History 6393, "Empire, War, &
Revolution"
Bob Buzzanco
Tuesday, 5:30-8:30
This is a readings course in U.S.
foreign policy and international history, with an integrated emphasis
on foreign and domestic sources and consequences of global behaviour
and conflict. We will principally cover the 20th Century, with
some brief background.
Structure of the course: Each
week, there will be a common reading for which everyone will be
responsible . In addition to
that, each week a certain number of
students will read and report individually on books that are relevant
to that week's topic.
Assignments and Grading: Each student
will be responsible for reading and writing a brief overview, about 2
pages, of six [6] different books during the
semester.
These reviews will discuss the main arguments of the book, and then
give an impression of the book's strengths and weaknesses and what
might be expected of future works in the particular area.
Each of these reviews will count for
ten [10] points, for a total of sixty [60] Additionally, each
student will prepare an essay based on his/her readings at the end of
the semester, worth twenty [20] points. And class
discussion
will
count for twenty [20] points as well.
N.B. Unless you don't want me to, I will put all the reviews on
the webpage so the class has access to them. So you should
send me your papers electronically. Please title the attachments
the following way: the files names for your papers should consiste of
your last name and the author's last name. So if my name is John
Doe and I'm reading a book by John Gaddis [ha ha], my file attachment
would be titled "doegaddis." It's so much easier for me to put
them on website that way. If you don't do it like that, I'll re-send to
you for you to rename it.
Week 1: Introduction
Common: Buzzanco blog, http://vi.uh.edu/pages/buzzmat/Blog%20Entries.html,
William Appleman Williams, The
Tragedy of American Diplomacy; William Appleman Williams,
"Charles
Austin Beard: The Intellectual as Tory-Radical," in Henry Berger, ed, A
William Appleman Williams Reader; Buzzanco, "What Happened
to
the New Left . . ." at
http://vi.uh.edu/pages/buzzmat/bernathlecture.htm; John Gaddis,
"The
Tragedy of Cold War History," Diplomatic
History, Winter 1993; Bruce
Cumings,
"Revising Postrevisionism," Diplomatic
History, Fall 1993.
Week 2: Expansion,
Ideology,
Imperialism . . . in contexts
Common: William Walker, National
Security and Core Values in American History, Noam
Chomsky, "The Responsibility of Intellectuals," in
Chomsky, American Power and the New
Mandarins; Bryan Palmer, Descent
into Discourse; Chapter 1 in Major
Problems in American Foreign Relations, vol. II
Individual
Michael Hunt, Ideology and Foreign
Policy
Tony Smith, America's Mission -- Mahdi
Gabriel Kolko, Century of War -- Chris
Richard Slotkin, Regeneration Through
Violence -- Amanda
Richard Drinnon, Facing West: The
Metaphysics of Indian Hating -- Travis
Thomas McCormick, America's
Half-Century -- Andrew
Richard Slotkin, The Fatal Environment --
Fernando ???
Supplemental
Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of
Great Powers
Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes
Paul Buhle and Edward Rice-Maximim,
William Appleman Williams and the
Tragedy of Empire
Week 3: Colonial/19th
Century
Common: Anders Stephanson, Manifest
Destiny; chapters 1-4
[LaFeber and Van Alstyne
(2) and Crapol] in Williams, ed.,
From Colony to Empire; Symposium on
Early U.S. Foreign Relations, (Rosenberg,
Ben-Atar, Gitlin,
Onuf,
Perkins, )
Diplomatic
History, Winter 1998; Edward
Crapol, Late-Nineteenth-Century U.S. Foreign Relations," Diplomatic
History, Fall 1992
Individual
Marc Egnal, A Mighty Empire -- Matt
Drew McCoy, The Elusive Republic -- Travis
Charles Sellers, The Market Revolution -- Albert
David Pletcher, The Diplomacy of Trade
And Investment : American Economic Expansion In The Hemisphere,
1865-1900
Walter LaFeber, The American search
for opportunity, 1865-1913 [vol.2, Cambridge] -- Ramiro
William Appleman Williams, The Roots
of the Modern American Empire -- Tomo
Supplemental
Bradford Perkins, The Creation of a
Republican Empire, 1776-1865 [vol.1, Cambridge]
William Weeks, John Quincy Adams and
American Global Empire and Building the Continental Empire
Scott Nearing, Dollar Diplomacy
Reginald Horsman, Race and
Manifest Destiny
Lester Langley, The Americas in the
Age of Revolution, 1750-1850
Week 4: World
War I Era
Common: chapter 5 [Gardner] in
From Colony to Empire;
chapters 2,3 in Major Problems,
v. 2; Tom Ferguson, "From
Normalcy to New Deal"; chapter 6 [Smith] in From Colony to Empire; Holger
Herwig, "Clio
Deceived: Conquest, Foreign and
Domestic, in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany," in Journal of Modern History, March
1984
Individual
Lloyd Gardner, Safe for Democracy -- Fernando
N. Gordon Levin, Woodrow Wilson and
World Politics -- Julie
Carl Parrini, Heir to Empire
Martin Sklar, The Corporate
Reconstruction Of American Capitalism, 1890-1916 -- Amanda
Arno Mayer, Political Origins of the
New Diplomacy -- Chris
Arno Mayer, Politics and Diplomacy of
Peacemaking: Containment and Counterrevolution at
Versailles -- Jeffrey
Joan Hoff Wilson, Ideology and
Economics -- Tomo
Supplemental
Akira Iriye, The Globalizing of
America, 1913-1945 [vol.3, Cambridge]
Emily Rosenberg, Spreading the
American Dream
Frank Costigliola, Awkward Dominion
David Engerman, Modernization
from the Other Shore
John Morrow, The Great War: An
Imperial History
D.C. Watt, How War Came
Waldo Heinrichs, Threshold of War
Week 5: World
War II Era and Origins
of the Cold War in Europe
Common: William
Walker, “Melvyn
P. Leffler, Ideology, and American Foreign Policy,” Diplomatic History Fall 1996; chapter 7 [Berger] in From
Colony to Empire; Gerhard
Weinberg,
"Munich After 50 Years," Foreign
Affairs, 1988; Roundtable on World War II Studies, (Bartov,
Danchev,
Kimball,
Koshiro,
Lee,
Reynolds,
Stephanson,
Stoler, Weinberg,
Weinger)
Diplomatic
History, Summer 2001; chapter
8 [Gardner] in From Colony to
Empire; Gaddis, "The Tragedy of
Cold War
History"; John Gaddis, "Rethinking Cold War History"; Leffler, "Inside
Enemy Archives"; Melvyn Leffler, "National Security and US Foreign
Policy," and Michael MccGwire, "National Security and Soviet Foreign
Policy," in Melvyn Leffler and David Painter, eds, Origins of the Cold
War; Allen Dulles, "The Present Situation in Germany,"
[reprinted] in Foreign Affairs,
November/December
2003; Vladimir Pechatnov, "The Big Three After World War II," CWIHP Working Paper 13**; Brian
Murray, "Stalin, the Cold War, and the Division of China," CWIHP, Working Paper 12;
"Stalin's Conversations with Chinese Leaders,"and "New Evidence on
Sino-Soviet Relations," CWIHP
Bulletin, Issues 6/7; Scott Parrish and Mikhail Narinsky, "New
Evidence on the Soviet Rejection of the Marshall Plan," CWIHP Working Paper 9
**CWHIP is the Cold War
International History Project, which is a clearinghouse for new
information on the Cold War from sources all over the world. Its
Bulletin and Working Papers are available for download, at http://wwics.si.edu/index.cfm?topic_id=1409&fuseaction=topics.home
Individual
Gabriel Kolko, The Politics of War -- Travis
David Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb
Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, Racing the Enemy -- Fernando
Gar Alperovitz, The Decision to Use
the Atomic Bomb -- Andrew
John Dower,
War Without Mercy -- Jeffrey
Gabriel Kolko, The Limits of Power -- Tomo
Michael Hogan, The Marshall Plan -- Chris
Michael Hogan, A Cross of Iron -- Julie
Melvyn Leffler, A Preponderance of
Power -- Albert
Arnold Offner, Another Such Victory
Carolyn Eisenberg, Drawing the Line
Supplemental
Warren Kimball, Forged in War
John Gaddis, Strategies of Containment
William Roger Louis, Imperialism at Bay
Vladimir Zubok and Constantine
Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin's Cold
War
Odd Arne Westad, Cold War and
Revolution
Frederico Romero, The United States
and the European Trade Union Movement
Christopher Thorne, Allies of a Kind
Martin Sherwin, A
World Destroyed
Week 6: The
1950s
Common: Christian Ostermann, "The United States, the East German
Uprising of 1953, and the Limits of Rollback," CWIHP Working Paper 11; Vladimir
Zubok, "Krushchev and the Berlin Crisis," CWIHP Working Paper 6; "New
Findings on the 1956 Hungarian Revolution," and "Warsaw Pact Military
Planning," CWIHP Bulletin,
Issue 2; "New Evidence on the Berlin Crisis, 1958-62," CWIHP Bulletin, Issue 11;
Christian Ostermann, "This is Not A Politburo, But a Madhouse," CWIHP Bulletin, Issue 10; "Poland,
1956," "Hungary and Poland, 1956," "1953 GDR Uprising," "1956 Hungarian
Crisis," in CWIHP Bulletin,
Issue 5; "Special Feature: New Evidence on the 1956 Polish and
Hungarian Crises," CWIHP Bulletin,
Issue 8/9
Individual
Warren Cohen, America in the Age of
Soviet Power, 1945-1991 [vol.4, Cambridge] -- Julie
Richard Immerman and Robert Bowie, Waging
Peace -- Amanda
Jian Chen, Mao's China and the Cold War -- Ramiro
Bruce Cumings, Korea's Place
in the Sun
Bruce Cumings, The Origins of the
Korean War, volume 1: Liberation and the Emergence of Separate Regimes
-- Jeffrey
Bruce Cumings, The Origins of the
Korean War, volume 2: The Roaring of the Cataract
George Mc.T Kahin and
Audrey Kahin,
Subversion as Foreign Policy -- Andrew
Irene Gendzier, Notes from the Minefield -- Mahdi
Supplemental
Sergei Goncharov, John W. Lewis, Xue
Litai, Uncertain Partners: Stalin,
Mao and the Korean War
Jian Chen, China's Road To The Korean
War
Mary Ann Heiss, Empire and Nationhood
: the United States, Great Britain and Iranian Oil,
1950-1954
William Stueck, The Korean War
Rosemary Foot, The Wrong War
Shuguang Zhang, Mao's Military
Romanticism
Peter
Hahn, The United States, Great
Britain, and Egypt
Week
7: Asia
Common: Frank Kofsky, Did the Truman
Administration Deliberately Prolong the Korean War?"; chapters 7-8 in
Major Problems, vol. II;
Michael Hunt and Stephen Levine, "Revolutionary
Movements in Asia and the Cold War," and Shuguang Zhang, "Threat
Perception and Chinese Foreign Policy," and Bruce Cumings, "Japan
and the Asian Periphery," in Melvyn Leffler and David Painter, eds,
Origins of the Cold War; "New Evidence on the Cold War in
Asia," CWIHP Bulletin, Issue 12/13; "More New
Evidence on the Cold War in Asia," CWIHP
Bulletin, Issue 8/9
Individual
Michael Hunt, The Making of a
Special Relationship -- Chris
Bruce Cumings, Parallax Visions -- Fernando
Akira Iriye, Across the Pacific -- Albert
Michael Hunt, The Genesis of Chinese
Communist Foreign Policy -- Ramiro
John Dower, Embracing Defeat -- Jeffrey
Michael
Schaller, The United States
and China
William Walker, Opium and Foreign
Policy -- Andrew
Akira Iriye, Power and Culture -- Travis
Supplemental
Gordon Chang, Friends and Enemies
Warren Cohen, America's Response to
China
Nancy Tucker, Patterns in the Dust
Michael Hunt, Frontier Defense and the
Open Door
Akira Iriye, Cultural
Internationalism and World Order
Thomas McCormick, China Market
Week 8:
Latin America/Caribbean
Common: Chapter 10 in Major Problems, vol. II;
Roett
Memorandum; William Walker, "Mixing the Sweet with the Sour," in
Diane Kunz, ed., Diplomacy of the
Crucial Decade; Leslie
Bethell and Ian Roxborough,
"The Impact of the Cold War on Latin America," in Melvyn Leffler and
David Painter, eds, Origins of the
Cold War; "Cuba 1962" and 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis," CWIHP Bulletin, Issue 5; "More New Evidence on the Cuban
Missile Crisis," CWIHP Bulletin, Issue
8/9
Individual
Greg Grandin, The Last Colonial Massacre -- Matt
Greg Grandin, Empire's Workshop:
Latin America, The United States, and the Rise of the New
Imperialism
Thomas O'Brien, The Revolutionary
Mission -- Amanda
Louis Perez, Cuba Under the Platt
Amendment -- Fernanda
Stephen Rabe, The Most Dangerous Area
in the World --Andrew
Thomas Paterson, Contesting Castro
John Hart, Empire and Revolution
Mary Renda, Taking Haiti -- Travis
Piero Gleijeses, Shattered Hope -- Jeffrey
Supplemental
Stephen Rabe, Eisenhower and Latin
America
Peter Smith, Talons of the Eagle
Walter LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions
Friedrich Katz, The Secret War in
Mexico
Morris Morley, Imperial State And
Revolution : The United States and Cuba, 1952-1986
William LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard
Lester Langley, The Banana Men :
American Mercenaries And Entrepreneurs In Central America,
1880-1930
Week 9: Economics/Materialism/Hegemony
Common: Victoria de Grazia, Irresistible Empire; Michael Hogan,
"Corporatism," ; Carl
Parrini, "Theories of Imperialism," and Patrick Hearden, "Herbert
Hoover and the Dream of Capitalism in One Country," and Thomas
McCormick, ". . . An Essay on Hegemony and Modern American Foreign
Policy," all in Lloyd Gardner, ed, Redefining
the Past
Individual
Benjamin Fordham, Building the Cold
War Consensus -- Julie
Lloyd Gardner, Economic Aspects of New Deal Diplomacy -- Ramiro
David Painter, Oil and the American
Century -- Mahdi
Carl Parrini, Heir to Empire
Frank Kofsky, Harry Truman and the
War
Scare of 1948 -- Julie
Charles Maier,
Recasting Bourgeois Europe
Thomas
O'Brien, The Century of
American Capitalism in Latin America
Emily
Rosenberg, Financial
Missionaries to the World
William Borden, The Pacific Alliance
Ellen
Meiksins Wood, Democracy
Against Capitalism -- Tomo
Supplemental
Allen Matusow, Nixon's Economy
Ken Silverstein, Private
Warriors
John Tirman, Spoils of War
Alfred Eckes, Opening America's Markets
Seymour Melman, The Permanent War
Economy
Thomas
Zeiler, American Trade and
Power in the 1960s
Michael Latham, Modernization as
Ideology
Lewis Sorley, Arms Transfers Under
Nixon
David Calleo, The Imperious Economy
Burton Kaufman, Trade and Aid
Week 10:
Cold War at
Home/Culture/Race/Gender
Common: "Cold War Without End"; Ellen
Schrecker, "Interpreting McCarthyism" and "The Impact of McCarthyism";
Victor Navasky, "The Social Costs"; Frank Costigliola, "Tropes
of
Gender and Pathology," Diplomatic
History, Spring 1997; Andrew
Rotter, "Gender Relations, Foreign Relations" in Hahn and Heiss, eds,
Empire and Revolution;
Roundtable on Culture, Religion and
International Relations, (Rotter,
Buzzanco,
Dean,
Hill)
Diplomatic
History, Fall 2000; Symposium on
African Americans and U.S. Foreign Relations, (Anderson,
Horne,
Krenn,
Laville
and Lucas, Plummer,
Von
Eschen) Diplomatic History,
Fall
1996.
Individual
Noam Chomsky, Deterring Democracy --
Tomo
Ed Herman and Noam Chomsky,
Manufacturing Consent
Philip Jenkins, The Cold War at Home -- Matt
Mary Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights -- Amanda
Ellen Schrecker, Many Are the Crimes
Nancy Bernhard, U.S. Television News
and Cold War Propaganda -- Jeffrey
Carol Anderson, Eyes Off the
Prize
Lisle Rose, The Cold War Comes to Main
Street -- Julie
Frances Saunders, The Cultural Cold War -- Albert
Supplemental
Tom Borstelmann, The Cold War and
the
Color Line
Reinhold Wagnleitner,
Coca-Colonization and the Cold War
Gerald Horne, Black And Red : W.E.B.
Du Bois And The Afro-American Response To The Cold War, 1944-1963
Michael Sherry, In the Shadow of War
Tom Engelhardt, The End of Victory
Culture
Stephen Whitfield, The Culture of the
Cold War
Jessica Gienow-Hecht, Transmission
Impossible
Walter Hixson, Parting The Curtain :
Propaganda, Culture, and the Cold War, 1945-1961
Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound
Brenda Gayle Plummer, Rising Wind
Jeff Woods, Black Struggle, Red Scare
Week 11: The
Third World
Symposium on the U.S. and the Third
World, (Cobbs,
Cullather,
Little,
Rabe)
Diplomatic History,
Winter 1996; Piero Gleijeses, "Flee!
The
White Giants are Coming . . ." in Hahn and Heiss, eds, Empire and
Revolution; Thomas Paterson, "Threat to the Middle East?," in
Thomas
Paterson, Meeting the Communist
Threat; Stephen McFarland, "The Iranian
Crisis of 1946 and the Onset of the Cold War," in Melvyn Leffler and
David Painter, eds, Origins of the
Cold War; Warren Cohen, Balancing
American Interests in the Middle East," in Cohen and Nancy Tucker,
eds., Lyndon Johnson Confronts the
World; "New Evidence on the Cold War in the Third World and the
Collapse of Detente in the 1970s," CWIHP
Bulletin, Issue8/9
Individual
Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War -- Andrew
David Schmitz, Thank God They're On
Our Side -- Tomo
Gerald Horne, From the Barrel of a Gun -- Ramiro
Piero Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions -- Fernando
Matthew Connolly, A Diplomatic
Revolution
Noam Chomsky., The Fateful Triangle
Gabriel Kolko, Confronting the Third
World -- Mahdi
Andrew Rotter, Comrades at Odds
Bob McMahon, Cold War on the Periphery -- Chris
Supplemental
Noam Chomsky, The Washington
Connection and Third World Fascism
Tom Borstelmann, Apartheid's Reluctant
Uncle
Penny Von Eschen, Race Against Empire
: Black Americans and Anticolonialism, 1937-1957
Gary Sick, All Fall Down
Dennis Merrill, Bread and the Ballot
Peter Hahn, Caught in the Middle
East
Michael Schaller, Altered States
Anthony Lake, The Tar Baby Option
Week 12: The
Vietnam War
Common: Buzzanco, "Fear and
(Self-)Loathing in Lubbock . . . "; responses by Taylor,
and Miller;
Buzzanco, "The United
States
in Vietnam: Capitalism, Communism, and Containment, " in Hahn and
Heiss, eds, Empire and Revolution;
Lawrence Bassett and Stephen Pelz, "The Failed Search for Victory," in
Thomas Paterson, ed., Kennedy's
Quest for Victory; Walter LaFeber,
"Johnson, Vietnam, and Tocqueville," and Frank Costigliola, "Lyndon B.
Johnson, Germany and 'The End of the Cold War'," in Warren Cohen
and Nancy Tucker, eds, Lyndon
Johnson Confronts the World; "New Evidence on the
Vietnam/Indochina Wars," CWIHP
Bulletin, Issues 6/7; Qiang Zhai, "Beijing and the Vietnam Peace
Talks," CWIHP Working Paper 18
Individual
Gabriel Kolko, Anatomy of a War
Bob Buzzanco, Masters of War -- Albert
James Carter, Inventing Vietnam -- Chris
Qiang Zhai, China and the Vietnam Wars
Ilya Gaiduk, Confronting Vietnam
Lloyd Gardner, Approaching Vietnam -- Jeffrey
Andrew Rotter, The Path to Vietnam
David Anderson, Trapped by
Success
George McT. Kahin, Intervention
Larry Berman, No Peace, No Honor
Jeffrey Kimball, Nixon's Vietnam War -- Julie
Supplemental
Jeffrey Kimball, The Vietnam
War Files
William Shawcross, Sideshow
Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets
Larry Berman, Planning a Tragedy
Bruce Franklin, M.I.A. or Mythmaking
in America
Lawrence Freedman, Kennedy's Wars
Robert McNamara, In
Retrospect
Philip Catton, Diem's Final
Failure
Week
13: After Vietnam
Common: Symposia on The End of the Cold War,
Diplomatic History, Winter
1992
and Spring 1992; Roundtable on The American Century, (Luce,
Hunt, Berghahn,
Brands,
Cumings,
Hodgson,
Hoff,
Horne,
Iriye,
Jervis,
Kroes,
LaFeber,
Lundestad,
Rosenberg,
Smith)
Diplomatic
History, Spring 1999 and Summer 1999; Andrew Battista, "Unions
and Cold
War in the 1980s," Diplomatic
History,
Summer 2002; Frank Costigliola, "Lyndon B.
Johnson, Germany and 'The End of the Cold War'," in Warren Cohen
and Nancy Tucker, eds, Lyndon
Johnson Confronts the World; "New Evidence on the End of the
Cold War," CWIHP Bulletin, Issue
12/13
Individual
Jeremy Suri, Power and Protest
Joan Hoff, Nixon Reconsidered
Rick
Perlstein, Before the Storm:
Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus
Raymond Garthoff, Detente And
Confrontation : American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan --
Albert
William Bundy, A Tangled Web
Michael Klare, Rogue States and
Nuclear Outlaws -- Amanda
Theodore Draper, A Very Thin Line
David Halberstam, War in a Time of
Peace
Richard Ned LeBow and
Janice Gross
Stein, We All Lost the Cold
War -- Ramiro
Tariq Ali, A Banker for All Seasons --
Mahdi
Supplemental
John Lewis Gaddis, We Know Now
Noam Chomsky, World Orders Old and New
Seymour Hersh, The Price of Power
Kai Bird, The Color of Truth
Raymond Bonner, Weakness and Deceit
Bob Woodward, The Commanders
Jean Edward Smith, George Bush's War
Warren Christopher, In the Stream of
History
George Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A
World Transformed
Week 14: Current
Crises
Noam Chomsky, "Old Wine, New Bottles";
Noam Chomsky, "Market Democracy in a Neoliberal Order," Pretexts, 1998;
Noam Chomsky, "The Passion for Free Markets" Pratap
Chatterjee, Halliburton's Army
Individual
Walter LaFeber, Michael Jordan and the
New Global Capitalism , and
Joseph Stiglitz, Globalization and Its
Discontents
William Greider, One World, Ready or
Not -- Jeffrey
Norman Finkelstein, Image and Reality
of the Israel-Palestine Conflict
Thomas
Ricks, Fiasco
Rajiv
Chandrasekaran, Imperial Life in the
Emerald City
Tariq Ali, The Clash of Fundamentalisms -- Mahdi
Immanuel Wallerstein, The Decline of
American Power
Noam Chomsky, Hegemony or
Survival
Noam Chomsky, The New Military
Humanism
Chalmers Johnson, Blowback
Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of
Empire -- Jeffrey
Noreena Hertz, The Silent Takeover:
Global Capitalism and the Death of Democracy
Supplemental
Alan Friedman, Spider's Web
Gabriel Kolko, Another Century of War?
Edward Luttwak, Turbo
Capitalism
Noreena Hertz, The Debt
Threat
Amy Chua, World on Fire: How Exporting
Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability
Andrew J. Bacevich, American Empire
Phyllis Bennis, Before and After
Alfred Eckes and Thomas Zeiler,
Globalization and the American Century
Niall Ferguson, Empire
Final Essays