History 3394-U.S. Foreign Policy  
Bob Buzzanco
buzz@uh.edu

http://vi.uh.edu/pages/buzzmat/buzzanco.htm [or google or yahoo my name]

Grading:

The entire class will be worth 100 points.  There will be a test about halfway through worth 40 points; a take-home paper worth 10 points; a take-home question for the final will be worth 10 points and the final will be worth 40 points.


Books:

Bob Buzzanco, editor, War, Imperialism, and Dissent (referred to as "Documents Book" below), packaged along with Bilton and Sim, Four Hours in My Lai


E-mail List:

I've established an email discussion list that will be mandatory for the class.  To subscribe, send an email to:  history3394-subscribe@yahoogroups.com 
       
You will then get an email back, to which you just have to reply, and you'll then be subscribed.

To post a message, write to:  history3394@yahoogroups.com

Once you are subscribed, I will use this email list to notify you about tests, possible review sessions, and other similar things.  If you have a question about class or about a reading, you may post it on the discussion list.  It's a great way to have virtual discussions.  In fact, I expect you all to contribute to class discussions by posting questions and comments about the lectures and readings.

Remember though: anything posted will go out to the entire class, so if you have a personal question about a grade or something like that, send it directly to me.

I don't use WebCt 


Topics and Readings:

Week 1
    Background: Themes in the Study of U.S. Foreign Policy: Expansion and Markets, Ideology,  Missions, Security;
    The "New Empire" and the Open Door


Documents Book, chapters 1-2
Bob Buzzanco, "What Happened to the New Left," at http://vi.uh.edu/pages/buzzmat/bernathlecture.htm
William Weeks, "American Nationalism, American Imperialism"  

Week 2
     Post-1898 Imperialism and anti-Imperialism; Caribbean Cops; U.S. and Asia; Woodrow Wilson & World War I

Documents Book, chapter 3
The Open Door Notes  
William Appleman Williams, "The Frontier Thesis and American Foreign Policy" 
Bob Buzzanco, essay on Anti-Imperialism, at http://vi.uh.edu/pages/buzzmat/antiimp.html 
Eugene Debs speech    
W.H. Taft on Dollar Diplomacy   
Woodrow Wilson on "Dollar Diplomacy"
Woodrow Wilson on Mexico

Week 3

    New World Order?; the Postwar World--stabilizatin and crisis; Global Crash; Asia; Good Neighbors or "our  sons-of-bitches"?

    Documents Book, chapter 4

    James Weldon Johnson,  "Self-Determining Haiti"  [part 1,   2,    3,    4]
    John Maynard Keynes,  "National Self-Sufficiency"  

   

Week 4
    Aggression in Europe; the Legend of Isolationism

  
   Holger Herwig, "Clio Deceived: Conquest, Foreign and Domestic, in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany"
  Thomas Ferguson, "From Normalcy to New Deal"
   FDR,  "I Hate War . . . "   

Week 5
    Preparing for War; Strategy, Warfare, and Politics; War in the Pacific and The Bomb; Roots of the Cold War;
    Planning for Postwar Hegemony

   
Vladimir Pechatnov, "The Big Three After World War II"         
 The Alperovitz Debate
Critics of the Bomb 


Week 6
    The American Hard-Line; Europe Divided; Escalation and Power; Containing Latin America; "Losing" China;
    Labor and Cold War

    Documents Book, chapter 5
    "This is Not a Politburo, but a Madhouse"  

 

Week 7

    The National Security State; NSC-68; Korea, Iran, Guatemala; Arab Nationalism

    Benjamin Fordham, "Domestic Politics, International Pressure, and Policy Change: The Case of NSC-68"
    Michael T. Hayes, "The Republican Road Not Taken: The Foreign-Policy Vision of Robert A. Taft"

   

Week 8

    Nasserism; Eastern Europe; China

    Documents Book, chapter 7
   




Christian Ostermann, "The United States, the East German Uprising of 1953, and the Limits of Rollback"
Vladimir Zubok, "Krushchev and the Berlin Crisis,"    
Csaba Bekes, "New Findings on the 1956 Hungarian Revolution"
 "Warsaw Pact Military Planning,"
L.W. Gluchowski,  "Poland, 1956,"
 "Hungary and Poland, 1956"
"1953 GDR Uprising,"  [page 10]
 "1956 Hungarian Crisis"[page 22]
Mark Kramer,  "Special Feature: New Evidence on the 1956 Polish and Hungarian Crises"

Week 9-10
   
    Vietnam
   
    Bilton and Sim,  Four Hours in My Lai
    Documents Book, chapter 6
    Buzzanco, "Fear and (Self-) Loathing in Lubbock, or How I Learned to Quit Worrying and Love Vietnam and Iraq"   (responses by Taylor, and Miller)
    Buzzanco,    "The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1968: Capitalism, Communism, and Containment"

    If you want background, see Bob Buzzanco, Vietnam and the Transformation of American Life [online, click here] 

Week 11

  Eisenhower and Kennedy; JFK and Cuba

 

Week 12

 Alliance for Progress?; Nixon, Arms Sales, and Economic Crisis

 Documents Book, chapter 7
  

Week  13

    Carter's Cold War; Reagan and Gorbachev; Terrorism in Central America; War on Drugs

   


Week 14

    The Middle East; Palestine; Nationalism; Iraq; Afghanistan

    Documents Book, chapter 8
    James Carter, "War Profiteering from Vietnam to Iraq" 
    Stiglitz and Bilmes  "The Economic Costs of the Iraq War: An Appraisal Three Years After the Beginning of the Conflict"

   

I will notify the class via the e-mail list if there are any changes to this schedule.



 

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