DPI 714:
The United States and the World:
Politics, Policy, and the Uses of History
Prof. Moshik Temkin
Spring 2014
T/Th, 10:10-11:30, BL-1
Course Description:
This course provides a historical framework for understanding the impact and influence
of the United States on the wider world and the interplay between global events and
trends and policymaking in the United States. It also focuses on the ways in which
policymakers can, do, and should (or should not) make use of history in their professional
lives. Our first goal is to examine the diverse connections between American and
international policy history. Our second goal is to permit you to become more selfconscious, reflective, and skilled at using and thinking about history in variety of public
and policy settings. Adopting a loosely chronological structure, we will grapple with
issues that have long provoked debate among historians and policymakers: What are the
sources, dynamics, and long-term implications of the American rise to global power?
How have American mass production and culture conquered the global market? More
broadly, what have been the roles of the United States in the wider world? What place
has the wider world had in shaping American domestic policies? And how can this
history help us in understanding, and formulating, public policy in the future?
Requirements:
This course consists of a combination of lectures and discussion, with an emphasis on the
latter. Class preparation and participation are crucial to an effective and rewarding
course. Students are expected to attend all class meetings, arrive on time, and be ready to
discuss the week’s reading assignments. Whenever possible, students should bring the
readings with them to class.
Each week, students will submit a brief one-page response to the assigned readings,
either Tuesday’s or Thursday’s. These should be posted to the class web page (in the
discussion section) as well as emailed to Prof. Temkin’s faculty assistant as Word
attachments before either Tuesday or Thursday morning at 9 a.m. These reading
responses will not be graded individually, but will be used in assessing overall effort and
participation and will also help drive class discussion; I will return them to you with
feedback. The responses should demonstrate an acquaintance with each item on that
day’s reading list. Every student will be allowed (but not obligated) to take two weeks off
from this weekly assignment. Attendance, preparation, engagement, and weekly
comments will determine 40 percent of the final grade.
The rest of the final grade will be determined by four assignments, two written and two
in-class.
The first written assignment is a 4-page policy memo on one of the syllabus topics (see
below for topic and schedule). It will account for 10 percent of the final grade.
The second and final written assignment is a 10-12-page final paper. In consultation with
me, you will choose a particular theme that is related to the readings and discussions.
Integrating your own work on the topic with the issues and materials that the course
touches on, your goal in this assignment is to synthesize a good chunk of historical
knowledge with your own conception of policy formation. This essay is due Thursday
May 8, one week after the end of classes. It is highly recommended that you begin
thinking about (and ideally working on) this paper as early in the semester as possible. I
will be available for consultation and feedback throughout the process. This assignment
will account for 40 percent of the final grade.
Note: Both papers should conform to the following technicalities: single-sided,
numbered, 12-point Times New Roman font, double-spaced. Please use one space only
after each sentence. Leave a one-inch margin on the left side of the page. Turn off
automatic hyphenation and do not justify text; ragged right margins are preferable
throughout. Use minimal formatting. Do not forget to include your name and a title for
the paper, no matter how brief. The final paper should conform to the stylistic guidelines
of the Chicago Manual of Style, available online for free via the Harvard libraries
website, at http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/home.html
The two in-class assignments will be group debates over two of the syllabus topics, to be
held in class (described in the syllabus below). Together, these assignments will account
for 10 percent of the final grade.
Academic Integrity and Classroom Policies:
All written work for this course must be appropriately referenced and cited. Students
seeking guidance should see the Original Work Code in the HKS Student Handbook. If
you have any question as to whether or not you have used citation correctly, please speak
with me before turning in your written assignment.
In order to avoid distractions and encourage vigorous discussion, the consumption of
foodstuffs and the use of laptops, tablets, smartphones, and other addictive electronic
devices in class is highly discouraged.
Course Readings:
Most readings can be found in the course web page (you may need to log in using your
HUID and PIN), at the COOP, or using the HKS library reserves. The following books
should be purchased:
* Mary Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy,
Princeton University Press 2000
* Moshik Temkin, The Sacco-Vanzetti Affair: America on Trial. Yale University Press,
paperback ed., 2011
Course Outline:
I. Introduction
January 28: Where in the World is America?
Reading:
Charles Bright and Michael Geyer, “Where in the World is America? The History of the
United States in the Global Age”, in Thomas Bender, ed., Rethinking American History
in a Global Age (Berkeley, 2002), 63-92.
NOTE: This reading is optional. It provides background on the ways historians see the
question of America’s relation to the wider world. It is not directly related to policy.
January 30: What Do Historians Do?
Readings:
John Lewis Gaddis, The Landscape of History, pp. 35-89
Paul Pierson, “The Study of Policy Development”, Journal of Policy History ***
II. “American Empire”: Beginnings
February 4: Spanish-American-Cuban Wars
Readings:
TBA
February 6: Cuba-US Relations, A Case Study
Reading:
Louis A. Perez, Jr., Cuba and the United States, chapters 3-9
Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, Condoleezza Rice, Chair, Report to the
President, Washington, July 2006. (O)
Written Assignment: due February 13. You have been hired as special advisor to a highranking official in the US government (or another government of your choosing). Your
boss has learned that you took a course at Harvard on history and policy. He/she asks you
to read the July 2006 report of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, which
expressed the policy approach of the preceding US government. You are then asked to
write a memo indicating whether or not knowledge of the history of Cuba and its relation
to the US might influence any reshaping of that approach. If so, what aspects of that
history might matter, and how would they matter? If not, explain why the history is not
relevant to the approaching departure of Fidel Castro from the Cuban leadership. (If you
are working for a non-US government, you should indicate what stance your government
might want to take toward Cuba, what your government should anticipate in terms of USCuban interaction and conflict, and what advice your government might want to give to
the US). Your memo should be no longer than 4 pages.
III. World War I, AKA The Great War
February 11: The War and the American People
Readings:
John Dewey, “The Social Possibilities of War”, 1918 (online)
http://www.teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=2331
David Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society, chapter1 (ebook)
http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn3:hul.ebookbatch.ACLS_batch:MIU01000000000000003898710
February 13: The War, the U.S. and the World
Readings:
Kennedy, Over Here, Epilogue (e-book)
http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn3:hul.ebookbatch.ACLS_batch:MIU01000000000000003898710
Erez Manela, “Imagining Woodrow Wilson in Asia: Dreams of East-West Harmony and
the Revolt against Empire in 1919”, American Historical Review, Dec. 2006, Vol. 111
Issue 5, 1327-1351
http://ezpprod1.hul.harvard.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db
=aph&AN=23472882&site=ehost-live&scope=site
IV. The 1920s: Spreading the American Dream (I)
February 18: The Financial Dimension
Reading:
Emily S. Rosenberg, Financial Missionaries to the World: The Politics and Culture of
Dollar Diplomacy, 1900-1930 (2003), introduction and chapters 4-5 (course reader)
February 20: The Cultural Dimension
Reading:
Robert Wohl, The Spectacle of Flight: Aviation and the Western Imagination, chapter 1
(course reader)
Daniel T. Rodgers, Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age, 367-391 (ebook)
V. Spreading the American Dream: The Dark Side
February 25: The Sacco-Vanzetti Affair: How Transatlantic Politics Work
Reading:
Moshik Temkin, The Sacco-Vanzetti Affair, ch. 1
February 27: The Sacco-Vanzetti Affair (Class Debate)
Reading:
Temkin, The Sacco-Vanzetti Affair, chs. 2-3
VI. The 1930s: Depression, New Deal, War
March 4: Depression, New Deal, War
Readings:
John Maynard Keynes, “An Open Letter to President Roosevelt” (1933, online)
http://newdeal.feri.org/misc/keynes2.htm
Daniel T. Rodgers, Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age, 409-446
(course reader).
March 6: Movie Screening (TBA)
VII. World War II
March 11: WWII, the U.S., and the World
Reading:
John Dower, War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War, 3-73 (e-book)
http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn3:hul.ebookbatch.ACLS_batch:MIU01000000000000003898736
March 13: WWII and U.S. Domestic Policies
Reading:
Richard Polenberg, War and Society: The United States, 1941-1945, chapters 1-2, 4-5
(course reader)
VIII. The Idea of the “American Century”
March 25: An American Century?
Readings:
Olivier Zunz, Why the American Century? Chapters 8-9 (course reader)
Alan Brinkley, “The Idea of the American Century” (online)
http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/LSEPublicLecturesAndEvents/pdf/20060207Brinkley.pdf
Henry Luce, “The American Century” (online – course website)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/doi/10.1111/14677709.00161/pdf
March 27: A Pax Americana?
BBC Report, “How Bretton Woods Reshaped the World”,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7725157.stm
Elizabeth Borgwardt, A New Deal for the World: America’s Vision for Human Rights, pp.
114-141
IX. The Cold War
April 1: A Global War?
Reading:
Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of
Our Times, pp. 8-38, 110-157 (course reader).
April 3: America and Vietnam, A Case Study
Readings:
TBA
X. The Cold War and Global Racial Policies
April 8: Racism and Postwar
Readings:
Mary Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy,
introduction, Chs. 1-2 (textbook)
April 10: Civil Rights in International Perspective
Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy, Chs. 3-6,
conclusion (textbook)
XI. Beyond the Cold War
April 15: Movie Screening
Lumumba, dir. Raoul Peck (2002)
April 17: “Alien Threat” and the Case of McCarthy
Readings:
Ellen Schrecker, “McCarthyism: Political Repression and the Fear of Communism”,
Social Research, Winter 2004, 71:4, 1041-1086 (available online)
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2267/is_4_71/ai_n13807487
Richard Hofstadter, The Paranoid Style in American Politics, 3-65 (course reader).
http://s3.amazonaws.com/files.posterous.com/ohwhatablow/XnZFL9MVEFGDlNmO2A
2VixMdkaLu5MhCq6WA5OBJKMoZXC2lgH7Y1ResSQbt/2009.pdf?AWSAccessKeyI
d=AKIAJFZAE65UYRT34AOQ&Expires=1325689084&Signature=TjEpH3bhGSmVT
dn6aM6SlPwxM3Q%3D
XII. Anti-Americanism: Essential or Circumstantial?
April 22: Between Terrorism and Nativism
Readings:
Mahmood Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots
of Terror, introduction and chapter 1 (course reader)
Bernard Lewis, “The Roots of Muslim Rage”, Atlantic Monthly 1982 (online)
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/199009/muslim-rage
The US in the Middle East: The Case of Egypt
April 24: The Case of Al-Qaeda: Class Debate
Readings:
Osama bin Laden, “Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of
The Two Holy Places,” August 1996.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/terrorism/international/fatwa_1996.html
Tony Judt, “Anti-Americans Abroad”, New York Review of Books, May 1, 2003
(available online)
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16219
Jessica C. E. Gienow-Hecht, “Always Blame the Americans: Anti-Americanism in
Europe in the Twentieth Century”, American Historical Review 111:4 (October 2006),
1067-1091 (available online)
http://ezpprod1.hul.harvard.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db
=mth&AN=22887639&site=ehost-live&scope=site
Greg Grandin, “Your Americanism and Mine: Americanism and Anti-Americanism in
the Americas”, American Historical Review 111:4 (October 2006), 1042-1065 (available
online)
http://ezpprod1.hul.harvard.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db
=mth&AN=22887638&site=ehost-live&scope=site
Juan Cole, “Anti-Americanism: It’s the Policies”, American Historical Review 111:4
(October 2006), 1120-1129 (available online)
http://ezpprod1.hul.harvard.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db
=mth&AN=22887641&site=ehost-live&scope=site
Warren I. Cohen and Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, “America in Asian Eyes”, American
Historical Review 111:4 (October 2006), 1092-1119
http://ezpprod1.hul.harvard.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db
=mth&AN=22887640&site=ehost-live&scope=site
XIII. The Meaning of American Power
April 29: Responses to Foreign Crises: The Case of Rwanda
Reading:
Samantha Power, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide (2002), 329390 (course reader)
May 1: The Future of the American Empire: Concluding Discussion
Reading:
David P. Calleo, Follies of Power: America’s Unipolar Fantasy, 3-13, 22-31, 67-79
Niall Ferguson, Colossus: The Price of America's Empire (2004), 286-302 (course
reader)
Stephen Walt, Taming American Power: The Global Responses to U.S. Primacy, chapter
1 (course reader)
May 8: Final Papers Due