Troubled Empire: The Projection of American Global Power from Pearl Harbor to Covid-19
| Code | School | Level | Credits | Semesters |
| AMCS3074 | American and Canadian Studies | 3 | 20 | Autumn UK |
- Code
- AMCS3074
- School
- American and Canadian Studies
- Level
- 3
- Credits
- 20
- Semesters
- Autumn UK
Summary
This module will challenge students to critically engage with the period that Henry Luce referred to as the 'American Century'. It will cover a range of case studies between Luce’s injunction and the subsequent US entry into World War Two in 1941 and the recent twin-crises marked by the 2008 Great Recession and the Covid-19 global pandemic. In doing so, it will prompt students to consider both the projection of American power on a global scale after 1941 and the considerable challenges that this project faced. Incorporating a series of focused case studies and reflections on the wider contexts relating to them, it will give students first-hand experience of weighing up the practical challenges US policymakers faced and the way that historians have subsequently assessed their efforts and understood their actions. It will make extensive use of recent scholarship that has upended the idea that, in an age when it was the world’s leading power, the US was able to effortlessly project its influence all over the globe. Rather, it will demonstrate the innate limits of America’s global project and chart the considerable difficulties that US policymakers confronted in seeking to bend the world to their will. It will conclude with some reflections on the present state of US power. The case studies it will include are: 1) 1940 and American Globalism; 2) The Bandung Conference, the Global Race Revolution, and the Cold War; 3) The Vietnam Wars; 4) The 1973 Oil Shocks and Globalization; 5) Iran-Contra, the CIA, and Ronald Reagan’s Cold War in the Global South; 6) The Great Recession and Covid-19.
Target Students
Available to Final Year SH and JH American and Canadian Studies students, Liberal Arts students and History students. Available to exchange students hosted by the School of CLAS.
Classes
- One 2-hour lecture per week for 11 weeks
- One 1-hour seminar per week for 11 weeks
Format of classes may need to change depending on whether we are teaching remotely, face-to-face, or some hybrid of the two.
Assessment
- 65% Coursework 1: 3000 word essay
- 35% Project 1: 1500 word research essay proposal
- 35% Project 1: 1500 word research essay proposal
Assessed by end of autumn semester
Educational Aims
(a) to explore the varied forms, sites, and ideational principles that have governed the practice contemporary American foreign policymaking and to place these in historical, regional, global, and trans/national context.(b) to identify patterns of change and continuity in US foreign policymaking across time and space, with reference to the increasing diversity and reach of instruments of US global power and the extent to which these have been subject to challenge.(c) to consider the varied uses of American diplomacy and foreign policymaking, its social, martial and governmental significance, and relationship to political ideologies and institutions.(d) to develop interdisciplinary and theoretical approaches to understanding the practice of US foreign policymaking.Learning Outcomes
a) Knowledge and understanding:
- to understand the varied forms, significance, and historical context of contemporary foreign policymaking
b) Intellectual skills:
- to develop a critical approach to a variety of source material and theoretical debates and concepts, and to communicate these skills in both written and oral form
c) Professional skills:
- to develop written communication and independence in identifying and selecting appropriate research material from a variety of sources
d) Transferable skills:
- to organise and articulate ideas through written and oral communication and to improve group interaction and time management.