HSY2360

Contemporary America: the USA and the American People, 1940- 1992

Ian Mylchreest and Tony Wood

8 points
* One lecture and one 2-hour seminar per week
* Second semester
* Clayton and Peninsula

Objectives This subject examines contemporary US culture and politics since the Second World War in detail. It is intended to provide an introduction to this subject, to impart a body of knowledge about it, and thus to give students an understanding of the contemporary USA and its place in our world.

Synopsis This subject deals with both the international history and the domestic political, economic, social and cultural history of the United States and the American people from the eve of World War Two to the present. The first half is a chronological survey of diplomatic and political developments, including the politics of the cold war at home and abroad, Vietnam and its impact on American society and politics, the arms race and the `military-industrial complex', the `imperial presidency' and Watergate, and post-Watergate politics and foreign relations including the ending of cold war bipolarity with the collapse of the USSR. The second half of the subject deals with two major themes in recent American social history via contrasting studies of women and blacks, then studies affluence and poverty, `culture' versus `counterculture' and `media messages'.

Assessment A tutorial paper (1000 words): 20%
* Long essay using some primary sources but resting mainly on secondary sources (3000 words): 40%
* Examination (2 hours) 40%.

Prescribed texts

Chafe W H and Sitkoff H (eds) A history of our time: Readings on postwar America 3rd edn, OUP, 4th edn., 1995

Recommended texts

Chafe W H The unfinished journey: America since World War Two 2nd edn, OUP, 1991
Gatlin R American women since 1945 Macmillan
Goldfield D R Black, white and southern Louisiana U P
Halberstam D The fifties Fawcett-Columbine, 1993
Hamby A L Liberalism and its challengers: FDR to Reagan 2nd edn, OUP
Lemann N The promised land: The great black migration and how it changed America Macmillan
Matusow A J The unravelling of America: A history of liberalism in the 1960s Harper Torch
Marable M J Race, reform and rebellion: The second reconstruction in black America, 1945- 1990 2nd edn, Mississippi U P
Morgan R The word of a woman: Selected prose 1968- 1992 Virago
Sklar R Movie-made America 2nd edn, Random House, 1992
Walker M The Cold War and the making of the modern world 4th Estate, 1993
Young M B The Vietnam wars, 1945- 1990 Harper-Collins