Contact Information:
Tel: 700 5664
Room: Q128
E-Mail: gary.murphy@dcu.ie

Course Description
Assessment
Reading List
Research Resources

Course Description
The aim of this module is to develop an understanding of the emergence of modern America from its agricultural origins to the industrial superpower it is today. To analyse the events and personalities that have fashioned contemporary America, both politically and economically.

Students should acquire an informed insight into the forces that have shaped modern America. They will gain a thorough understanding of the emergence of the United States from its humble beginnings to the hegemonic position it holds in world society today.

 The American Revolution: Thirteen Colonies, War, Peace, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights

The American Constitution: Its commitment to freedom assessed against the background of slavery, sectionalism, secession and the Civil War

Social Change and Political Order: The exclusion of the black minority from the political process between 1877 and 1914 and the imposition of white dominance in the South

The impact of economic growth on American Society between the Civil War and World War One.  Populism, Progressivism, the rising hostility of farmers and labourers to industrialisation

Manifest Destiny: The role of the United States in the wider world: World War One and Two

1920s America: The Jazz age, the business of America is business

Political Change and Government Intervention: Growth of government power as a response to the great depression after 1929; Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal

The Nature of Political Power in Post War America: The civil rights movement, the welfare state and the disruption of political order in the early 1960s

The Nixon Presidency: Scandal and corruption as America enters a new era

Ronald Reagan and the Re-emergence of Conservative America

Assessment
This course will be examined  by a combination of assessnent (80%) and class presentation  (20%).

Reading List:

The basic and best text for this course is Hugh Brogan’s ‘The Longman History of the United States of America, 2nd edition’ Longman 1999
 

Other Useful Readings:
 

• Ambrose, Stephen E., Rise to globalism: American foreign policy since 1938 (New York, 1993)
• Brogan, Hugh, The Penguin history of the United States of America (London, 1985)
• Dethloff, Henry C, The United States and the global economy since 1945 (New York, 1997)
• Foner, Eric, America's Reconstruction : people and politics after the Civil War (Baton Rouge, 1997)
• Garson, Robert A, The uncertain power: a political history of the United States since 1929 (Manchester, 1990)
• Hofstadter, Richard, The age of reform: from Bryan to F.D.R (London, 1962)
• Link, Arthur S, The Twentieth Century: an American history, (Illinois, 1983)
• Marte, Gordon, (ed.), American foreign relations reconsidered, 1890-1993 (New York, 1994)
• May, Ernest R,  Imperial Democracy : the emergence of America as a great power (New York, 1973)
• McPherson, James M, The abolitionist legacy: from Reconstruction to the NAACP (Princeton, 1995)
• McPherson, James M, Battle cry of freedom: the Civil War era (New York, 1988)
• Nye, Joseph S., Bound to lead  : the changing nature of American power (New York, 1991)
• Vernon, Raymond, Beyond globalism: remaking American foreign economic policy (New York, 1989)
• Rozell Mark J. and William D. Pederson, FDR and the modern presidency :leadership and legacy (Connecticut, 1997)
• Schlesinger, Arthur M,  The cycles of American history (London, 1987)
• Schlesinger, Arthur M, The Imperial Presidency (London, 1973)
• Wiebe, Robert H, The search for order, 1877-1920, (New York, 1967)
• Winkler, Allan M, Modern America : the United States from World War II to the present (New York, 1985)

Research Resources:
•  A look at US Presidential Election campaigns since 1948
•  A guide to US Presidents
• A collection of history related resources.
•  An overview of twentieth Century history.
• A collection of resources on the depression and New Deal.
• A  most comprehensive American history site
• The best American Civil War site
• A comprehensive guide to American Foreign Policy