History 551
Spring 2006
Tu, 4:30-7:30
Homewood Flossmoor High School
Robert Johnston
University Hall 930, UIC
(o) 312-413-9164
(h) 773-381-7285
johnsto1@uic.edu
PROBLEMS AND CASES IN UNITED STATES HISTORY BEFORE 1877
The historical literature on American before Reconstruction is one of the richest
in all areas of scholarship. The books available are intellectually challenging--and even
exciting to read!
The main purpose of this course is to expose you to this literature and to inspire
intellectually stimulating and exciting discussions. We will explore how different current
scholarship is from traditional models that concentrated on political and military affairs,
and we will have vigorous conversations about whether you agree or disagree with the
movement for a more popular history oriented toward culture and society. We will also
explore some of the biggest issues that early American history presents: should we
describe the European settlement and conquest of the New World as “genocide”? Has
America been “exceptional” since the beginning of our history? How revolutionary was
our Revolution? How deeply has slavery influenced our history? Was the Civil War
really a war for freedom?
We will, of course, honor and respect the teaching of history by discussing
pedagogical issues. Yet the main purpose of the course is to provide a space to talk about
historical scholarship and big intellectual issues in a graduate-level environment. The
core of the course will be weekly discussions of one common book, with most weeks also
having some additional reading from academic journals (the journal articles are all
available through the UIC Library webpage and will not be distributed in hard copy).
Everyone will be expected to participate in respectful but rousing critical conversations
about the readings and the issues that they raise.
Beyond that, your assignments for the class are:
1)
On January 17th, you must find reviews of Jill Lepore’s The Name of War. Please
see below for details.
2)
Due at the start of class, by email or in hard copy, a two-page evaluation of the
main reading for each week. This should emphatically not be a summary of the book, but
rather an analysis that explores the strengths and weaknesses of each book. Please
include in this paper three questions that you would like the class to explore, and cite
three passages from the text that you believe are worthy of further intellectual exploration
(please reproduce the passages if they are short; otherwise just point to where we can find
them if they are long).
3)
Due at the start of class, by email or in hard copy, two five-page analytical
reviews of the week’s readings. You will probably wish to model such reviews after the
ones you see in Reviews in American History. One of these papers needs to be done
before February 14, and the other one before March 28th. For the first assignment, please
print out and attach to the paper the review from Reviews in American History (or
elsewhere, such as the New York Review of Books or The New Republic) that served as
the model and inspiration for the kind of review you wished to do. In the weeks that you
write these papers, you do not need to do the two-page assignment above.
4)
In groups of either three or four, you will present a secondary book to the class.
Your report should be, strictly, no longer than 20 minutes long, with 15 minutes highly
preferable. You should spend no more than half of your time summarizing the book: its
themes, characters, events, and stories. You should spend the other half of your time
critically evaluating and analyzing the book, answering questions that might include: Is
the argument compelling or unsatisfactory? How does the book fit into the existing
scholarly literature? How does it relate to that week’s common book? How has the book
fared in reviews? Would you recommend the book to other teachers, and how might the
book change your teaching? Please work together with your group to produce a
presentation that will be informative and provocative. You will have at least 10 minutes
for questions at the end of your presentation. You should also produce and distribute to
the class a one-page handout that summarizes your presentation.
5)
Your final project will be the creation and presentation of two lesson plans, along
with two accompanying three- to five-page papers.
a)
The first lesson plan must incorporate primary documents used by one of
the scholars that we have read in either the common or secondary
readings.
b)
The second lesson plan must incorporate a historical debate that one of our
readings is part of. You must do further research on this debate, bringing
in the perspectives of at least four other articles or books.
The lessons must identify content objectives for student learning, the materials you will
use, the process students will follow, and the assessment(s) you will employ to gauge
student achievement.
The papers must include explanations of why you made the selections you did in your
lessons. Why did you choose these particular sources? What do you think will be the
possible advantages and disadvantages? How much of the intellectual ferment of the
scholarship that you have read do you think you will be able to transfer over to your
students?
The drafts of these lesson plans are due on April 4th, with final versions due on April 25th.
That latter evening they will be presented to the class (please note that we will be meeting
until 9:00 p.m.); you will also present them at a symposium at the Newberry Library on
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May 15th. You will need to distribute the lesson plans to all members of the class, and
you will have ten minutes total to discuss both of your plans.
Each district will also receive a copy of Eric Foner’s Give Me Liberty!: An American
History (2004). I invite you to look at the appropriate sections of Foner during the course
in order to see how his treatment of issues differs from those in the texts that you use, and
also how he incorporates scholarship of the kind that we are examining.
The evaluation you will receive in this course follows the spirit of the way professional
historians work, and the way assessment is done in most humanities graduate courses.
Just as scholars do not get letter notations on their book reviews or books—but they do
receive plenty of challenging comments—I will not provide any grades on your work.
Instead, I will offer copious feedback. If, though, at any time you feel unsure of your
status in the course, please do not hesitate to contact me.
COURSE SCHEDULE
1/10
Introduction
1/17
The Bloody Origins of American History
Jill Lepore, The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity
(1998)
***ASSIGNMENT DUE: Find, print, and read at least five reviews of Lepore’s book.
You need to track down the ones from the Journal of American History, American
Historical Review, and Reviews in American History. Besides those three, at least one of
the others must be from a non-scholarly source (such as the New York Times or the New
York Review of Books). Be prepared to discuss the most important points of the
reviews.***
Secondary Book: Kirkpatrick Sale, The Conquest of Paradise: Christopher Columbus
and the Columbian Legacy (1990)
1/24
Colonial Freedom?
Kathleen Brown, Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs: Gender, Race,
and Power in Colonial Virginia (1996)
Secondary Book: Edmund Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal
of Colonial Virginia (1975)
*****THIS IS NOT A REQUIREMENT, BUT PLEASE TRY TO SEE THE
MOVIE “THE NEW WORLD” BY NOW*****
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1/31
Toward a New Multicultural History of the American Colonies
Alan Taylor, The American Colonies (2001)
Joyce E. Chaplin, “Expansion and Exceptionalism in Early American History,” Journal
of American History 89(March 2003): 1431-55.
Secondary Book: John Demos, The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early
America (1994)
2/7
How Radical was the American Revolution?
Gordon S. Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (1991)
“Forum: How Revolutionary Was the Revolution?: A Discussion of Gordon S. Wood’s
The Radicalism of the American Revolution,” William and Mary Quarterly 51(Oct.
1994): 677-716. Introduction and articles by Joyce Appleby, Barbara Clark Smith,
Michael Zuckerman, and Wood.
Secondary Book: Gary Nash, The Unknown American Revolution: The Unruly Birth of
Democracy and the Struggle to Create America (2005)
2/14
New Actors, or The Old Ones?
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on her
Diary, 1785-1812 (1991)
Explore http://www.dohistory.org/ and be prepared to discuss two parts of the website
that are either useful in your thinking about the book or might prove useful in your
teaching.
Secondary Book: Joseph J. Ellis, Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation
(2001). Recommended: Trevor Burnard, “The Founding Fathers in Early American
Historiography: A View from Abroad,” William and Mary Quarterly 62(Oct. 2005): 745763.
2/21
A Warlike People?
Fred Anderson and Andrew Cayton, Dominion of War: Empire and Liberty in North
America, 1500-2000 (2005)
Michael Adas, “From Settler Colony to Global Hegemon: Integrating the Exceptionalist
Narrative of the American Experience into World History,” American Historical Review
106(December 2001): 1692-1720.
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Secondary Book: Charles Royster, The Destructive War: William Tecumseh Sherman,
Stonewall Jackson, and the Americans (1993)
2/28
The Birth of Democracy?
Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (2005)
3/7
Gender and Sexuality
Susan Johnson, Roaring Camp: The Social World of the California Gold Rush (2001)
Secondary Book: Patricia Cline Cohen, The Murder of Helen Jewett: The Life and Death
of a Prostitute in Nineteenth-Century New York (1998)
3/14
How Peculiar
Walter Johnson, Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market (2001)
Ira Berlin, “American Slavery in History and Memory and the Search for Social Justice”
Journal of American History 90 (March 2004): 1251-68
Secondary Book: Ira Berlin, Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American
Slaves (2003)
3/21
SPRING BREAK
3/28
The Most Important Event in Our History?
Edward L. Ayers, In the Presence of Mine Enemies: War in the Heart of America, 18591863 (2003)
James M. McPherson, “No Peace without Victory, 1861-1865,” American Historical
Review 109(February 2004): 1-18
Secondary Book: Eric Foner, A Short History of Reconstruction (1990)
4/4
Tying Up Loose Ends
Assignment Due: Drafts of Final Assignments
4/11
Off for Passover
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4/18
Off for Passover
4/25
Final Presentations and Potluck
Class Meets Until 9:00 p.m.
5/15
Day-Long Symposium at the Newberry Library
Presentation of lesson plans
Keynote Speaker: Ed Ayers
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