COURSE SCHEDULE:
Lesson 1: Course Introduction.
Lessons 2 and 3: Those Founding Fathers: American Identity and the Foundations of American Politics. (REQUIRED READING: Part 2: “The Founding and the Constitution” pp. 36 – 74 in Benjamin Ginsberg et.al., We The People; Chapter 2: “The Cultural Legacy of World War II” pp. 30 – 53 in Paul Levine and Harry Papasotiriou, America Since 1945; Part 2: “The American Kaleidoscope, Then and Now” pp. 33 – 47 in Tamar Jacoby, ed. Reinventing the Melting Pot.)
Lesson 4: Federalism at National and State Levels. The Courts. (REQUIRED READING: Part 3: “Federalism” pp. 74 – 110 in Ginsberg, We The People)
Lessons 5 and 6: The Presidency. The World as Seen by the White House. (REQUIRED READING: Part 1: “The Electoral Arena” pp. 2 – 108 in Stephen J. Wayne, The Road to the White House; Chapter 1: “Kennedy” pp. 1 – 23 in W.J. Rorabaugh, Kennedy and the Promise of the Sixties; Chapter 2: “Uprooting the Presidential Branch? The Lessons of FDR” pp. 13 – 37 and Chapter 7: “FDR’s Party Leadership: Origins and Legacy” pp. 119 – 133 in Mark J. Rozell and William D. Pederson, FDR and the Modern Presidency; Chapter 8: “The Presidency” pp. 297 – 343 in Christine Barbourd and Gerald Wright, Keeping the Republic; Chapter 7: “The Forgotten Legacy of the New Deal” pp. 124 – 153 in Juliane E. Zelizer, Governing America; Chapter 1: “The Changing Presidency” pp. 3 – 43 and Chapter 4: “Presidential Character and Performance” pp. 147 – 199 in Norman Thomas, The Politics of the Presidency; “Introduction” pp. 1 – 13 and “The Effect of Messages” pp. 287 – 307 in Kate Kenski, et. al., The Obama Victory.)
Lessons 7 and 8: Congress. (REQUIRED READING: Part VI: “ Congress and Political Change” pp. 371 – 415 in Lawrence Dodd and Bruce Oppenheimer, Congress Reconsidered; Part 12: “Congress” pp. 434 – 480 in Ginsberg, We The People.)
Lessons 9 and 10: Political Parties: Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and the Others. (REQUIRED READING: Chapter 12: “Political Parties” pp. 457 – 499 ini Barbourd and Wright, Keeping the Republic; Part 9: “Political Parties” pp. 306 – 346 in Ginsberg, We The People; Part 1: “Political Parties and Democracy” in John Aldrich, Why Parties? The Origin and Transformation of Political Parties in America; Chapter 5: “Lyndon Johnson and the Roots of Contemporary Conservatism” in Bloom, Long Time Gone; Chapter 14: “Free Societies and the Future” pp. 173 – 195 in John W. Danford, Roots of Freedom; Frank Smallwood, The Other Candidates.)
Lesson 11: Mid Term Exam
Lessons 12 and 13: Elections: Votes, Money, Opinions and the Media. (REQUIRED READING: Part 3: “The Presidential Campaign” pp. 207 – 290 and Part 4 “The Election” pp. 291 – 369 in Wayne, The Road to the White House; Chapter 10: “Seeds of Cynicism: The Struggle Over Campaign Finance, 1956-1974” in Zelizer, Governing America; Chapter 2: “The Press and the Permanent Campaign” pp. 38 – 54 in Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann, ed. The Permanent Campaign and Its Future; Chapter 5: “The Consequences of Election Web Sites” pp. 125 – 143 in Bruce Bimber and Richard Davis, Campaigning Online; Chapter 11: “Public Opinion” pp. 421 – 457 and Chapter 14: “Voting, Campaigns and Elections” pp. 537 - 581 in Barbourd and Wright, Keeping the Republic; Part 6: “Public Opinion” pp. 196 – 236, Part 10: “Campaigns and Elections” pp. 346 – 200, and Part 11: “Groups and Interests” pp. 400 – 434 in Ginsberg, We The People; Chapter 7: “Super Tuesday” pp. 164 – 176 in David Plouffe, The Audacity to Win; Chapter 13: “Media Culture and the Future of Democracy” pp. 309 – 331 in Edward Morgan, What Really Happened to the 1960s; Michael O’Shaughnessy and Jane Stadler, Media and Society; and Ed Keller and Jon Berry, The Influentials.)
Lesson 14: Faith Based Politics: Puritans, Evangelicals, and Born Again Voters. (REQUIRED READING: Part 1: “This is a Man’s World”, pp. 17 – 103 and Part 4: “Family Values”, pp. 309 – 399 in Robert O. Self, All in the Family.)
Lessons 15 and 16: Civil Rights, Protest, and the Culture of Dissent. (REQUIRED READING: Chapter 6: “ The Second Civil War” pp. 116 – 143 in Lytle, America’s Uncivil Wars; Part 1: “Taking Off” pp. 1 – 99 in Carl Oglesby, Ravens in the Storm; Chapter 12: “from Black Consciousness to Black Power” pp. 155 – 170 in Sellers, The River of No Return; Chapter 2: “The New Left and the American Empire” in Barber, A Hard Rain Fell.)
Lessons 17 and 18: Isolationism and Internationalism: The American Idea Abroad. (REQUIRED READING: Chapter 4: “Vietnam War Mythology and the Rise of Public Cynicisms” in Bloom, Long Time Gone; Part IV: “Politics and Policy: The Case of National Security”, pp. 307 – 321 in Zelizer, Governing America.)
Lessons 19 and 20: Student Oral Reports
Core Texts:
The core texts for the course will be: Simon Winchester, The Men Who United the States; Erica Grieder, Big, Hot, Cheap and Right; and Doug McAdam, Freedom Summer. These texts may be ordered through Amazon.
Reserve Readings:
Texts used for the lectures and available on reserve in the library are Logan Beirne, Blood of Tyrants; Alan Taylor, The Internal Enemy; Richard Lingeman, The Noir Forties; Richard Pells, Modernist America: Art, Music, Movies and Globalization of American Culture; Julian E. Zelizar, Governing America: The Revival of Political History; Arthur Lefkowitz, George Washington’s Indispensible Men; William M. Fowler, An American Crisis: George Washington and the Dangerous Two Years After Yorktown; Nathaniel Philbrick, Bunker Hill; Ira Katznelson, Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time; David O. Stewart, American Emperor: Aaron Burr’s Challenge to Jefferson’s America; Robert O. Self, All in the Family: The Realignment of American Democracy since the 1960s; David M. Jordan, FDR, Dewey and the Election of 1944; Nolan McCarty, et. al., Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Politics; Ron Suskind, Confidence Men; Michael Lewis, Boomerang; Jim Lehrer, Tension City; Joe Bageant, Deer Hunting with Jesus; Stephen Wayne, The Road to the White House 2012; Lewis Gould, The Modern American Presidency; Paul Pierson and Jacob Hacker, Winner-Take-All Politics; Mark Smith, The Right Talk; Benjamin Page and Lawrence Jacobs, Class War? What Americans Really Think About Economic Inequality; Jonas Pontusson, Inequality and Prosperity: Social Europe vs. Liberal America; David Farber, The Age of Great Dreams;
Kate Kenski, et.al., The Obama Victory; David Plouffe, Audacity to Win; E. J. Dionne, They Only Look Dead; Alexander Bloom, Long Time Gone; and Norman Thomas, The Politics of the Presidency.
Additional Readings:
Dick Morris, Power Plays; John Danford, Roots of Freedom; Paul Levine and Harry Papasotiriou, America Since 1945; Susan Jacoby, The Age of American Unreason; W.J. Rorabaugh, Kennedy and the Promise of the Sixties; Dominick Cavallo, A Fiction of the Past; John Diggins, The American Left in the Twentieth Century; Bruce Miroff et. al., Debating Democracy; Greg Palast, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy; Michael Nelson, The Presidency and the Political System; Benjamin Ginsberg, et. al., We The People; Frank Smallwood, The Other Candidates; and Deborah Reed Danahay, Citizenship, Political Engagement, and Belonging.
Book Review List:
Susan Jacoby, The Age of American Unreason; Lewis Gould, The Modern American Presidency; Ron Suskind, Confidence Men; David O. Stewart, American Emperor; Richard Pells, Modernist America; Bruce Ackerman, The Decline and Fall of the Ameican Republic; David M. Jordan, FDR, Dewey and the Election of 1944; Paul Allen Beck and Frank J. Sorauf, Party Politics in America.
Films:
“Speaking Freely, vol. 2: Susan George on Neo-Liberalism”, “King: A Filmed Record. From Montgomery to Memphis”, “Heist! Who Stole the American Dream”, “The Murder of Fred Hampton”, “The War You Don’t See”, “Capitalism: A Love Story”, “Best Government Money Can Buy”, “The War on Democracy”, “Shadow Government”, “Ethos: A Time for Change”, “Freedom Archives: Cointelpro 101”, “A Better Life”, “The Last Hurrah”, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”, “Nixon”, “One, Two, Three”, “American Experience: LBJ”, “In the Year of the Pig”, “American Experience: Two Days in October”, “American Experience: My Lai”, “The Most Dangerous Man in America”, “Moyers & Company: Elections for Sale”, Moyers & Company: The Election is Over—Now What?”, “Loose Change 9/11: An American Coup”, “Chicago 10”, “No End in Sight”, “A Perfect Candidate”, “The Last Hurrah”, “All the President’s Men”, “The War Room”, “The Best Man”.