Degree | Type | Year |
---|---|---|
2504216 Contemporary History, Politics and Economics | OB | 2 |
You can view this information at the end of this document.
There is none.
This course aims at giving an overview of the American Political History from the end of World War II to the present day. The period coincides with the rise of Washington to its status as a world superpower. Therefore, the course is also useful in order to have better understanding of the History of International Relations during the second half of the 20th century. At the same time, aspects of Economic History, Social History and Cultural History will also be covered.
The course will prioritize the study of historical episodes that may be useful for understanding current affairs and for integrating historical knowledge into a global vision of the social sciences.
1. Introduction: From Isolationism to Bretton Woods.
2. The post-war economy and the beginning of the Cold War.
3. Civil rights, Vietnam and the divisions of the 1960s.
4. Oil crises and the rise of neoliberalism.
5. From the end of the Cold War to the Great Recession of 2008.
6. Epilogue: Obama, Trump and the new political polarization.
Title | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
---|---|---|---|
Type: Directed | |||
Lectures | 45 | 1.8 | 1, 4, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 20, 24, 25 |
Reading and understanding academic papers | 5 | 0.2 | 2, 4, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 19, 23, 24, 26 |
Type: Supervised | |||
Conducting reviews and drafting analytical papers | 30 | 1.2 | 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 |
Type: Autonomous | |||
Individual study | 38 | 1.52 | 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 21, 22, 23, 25 |
- Lectures.
- Debates and discussions.
- Reading and understanding academic papers.
- Learning to compile historical information.
- Conducting reviews and drafting analytical papers.
- Individual study.
Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.
Title | Weighting | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
---|---|---|---|---|
Final work | 40% | 22 | 0.88 | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25 |
Final written exam | 50% | 2 | 0.08 | 1, 2, 5, 10, 11, 14, 15, 21, 23 |
Partcipation in class | 10% | 8 | 0.32 | 2, 6, 11, 12, 22, 26 |
CONTINOUS ASSESSMENT
1) Final written exam: 50%. The exam will focuse on the required readings of the course. It will be necessary to demonstrate a correct understanding of the content of the readings, as well as one's own personal intellectual judgement when analyzing them.
2) Final work: 40%. The work will be an analysis of a historical episode related to the syllabus, with a maximum length of 10 pages. The diversity of sources used and the analytical and research capacity will be assessed.
3) Participation in class: 10%. The student will be able to choose a compulsory reading in order to do an oral and group presentation. Contributions to the debates after these presentations will also be assessed.
SINGLE ASSESSMENT
The single evaluation option will consist of a written exam with general questions (50%), a case study (25%) and a source analysis exercise (25%).
RELATED MATTERS
Students will obtain a “Not assessed/Not submitted” course grade unless they have submitted more than 30% of the assessment items.
On carrying out each evaluation activity, lecturers will inform students of the procedures to be followed for reviewing all grades awarded, and the date on which such a review will take place.
In order to participate in the supplementary exam, the student must have been previously evaluated in a set of activities whose weight is equivalent to a minimum of 2/3 of the total grade and must have obtained, at least, a 3.5 in the final grade.
In the event of a student committing any irregularity that may lead to a significant variation in the grade awarded to an assessment activity, the student will be given a zero for this activity, regardless of any disciplinary process that may take place. In the event ofseveral irregularities in assessment activities of the same subject, the student will be given a zero as the final grade for this subject.
COMPULSORY READINGS
Eric FONER, "Why Is There No Socialism in the United States?", History Workshop, No. 17 (Spring, 1984), pp. 57-80.
Michael J. SANDEL, Democracy's Discontent. America in Search of a Public Philosophy, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, pp. 250-273.
Emily S. ROSENBERG, "Consuming Women: Images of Americanization in the "American Century"", Diplomatic History, Vol. 23, No. 3 (Summer 1999), pp. 479-497.
Peter NOVICK, The Holocaust in American Life, Cambridge, Boston, Houghton, 1999, pp. 127-145.
Elaine Tyler MAY, "Cold War—Warm Hearth: Politics and the Family in Postwar America", in Steve FRASER and Gary GERSTLE, The Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order, 1930-1980, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1989, pp. 153-181.
MALCOLM X and ALEX HALEY, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, New York, Random House, 2015, pp. 430-501.
Daniel J. SARGENT, A Superpower Transformed. The Remaking of American Foreign Relations in the 1970s, New York, Oxford University Press, 2015, pp. 198-228.
Richard RORTY, Achieving Our Country. Leftist Thought in Twentieth-century America, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1999, pp. 75-107.
Gary GERSTLE, The rise and fall of the neoliberal order: America and the world in the free market era, New York, Oxford University Press, 2022, pp. 189-229.
Michael KAZIN, "Trump and American Populism: Old Whine, New Bottles", Foreign Affairs, Vol. 95, No. 6 (November/December 2016), pp. 17-24.
GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
Aurora BOSCH, Historia de los Estados Unidos, Barcelona: Crítica, 2010.
Mike DAVIS, Prisoners of the American dream: politics and economy in the history of the US working class, New York: Verso Books, 2018.
Roxanne DUNBAR-ORTIZ, La historia indígena de Estados Unidos, Madrid: Capitán Swing, 2018.
Barry EICHENGREEN, Hall of Mirrors. The Great Depression, the Great Recession, and the uses -and misuses- of history, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Eric FONER, La Historia de la libertad en EE. UU., Barcelona: Península, 2010.
Richard HOFSTADTER, La tradición política norteamericana y los hombres que la formaron, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1984.
Maurice ISSERMAN and Michael KAZIN, America divided: the civil war of the 1960s, New York: Oxford University Press, 2021.
Michael KAZIN, American dreamers: how the Left changed a nation, New York: Vintage, 2012.
Gabriel KOLKO, El siglo de las guerras: política, conflictos y sociedad desde 1914, Barcelona: Paidós Ibérica, 2005.
Melvyn P LEFFLER, Safeguarding democratic capitalism: U.S. foreign policy and national security, 1920-2015, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020.
Jill LEPORE, The story of America: essays on origins, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012.
James T. PATTERSON, El gigante inquieto: Estados Unidos de Nixon a G.W. Bush, Barcelona: Crítica, 2006.
David MACIEL, Juan GÓMEZ-QUIÑONES y Richard GRISWOLD DEL CASTILLO (coordinadores), La creación de la nación chicana: perspectivas historiográficas, Ciudad de México: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 2018.
Amy C. OFFNER, Sorting out the mixed economy: the rise and fall of welfare and developmental states in the Americas, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021.
W. J. RORABAUGH, Kennedy y el sueño de los sesenta, Barcelona: Paidós, 2005.
Daniel J SARGENT, A superpower transformed:the remaking of American foreign relations in the 1970s, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
Thomas J. SUGRUE, Not Even Past: Barack Obama and the Burden of Race, Princeton: Princeton University Press 2010.
John A. THOMPSON, A Sense of Power: The Roots of America's Global Role, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2016.
Wyatt C WELLS, American capitalism, 1945-2000: continuity and change from mass production to the information society, Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2003.
Odd Arne WESTAD, La Guerra Fría, Barcelona: Galaxia Gutenberg, 2018.
---
Name | Group | Language | Semester | Turn |
---|---|---|---|---|
(PAUL) Classroom practices | 50 | English | first semester | morning-mixed |
(TE) Theory | 50 | English | first semester | afternoon |