American Foreign Policy and the Presidency: Cold War and Post Cold War Eras

4 Credits.

The course is a survey of postwar American Foreign Policy, focusing on the Cold War and the post-Cold War system. We will look at American policy through the prism of successive presidential administrations from Franklin D. Roosevelt at the end of World War II to Donald Trump today.This course focuses America’s critical post-World War II roles. It explores how post-War presidential administrations have reflected international demands but also America’s different traditions of strategy and statecraft and domestic dynamics. We will rely relatively classic texts on American foreign policy, but also on primary sources, articles and book chapters. It is reading-centered. At the end of the course, the student will have a basic literacy of American foreign policy history and politics, as it intersects with the evolving state system. The student will understand enduring policy traditions, their contemporary relevance, and future possibilities. This is a course for the student, of any level, interested in history, politics, and policy.