Prof. M. Temkin
Taubman 452
617-496-1392
Moshik_Temkin@harvard.edu
Faculty Assistant:
Gina Abbadessa
Taubman 485
gina_abbadessa@hks.harvard.edu
DPI 714: The United States and the World:
Politics, Policy, and the Uses of History
Prof. Moshik Temkin
T/Th, 1:10-2:30, Rubenstein RG-20
Course Description:
This course provides a historical framework and foundation 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. 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 (and potential fall
from) 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 the formation of American domestic
policies? Are we now seeing the decline of American power, and what answers does
history offer us to this question? And how can history help us in understanding, and
formulating, public policy in the present?
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).
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Each week, students will submit a brief one-page response to the assigned readings,
either Tuesday’s or Thursday’s. These responses should both 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 10 a.m. These reading
responses will not be graded individually, but they will be used in assessing overall effort
and participation and will also help drive class discussion; I will return them to you with
comments and feedback. The responses should be titled and 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 30 percent of the final
grade.
The rest of the final grade will be determined by three assignments, two written and one
in-class.
The first written assignment is a 4-6 page analysis of one particular week’s assigned
readings (this means the readings for both Tuesday or Thursday of that week). The goal
of this assignment is, first, to gain the ability to concisely summarize and comprehend
historical scholarship on a specific policy topic, and second, to begin to explore ways of
using historical research and historical thinking as the basis for policy work or analysis.
We will discuss this assignment in more detail in class. The completed essay is due by
Thursday, March 7 (the last class before Spring Break). It will account for 15 percent of
the final grade.
The second and final written assignment is a roughly 12-15 page paper. In consultation
with me, you will choose a particular theme that is related to the class 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 will be due
Thursday May 3, one week after our last class meeting. It is highly recommended that
you begin thinking about (and working on) this paper as early in the semester as possible.
I will be available for consultation throughout the process, and students will be asked to
present their ideas for the paper in class (see below). This assignment will account for 50
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. 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 your 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.ezpprod1.hul.harvard.edu/home.html.)
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The in-class assignment will be a group debate over one of the syllabus topics, to be held
in class (described in the syllabus below). This assignment will count for 5 percent of the
final grade. We will discuss this assignment more in detail in class.
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 more vigorous discussion, the consumption
of foodstuffs and the use of laptops, cell phones, blackberries, iphones, and other
electronic devices in class is highly discouraged. (I make an exception in case of
emergency).
Course Readings:
The assigned readings can be found in the course pack, on the class website, online via
the Harvard library (you may need to log in using your HUID and PIN), at the COOP, or
using the HKS library reserves. Readings marked with an asterisk (*) are optional. The
following two 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 24: Where in the World is America?
Reading (optional):
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. (course reader)*
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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 26: What Do Historians Do?
Readings:
John Lewis Gaddis, The Landscape of History, pp. 35-89 (course reader)
Paul Pierson, “The Study of Policy Development”, Journal of Policy History
(online in Course Materials)
II. World War I, AKA The Great War
January 31: 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 2: 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 (online in Course Materials)
III. The 1920s: Spreading the American Dream
February 7: The Financial Dimension
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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 9: 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) http://quod.lib.umich.edu.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/cgi/t/text/textidx?c=acls;idno=heb00064
February 14: The Sacco-Vanzetti Affair: How Transatlantic Politics Work
Reading:
Moshik Temkin, The Sacco-Vanzetti Affair, ch. 1
February 16: The Sacco-Vanzetti Affair (continued)
Reading:
Temkin, The Sacco-Vanzetti Affair, chs. 2-3
IV. The 1930s: Depression and New Deal
February 21: The Depression, Then and Now
Reading:
Richard Posner, A Failure of Capitalism: The Crisis of ’08 and the Descent into
Depression, pp. 117-147; 252-268 (course reader)
Paul Krugman, “How Did Economists Get it So Wrong?”, New York Times Sep. 2, 2009
(online) http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/magazine/06Economict.html?pagewanted=all
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February 23: A New Deal for the World?
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 (ebook). http://quod.lib.umich.edu.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/cgi/t/text/textidx?c=acls;idno=heb00064
V. World War II
February 28: 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 1: WWII and U.S. Domestic Policies
Reading:
Richard Polenberg, War and Society: The United States, 1941-1945, chapters 1-2, 4-5
(course reader)
VI. The Idea of the “American Century”
March 6: An American Century?
Readings:
Olivier Zunz, Why the American Century? Chapters 8-9 (course reader)
Alan Brinkley, “The Idea of the American Century” (online in Course Materials)
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Henry Luce, “The American Century” (online in Course Materials)
March 8: 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 (course reader).
VII. The Cold War
March 20: 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).
Matthew Connelly, “Rethinking the Cold War and Decolonization: The Grand Strategy
of the Algerian War for Independence”, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
2001 (33), 221-245 (OPTIONAL)* (online in Course Materials)
March 22: Exporting the Cold War
Readings:
Uta Poiger, “American Music, Cold War Liberalism, and German Identities”, in Heide
Fehrenbach and Uta G. Poiger, eds., Transactions, Transgressions, Transformations:
American Culture in Western Europe and Japan, 127-147 (course reader).
Cynthia P. Schneider, “Cultural Diplomacy: Why It Matters, What It Can – and Cannot –
Do?” (online in Course Materials)
Volker R. Berghahn, “Philanthropy and Diplomacy in the ‘American Century’”,
Diplomatic History (Summer 1999), 393-420 (online in Course Materials)
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VIII. The Cold War and Global Racial Policies
March 27: Racism and Postwar
Readings:
Mary Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy,
introduction, Chs. 1-2 (textbook).
March 29: Civil Rights in International Perspective
Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy, Chs. 3-6,
conclusion (textbook).
IX. Beyond the Cold War
April 3: Movie Screening
Lumumba, dir. Raoul Peck (2002)
April 5: “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 (online in Course Materials)
Richard Hofstadter, The Paranoid Style in American Politics, 3-65 (course reader).
X. Anti-Americanism: Essential or Circumstantial?
April 10: 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)
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http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/199009/muslim-rage
April 12: The Case of Al-Qaeda: Preparation for Class Debate
Readings:
Osama bin Laden, “Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of
The Two Holy Places,” August 1996. (online)
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/terrorism/international/fatwa_1996.html
Tony Judt, “Anti-Americans Abroad”, New York Review of Books, May 1, 2003 (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 (online in Course Materials)
Greg Grandin, “Your Americanism and Mine: Americanism and Anti-Americanism in
the Americas”, American Historical Review 111:4 (October 2006), 1042-1065 (online in
Course Materials)
Juan Cole, “Anti-Americanism: It’s the Policies”, American Historical Review 111:4
(October 2006), 1120-1129 (online in Course Materials)
Warren I. Cohen and Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, “America in Asian Eyes”, American
Historical Review 111:4 (October 2006), 1092-1119 (online in Course Materials)
April 17: Class Debate
XI. The Meaning of American Power
April 19: 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)
April 24: The Future of the American Empire:
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Reading:
David P. Calleo, Follies of Power: America’s Unipolar Fantasy, 3-13, 22-31, 67-79
(course reader)
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)
April 26: Concluding Discussion
No Readings.
May 3: Final Papers Due
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