The American Century: American Foreign Relations in the Twentieth Century

3 credits · Undergraduate

More than six decades ago Henry Luce the editor of Time Magazine argued that the 20th Century was “the American Century,” and he urged the American people to shoulder the burdens that such a destiny required. This course is designed to assess the record of US foreign policy over the last one hundred years. Its goal is to address the question of whether the Americans were successful in meeting Luce’s challenge. In order to get at this question this course examines American foreign policy from the turn of the century to the Gulf War. We will discuss US imperialism and the birth of the American empire in South America, World War One, World War Two, the Cold War, the Korean War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War, Détente, and the end of the American-Soviet rivalry. FORMATS: Lecture