Programma

This course intends to offer students an insight into American history and culture both from the international and transnational perspectives. The role played by the United States in international affairs in the 20th century is such that scholars have come to label the intervening period between the Spanish-American War and the end of the Cold War, the American Century. Actually, the U.S. still plays a major role in international relations, despite the crisis started in the 1970s, while its position and interaction with the rest of the world was already prominent in the 19th century. Moreover, U.S. history, like the history of other countries, was forged by the country’s interaction with other parts of the world and by the inevitable transnational connections with other nations. The course therefore offers an interpretation of American history in a transnational perspective while familiarizing the students with some of the major historians of the past century and with the more recent historiography, methodology and critical analyses of American history. At the same time, it provides critical readings of the current socio-political framework of the country while tackling some of the most debated issues of the day.

Testi Adottati

Robert W. Rydell and Rob Kroes, Buffalo Bill in Bologna: The Americanization of the World, 1869-1922, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005). Available online in the University Discovery Web pages.
Joshua Freeman, American Empire: The Rise of a Global Power, the Democratic Revolution at Home, 1945-2000 (New York: Penguin, 2013).
Daniel Rogers, "Improvising the New Deal" in Franklin D. Roosevelt : Road to the New Deal, 1882-1939, University of Illinois Press, 2015, pp. 131-157. Available online in the University Discovery Web pages.
William E. Luechtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt: Foreign Affairs, The Miller Center, https://millercenter.org/president/fdroosevelt/foreign-affairs
Wendy Wall, The New Deal, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History, 2016. Open access in the Web
The Constitution of the United States of America.
As a preliminary reading to the class, students are expected to read Jill Lepore, This America. The case for the Nation, London, John Murray, 2020

For the in class discussion and presentations, students can choose one among the following seven essays and pairs:
Daniel Bessner and Fredrick Logeval, “Recentering the United States in the Historiography of American Foreign Relations,” Texas National Security Review: Volume 3, Issue 2 (Spring 2020): 39-55. Open access; + “A Roundtable on Daniel Bessner and Fredrik Logevall, “Recentering the United States in the Historiography of American Foreign Relations.” Passport: The SHAFR Review, Sept. 2020, 39. Open access.
Petra Goedde, “Power, Culture, and the Rise of Transnational History in the United States,” The International History Review (2017) https://doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2017.1284142 + Matthew Connelly, “The Next Thirty Years of International Relations Research New Topics, New Methods, and the Challenge of Big Data,” IRICE | « Les cahiers Irice » 2015/2 n° 14: 85-97. Open access
Joseph R. Nye Jr., “What is a Moral Foreign Policy?” Texas National Security Review: Volume 3, Issue 1 (Winter 2019/2020). Open access + “A Roundtable on Joseph S. Nye, Jr. Do Morals Matter?: Presidents and Foreign Policy from FDR to Trump”, Passport: The SHAFR Review, Sept. 2020, 13. Open access
Ian Bremmer, “The Technopolar Moment. How Digital Powers Will Reshape the Global Order,” Foreign Affairs, (November/December 2021). Available in the university Discovery Digital Library. Parag Khanna, “Great Protocol Politics. The 21st century doesn’t belong to China, the United States, or Silicon Valley. It belongs to the internet.” Foreign Policy (December 2021). https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/12/11/bitcoin-ethereum-cryptocurrency-web3-great-protocol-politics/#Richard Slotkin, "Thinking Mythologically: Black Hawk Down, the “Platoon Movie,” and the War of Choice in Iraq," in European Journal of American Studies, 12, 2 (2017). Available online at: https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/11873
Graeme A. Thompson, “Applying Global History: Globalization, Geopolitics, and the U.S.–China Rivalry after Covid-19,” Journal of Applied History (2021): 1–23. Open access
Isabelle Vagnoux, "Introduction: North American Women in Politics and International Relations;" Chantal Maillé, "Feminist Interventions in Political Representation in the United States and Canada: Training Programs and Legal Quotas," in European Journal of American Studies, 10, 1 (2015). Available online at: https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/10368

Bibliografia Di Riferimento

Amitav Acharya, The End of the American World Order (Polity Press, 2014). Bacevich, Andrew, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). Belmonte, Laura, Selling the American Way: U.S. Propaganda and the Cold War (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008). Bender, Thomas, A Nation among Nations: America’s Place in the World (New York: Hill and Wang, 2006). Borstelmann, Thomas The Cold War and the Color Line (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003). Brooks, Stephen and William Wohlforth, America Abroad: The US Global Role in the 21st Century, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016). de Grazia, Victoria, Irresistible Empire: America's Advance Through Twentieth-Century Europe, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005). Gerstle, Gary, American Crucible: Race and Nationalism in the Twentieth Century (Princeton University Press, 2001). Hofstadter, Richard, The Age of Reform (New York: Vintage, 1955) (or any later edition). Hunt, Michael, Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1987). Ikenberry, John Liberal Leviathan: The Origins; Crisis and Transformation of the American World Order, (Princeton University Press, 2011) Jackson Lears, T., Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern America (New York: Harper Colins, 2010). Kennedy, David M., Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929- 1945 (Oxford History of the United States) (Oxford University Press, 2001). Joseph S. Nye, Jr. Do Morals Matter?: Presidents and Foreign Policy from FDR to Trump (New York-Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020). Perlstein, Rick, The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2015). Rodgers, Daniel, Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age (New York: Belknap, 2000).

Modalità Erogazione

The presentations and class discussion concentrate on the essays indicated in the required readings section. Access to this material can be either obtained through the online subscriptions of our university or through the electronic resources offered by the Centro Studi Americani. In the second week of class, the professor will explain how to prepare for the presentations, which will take place toward the end of the course. The final research paper is a take home exam based on original documents relating to American history and politics. The professor will provide information and material after the mid-term. Papers will be due two weeks after the end of classes.

Modalità Valutazione

Attendance and participation (20%); mid-term written test (25%); in class oral presentation (25%); final research paper (30%). The mid-term consists of IDs and short essays based on the lectures, the first assigned book, and the articles indicated in the required readings section.