LFU:online

At the end of the semester students will have acquired a sure footing in the principal issues concerning American History from the Civil War to the Present, including America’s trajectory to world power status, domestic politics, economic development and principal social issues such as immigration, minority and civil rights.

Students will study the rise of the United States towards world power status and discuss the issue whether the U.S. can be considered a traditional „empire“. Issues such as the growing American military presence in the world after World War II, the cost of American „empire“, the „Americanization“ of the world and the negative reactions American hegemonic statues produced (anti-Americanism). We will also study the principal issue of political economy (American free market capitalism, Fordism, Taylorism), the history of immigration to the U.S., the status of minorities and civil rights social movements.

Lecture and discussions

Course with continuous performance assessment. Successful completion of the course requires several smaller written work assignments. Students will need to pass a final written exam to successfully complete the course.

Bernd Stoever, United States of America: Geschichte und Kultur: Von der ersten Kolonie bis zur Gegenwart (Muenchen: CH Beck 2013) Michael H. Hunt, The American Ascendancy: How the United States Gained and Wielded Global Dominance (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 2009) Jeffrey A. Engel, Mark Atwood Lawrence, Andrew Preston, eds., America in the World: A History in Documents from the War with Spain to the War on Terror (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 2014)

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This course is also considered equivalent to the lecture Basiswissen Zeitgeschichte  I or II for students of the curriculum BA of History ( 2009) and LA GSP (Diplom). A reduced workload will be applied in this case.

Discussion, presentations and final papers can be held/written in German as well