California Capitalism

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

California: the state that gave us Ronald Reagan and the Black Panther Party; New Age hippies and Silicon Valley; the Free Speech Movement and the tax revolt. How did one locale produce so much seeming contradiction? This course introduces students to the history of California from pre-colonial times to our own contemporary moment, with a particular focus on California as the vanguard of U.S. capitalist development and imperial conquest; and histories of grassroots responses from both the left and the right. We will both explore what makes California special and treat it as a case study to build broader historical understanding of big-picture issues like capitalism, settler colonialism, and social movements.