War, Diplomacy, and Empire in US History since 1898

Undergraduate / Graduate

Although the American political tradition has been defined against European empire and great power politics since the Revolution, the US has in fact been a leading global power since the late Gilded Age. This course surveys the modern history of US foreign relations from the bottom up as well as the top-down, with an eye to the social politics, culture wars, and power struggles that drove its international commitments. It also considers how causation flowed in the opposite direction, from the outside in and from the political to the social, with overseas adventures and investments shaping the prospects of everything from immigration and economic development to individual freedom, dissent, social justice, and democracy itself. Coursework includes a midterm and a final exam, as well as a project curating primary documents on US global power.