HIST 269 - Topics in United States, Latin American or Canadian History

FDR: HU
Credits: 3 in fall or winter; 4 in spring

Spring 2016, HIST 269-01: The Freedom Ride (4). Additional fee. An intensive study of the Civil Rights Movement through the lens of the Freedom Riders. This reading- and writing-intensive four-week study includes a two-week tour of major Civil Rights protest sites in the lower Southern United States. (HU) DeLaney.

Spring 2016, HIST 269-02: Rise to World Power, 1776-1920 (4). In the late 18th century, the newly-independent United States was one of the weakest nations in the world. By the early 20th century, it was one of the most powerful. This course, in the history of U.S. foreign relations from 1776 to 1920, explores how and why this dramatic shift occurred. In the process, it emphasizes the interrelationship between domestic and foreign affairs within that history, as well as the origins and evolution of key American diplomatic principles, documents, and doctrines. The course also explores the beliefs Americans developed about their place in the world, their expansion across an entire continent, their acquisition of an overseas empire, and the causes and consequences of their participation in armed conflicts from the War for Independence through World War I. (HU) Stoler. Mark.Stoler@uvm.edu

Spring 2016, HIST 269-03: Race and Racism in the Americas (3). Studying the development of race across the early-modern Atlantic world, analyzing how the idea has influenced the history of peoples, nations, and knowledge in modern Latin America.  How did Europeans understand themselves in relation to African and Native American “Others”?   We situate race within the history of ideas before tracing its diffusion across the Americas from the Renaissance, the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment to our own (post-) modern age, taking into account how religion, science, colonialism and capitalism have influenced both ideas of race and the practice of racism. (HU) Gildner.

Winter 2016, HIST 269-01: Evolution of American Warfare (3). This course examines U.S. military history from the colonial period to the post-9/11 American military experience. Since this is a period of more than four hundred years, the class necessarily limits its focus to major topics and central questions facing the men and women who have fought in American wars. We trace the course of American military history by focusing on three themes: the early development of American military institutions; the evolution of military policy toward civilian populations; and the changing face of battle in which Americans have fought. All three of these themes relate to the central goal of this course, which is to gain a better understanding of how America’s military developed in conjunction with and sometimes in conflict with American democracy. (HU) Myers.

FALL 2015, HIST 269A-01: The American Century: U.S. History, 1945-Present (3). This course explores the history of the United States since the end of World War II. Major topics include the Bomb, the rise and fall of American liberalism, the Cold War at home and abroad, suburbanization and the consumer culture, race and civil rights, feminism, anti-feminism, and the gay and lesbian liberation movements, Vietnam and foreign policy, the rise of conservatism and neoliberalism, and the challenges of globalization. (HU) Michelmore.

FALL 2015, HIST 269B-01: The United States in World War II (3). This course studies the causes, course, and consequences of World War II, with a particular emphasis on its impact on American life, culture, and politics. We focus on the war “over there” in Europe and the Pacific as well as the war “over here” on the home front. Topics include military and diplomatic strategy, the impact of the war on women and racial minorities, economic mobilization, the importance of science and technology, the development of nuclear weapons, and the Holocaust. (HU) Michelmore.

FALL 2015, HIST 269C-01:The Harlem Renaissance and the Jazz Age (3). An intensive survey of urban African American life from 1911 to 1940, with particular emphasis on the Harlem Renaissance and the Jazz Age.  Our study examines art, literature, music, black intellectual thought, and political developments of the period. (HU) DeLaney