HY245      One Unit
The United States and the World since 1776

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

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This course explores how the United States has engaged with the world since 1776. After gaining independence from Britain, the United States looked westward, expanding its territory through indigenous dispossession and a pursuit of hemispheric dominance. By the end of the nineteenth century, the United States held overseas colonies. Soon thereafter, it became involved in one, and then a second, world war followed shortly by the Cold War and more recently the “forever wars.” Together we will think broadly about who has been involved in shaping U.S. foreign relations with the world. We will explore decisions made by diplomats and policymakers in Washington as well as the voices of a wide range of people who influenced and resisted U.S. power including missionaries, American Indians, businesspeople, women, workers, and immigrants. Over the course of the semester we ask three key questions: what is the U.S. empire and how did it develop and change over time? How has capitalism shaped and been shaped by U.S. engagement with the world? And how has the history of U.S. relations with American Indians influenced the development and projection of U.S. power?

10 hours of lectures and 10 hours of classes in the Winter Term.
10 hours of lectures and 10 hours of classes in the Autumn Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn and Winter Term.

One essay in the Autumn Term.

1. Walter LeFeber, The American Age: United States Foreign Policy at Home and Abroad, 1750 to the Present (1994)

2. Jane Burbank and Fredrick Cooper, Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference (2010)

3. Brian DeLay, War of A Thousand Deserts: Indian Raids and the U.S.-Mexican War (2008)

4. Emily Rosenberg, Financial Missionaries to the World: The Politics and Culture of Dollar Diplomacy (2003)

5. Kristen Hoganson, American Empire at the Turn of the Twentieth Century: A Brief History with Documents (2016)

6. Erez Manela, The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anticolonial Nationalism (2007).

7. Elizabeth Borgwardt, A New Deal for the World: America’s Vision for Human Rights (2005)

8. Mae Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (2014)

9. Mary Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights (2000)

10. Greg Grandin, Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, The United States and the Rise of the New Imperialism (2007)

Course participation (25%)

Essay (75%, 3000 words)

One essay, 3000 words, 75%, due in the Spring Term.