AMH 5905: U.S. Diplomatic History

T 4:00-5:50 pm, AH 105

Instructor: Dr. Kenneth Osgood

Office Hours: MW 1-3 (and by appointment)

Phone: (561) 297-2816

Home: (561) 243-9377

Email: kosgood@fau.edu

Web Site: http://www.fau.edu/~kosgood

* COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This readings course examines several major historiographical issues pertaining to the history of American foreign relations.

* COURSE FORMAT AND REQUIREMENTS:

This is a reading and discussion course, not a lecture course. The major requirements are therefore that you complete the readings before class and participate in discussion.

Each week, you will write a two-page think-piece pertaining to the week’s readings. Begin with a brief summary of the main argument(s) of the reading(s), point out strengths, and raise points of contention, things to think about, contrary ideas, criticisms, etc. If there are multiple readings, or if it connects to other things we have read, you may wish to highlight major points of disagreement or agreement, or state which view you find most persuasive. These mini-essays will form the basis for our discussion. You may be asked (at random) to read your think-piece to the class.

Each week, one or two students will be in charge of leading discussion for the week. When it is your turn, please be prepared to share your mini-essay with the group to initiate the discussion.

REQUIRED TEXTS:

Brands, H. W. Into The Labyrinth: The U.S. and The Middle East 1945-1993 (WCB/McGraw-Hill; ISBN: 0070071888).

Gaddis, John Lewis. We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (Oxford University Press; ISBN: 0198780710).

Kennan, George F. American Diplomacy (University of Chicago Press; ISBN: 0226431479).

LaFeber, Walter. The New Empire : An Interpretation of American Expansion, 1860-1898 (Comstock Pub Assoc; ISBN: 0801485959).

Logevall, Fredrik. Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the Escalation of War in Vietnam (University of California Press; ISBN: 0520229193).

Offner, Arnold. Another Such Victory: President Truman and the Cold War, 1945-1953 (Stanford University Press; ISBN: 0804742545).

Schmitz, David F. Thank God They're On Our Side: The United States and Right-Wing Dictatorships, 1921-1965 (Univ of North Carolina Pr; ISBN: 0807847739).

Smith, Tony. America’s Mission: The United States and the Worldwide Struggle for Democracy in the Twentieth Century (Princeton University Press; ISBN: 069104466X).

Weeks, William. Building the Continental Empire: American Expansion from the Revolution to the Civil War (Ivan R. Dee; ISBN: 156663136x). [Note: this book may be shelved in the bookstore under my undergraduate Diplomatic History course, AMH 4512.]

Williams, William Appleman. The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (W.W. Norton & Company; ISBN: 0393304930).

Articles:

Many of the required articles are available online, and can be downloaded from the library homepages. Links to the electronic version of Diplomatic History articles are provided for recent issues only. Some of the articles from other journals are available online via the library’s JSTOR system. Please be advised: to download the articles you must use a computer on-campus! (So plan ahead).

Those articles that are not available online are in a folder in the History Department. You may copy these, but please leave the folder and articles in the office for the convenience of your classmates.

COURSE SCHEDULE

Week 1 (8/27): Introduction

Week 2 (9/3): Early U.S. Foreign Relations

• William Weeks. Building the Continental Empire.
• Michael Hunt, “The Long Crisis in U.S. Diplomatic History: Coming to Closure,” in Hogan, ed. America in the World: The Historiography of American Foreign Relations Since 1941(Cambridge University Press, 1994), 92-126. (handout)
• Discussion Leader:

Week 3 (9/10): Expansion and Imperialism in the 19^th Century

• Walter LaFeber. The New Empire: An Interpretation of American Expansion, 1860-1898.

• James Field, “American Imperialism: The Worst Chapter in Almost Any Book,” American Historical Review 83 (June 1978): 644-83. [Be sure to read also the responses to Field’s article in the same issue.] (online @ JSTOR)

• Discussion Leader:

Week 4 (9/17): Realism and Idealism

• George F. Kennan, American Diplomacy, 3-106.
• Henry Kissinger, “The Hinge: Theodore Roosevelt or Woodrow Wilson,” in Idem., Diplomacy (Simon & Schuster, 1994), 29-55. (office)

• Arthur S. Link, “The Higher Realism of Woodrow Wilson,” Journal of Presbyterian History XLI (March 1963). (office)

• Discussion Leader:

Week 5 (9/24): The Wisconsin School and the Open Door Thesis

• William Appleman Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy.

• Discussion Leader:

Week 6 (10/1): Wailing and Gnashing Our Teeth: Interpreting Diplomatic History

• John Lewis Gaddis, “Tragedy of Cold War History.” Diplomatic History (Winter 1993): 1-16. (office)
• Bruce Cummings, “‘Revising Postrevisionism’: or, The Poverty of Theory in Diplomatic History.” Diplomatic History (Fall 1993): 539-569. (office)
• Michael Hunt. “Internationalizing U.S. Diplomatic History: A Practical Agenda.” Diplomatic History (Winter 1991): 1-11. (office)
• Robert McMahon, “The Study of American Foreign Relations: National History or International History,” in Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations, Hogan and Paterson, eds. (Cambridge University Press, 1991), 11-24. (office)
• Bemis, Samuel Flagg. “American Foreign Policy and the Blessings of Liberty.” American Historical Review (January 1962): 291-305. (online @ JSTOR)

• Robert Buzzanco. “What Happened to the New Left?” Diplomatic History (Fall 1999): 575-608. (available online)

• Discussion Leader:

Week 7 (10/8): Origins of the Cold War Part I: The New International History

• John Lewis Gaddis, We Now Know.

• Melvyn Leffler, “The Cold War: What Do ‘We Now Know’?” American Historical Review (April 1999): 501-524. (online @ JSTOR)

• Discussion Leader: Jeff Jackson

Week 8 (10/15): Origins of the Cold War Part II: The U.S. Revisited

• Arnold Offner, Another Such Victory.

• Discussion Leader:

Week 9 (10/22): Promoting Democracy?

• Tony Smith. America’s Mission.

• Discussion Leader:

Week 10 (10/29): Subverting Democracy?

• David F. Schmitz. Thank God They're On Our Side: The United States and Right-Wing Dictatorships, 1921-1965.

• Discussion Leader:

Week 11 (11/5): Into the Quagmire: The Vietnam War

• Fredrik Logevall, Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the Escalation of War in Vietnam.

• Discussion Leader:

Week 12 (11/12): The Middle East

• H. W. Brands. Into The Labyrinth: The U.S. and The Middle East 1945-1993.

• Discussion Leader:

Week 13 (11/19): Diplomatic History and Memory

• Robert Jay Lifton and Greg Mitchell, “Commemorating Hiroshima: The Smithsonian Controversy,” in idem., Hiroshima in America: Fifty Years of Denial (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1995), 276-300. (office)
• Paul Boyer, “Hiroshima in American Memory,” Diplomatic History (Spring 1995): 295-318. (office)
• Bruce Cumings, “War Crimes and Historical Memory: The United Nations Occupation of North Korea in 1950,” in Dale Carter and Robin Clifton, eds. War and Cold War in American Foreign Policy, 1942-62 (Palgrave, 2002), 156-178. (office)

• Robert McMahon: “Contested Memory: The Vietnam War and American Society, 1975-2001,” Diplomatic History (Spring 2002): 159-184. (available online)

• Discussion Leader:

Week 14 (11/26: Reflections on the “American Century”

• “The American Century: A Roundtable Parts I & II,” Diplomatic History (Spring 1999 and Summer 1999). (available online)

• Including especially the following:

1. Hogan M.J. “The American Century: A Roundtable (Part I)”
2. Luce H.R. “The American Century”
3. Smith T. “Making the World Safe for Democracy in the American Century”
4. Lundestad G. “‘Empire by Invitation’ in the American Century”
5. Jervis R. “America and the Twentieth Century: Continuity and Change.”
6. LaFeber W. “The Tension between Democracy and Capitalism during the American Century”
7. Cummings B. “The American Century and the Third World.”
8. Hogan M.J. “The American Century: A Roundtable (Part II)”
9. Iriye A. “A Century of NGOs.”
10. Horne G. “Race from Power: U.S. Foreign Policy and the General Crisis of ‘White Supremacy’”
• Discussion Leader:

Week 15 (12/3): TBA