
Griffith, _Major Problems in American History Since 1945_.
Anne Moody, _Coming of Age in Mississippi_.
Al Santoli, _Everything We Had_
Ernest Callenbach, _Ecotopia_.

EVALUATION:

Mid-Term Exam: 20%
Final Exam: 20%
Short Essays: 20%
Book Reviews 25%
Participation 15%
EXAMS:

The exams will be in essay format with a few identification questions. You are permitted to bring in one 8 1/2 by 11 study sheet. You may include any information on it that you wish and you may make them up in collaboration with other students. I will collect the sheets with the exam. Make-up exams are permitted. If you know you cannot attend an exam, you must contact me in advance of the exam to schedule a make-up exam date.

WEB PAGE:

A copy of the syllabus, all lecture outlines, exam study sheets, and other handouts for this class are available on my web page: http://www.cwu.edu/~wellock

EMAIL DISCUSSION LISTS:

As part of your participation grade, all students will be required to take part in an on-line discussion of one of the three supplementary readings, _Coming of Age_, _Everything We Had_, or _Ecotopia_. These discussions will take place in the week before the book is to be covered in class. The instructor will post an initial question regarding the book and students must post at least two contributions and do so within 2 days of the beginning of the discussion. Students will be graded on the quality of their contributions. A good contribution will draw on the themes of the books, address the ideas of other students (in a thoughtful and constructive manner), and utilize lectures and reading materials where appropriate. If you are so inclined, you may participate in more than one of the lists.


SHORT ESSAYS: You are assigned various chapters in Griffith's _Major Problems_ and other reading each week. Write a short essay (at least 750 words) answering any Three of the weekly questions listed in the course schedule. These papers may be typed or handwritten. If more than three are turned in, I will use the three best scores for your grade. You must turn in at least two essays before the mid-term exam. The essays are due on the Friday of the week the chapter is assigned. Revisions for a higher grade are encouraged.

To write a good essay, first read the assigned material thoroughly and select the evidence and arguments that are related to the question(not all the evidence is relevant). This is not an exercise in summarizing all the readings. Like a good debater, you must take a position, develop a thesis, and argue it supported by your interpretation of the reading. Make comprehensive use of the reading to answer the question. You must cite where you are drawing your material from. You may use a short citation method. For _Major Problems in American History Since 1945_, you may cite it simply as (MP, pg. 10).

An "A" paper will make comprehensive use of the material (using both primary and secondary sources) and offer a sophisticated analysis. A "B" paper usually is weak in one area. A strong argument may have scanty evidence supporting it, or a paper may use much evidence but only in a descriptive way. A "C" paper usually has some significant flaw. It is likely to offer a conclusion that is contradicted by the evidence or misses a key point. The grade will also account for clarity in writing style and grammar. KEEP ALL THE PAPERS I RETURN TO YOU UNTIL AFTER YOU RECEIVE YOUR GRADE FOR THE COURSE.

BOOK REVIEWS:

A paper of at least 750 words answering a question about _Coming of Age in Mississippi_, _Everything We Had_, and _Ecotopia_. See the Course Outline for the question for each book.

ATTENDANCE AND PARTICIPATION: You are expected to attend all classes and participate regularly in class discussion. More than TWO unexcused absences will adversely affect your participation grade.

COURSE OUTLINE:

Week 1--Sept. 24-26: Introduction and America's Role in the World

Lectures: Introductory Themes: 1945 and the Transformation of America

Reading: _America in Modern Times_, chapter 18.
_Major Problems_, chapter 1.

Week 2--Sept. 29-Oct 3: The United States and International Relations.

Lectures: The Atomic Bomb and the Cold War in America and Abroad

Reading:
_America in Modern Times_, chapter 19
_Major Problems_, chapter 3

Question: Who is to blame for the origins of the Cold War, the United States or the Soviet Union?

Week 3--Oct 6-10: Domestic Tranquility? The United States in the Fifties.

Lectures: Fifties Culture and the American Economy

Reading:
_America in Modern Times_, chapter 20.
_Major Problems_, chapter 5

Question: How should historians view the fifties? As an era of "precarious prosperity" or "unbounded possibility?"

Week 4--October 13-17: The Warren Court and Early Civil Rights Activism

Lectures: A Revolution in the Courts
The Second Reconstruction

Reading:
_America in Modern Times_, chapter 21
_Major Problems_, chapter 8
Anne Moody, _Coming of Age in Mississippi_.

Question for _Coming of Age_: In reviewing Anne Moody's life, what do you see as the factors that encouraged her to join the Civil Rights movement? And on the eve of her trip to Washington, why had she become so cynical about the possibilities of reform?

Week 5--October 20-24: New Frontiers in the Cold War.

Lectures: Foreign Policy from Ike to Kennedy
Kennedy and Domestic Politics

Reading:
_America in Modern Times_, chapter 22-23
_Major Problems_, chapter 6

Question: The Kennedy Administration seemed a refreshing departure from Eisenhower in its recruiting the "best and the brightest" to conduct a sophisticated foreign policy. In analyzing Kennedy's conduct during the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis, does this reputation hold up?

Week 6--Oct. 27-31: LBJ 's Great Society and Urban Unrest

Lectures: Social Programs and Their Legacy
The New Urban Ghetto

Reading:
_Major Problems_, chapter 7.

Question: Evaluate Charles Murray's argument that (p. 339) "Post-1964 social policy robbed the responsible and deserving poor o neighborhood status even as it eroded their incentive to make investments . . . . that might pay off in upward mobility for themselves, or for their children, over the long term."

MIDTERM EXAM WILL BE HELD ON OCTOBER 27-28.

Week 7--Nov. 3-7 An American Ordeal: Vietnam.

Lectures The War Abroad
The War at Home

Reading:
__America in Modern Times_, chapter 24.
_Major Problems_, chapter 9.
Santoli, _Everythink We Had_.

Question for _Everything We Had_: In reference to the 57,661 Americans who died in Vietnam, Al Santoli argues: "If we as individuals and as a nation learned something of human value for having been in Southeast Asia, their sacrifice. . . was not futile." In the area of foreign policy and our relationship to peoples peoples of other nations, the nature of the federal government, and military conduct, what lessons did these 33 soldiers draw from their experience in Vietnam? Analyze the validity of their assessments by incorporating the material from class films and the _Major Problems_ in your analysis.

Week 8--Nov. 10-14: The Sixties: Years of Hope and Troubled Times. NO CLASS NOV. 11--VETERANS DAY

Lectures: The Counterculture and Student Protest

Reading:
_America in Modern Times_, chapter 25.
_Major Problems_, chapter 10

Question: In the essay section of _Major Problems_, three different interpretations the sixties generation is offered. As members of another generation, how do you evaluate the activism of the sixities.

Week 9--Nov. 17-21 _Coming Apart in the Seventies_

Lectures: Richard Nixon in Triumph and Disgrace and The Politics of Malaise.

Reading:
_America in Modern Times_, chapter 26.
_Major Problems_, chapter 12

Question: Analyze the achievements and failures of Richard Nixon. How should history treat him?

Week 10--Nov. 24-26 New Movements of Personal Liberation

Lectures: The New Sexuality

Reading:
_America in Modern Times_, chapter 27.
Major Problems, chapter 11.

Question: Compare the documents regarding the "new feminism" with the arguments made in the articles by May and D'Emilio & Freedman. Who's analysis of the origins of the new feminism makes more sense?

Week 11--Dec. 1-5 Reagan's America

Lectures: Thunder on the Right

Reading
_Major Problems_, chapter 13
_Ecotopia_

Question for Ecotopia: If _Ecotopia_ is the utopia environmentalists envision, what does this tell us about the values embedded in the environmental movement?


FINAL EXAM: Dec. 11 12-2 pm