The New Empire: The Rise of Global America

4.0 credits

How did a nation surrounded by the French and British Empires at the end of the nineteenth century become the preeminent global superpower by the end of World War II in 1945? We will study the political and economic decisions after the US Civil War that culminated in the Spanish-American War of 1898, including America’s global invasion of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. We will consider the role that America assigned itself to in the march of world history. We will examine the place of commerce and consumer culture in the making of the Panama Canal and modern trade flows. And we will examine the rise of Communism in the context of American global power beginning with the Soviet Union and ending with the Vietnam War. Throughout, we will seek to understand how America’s military and economic strength has been understood internationally from the end of the nineteenth century to the present day.