Problematics in the History of the United States

Objectives

- To gain interpretative instruments that contribute to an understanding of the relation betweem the United States andthe rest of the world, and of North American foreign policy from the end of the second world war to the present.
- To contextualize the processes of decision and internal debates that framed the responses to particular crisis inforeign policy in the period under study;
-To read critically relevant texts (speeches, memoranda, interviews, internal documents and other) that precceded andresulted from the decisions under analysis
-To research and organize, under supervision, a short response on one of the thematical areas of the program.

General characterization

Code

01107009

Credits

6.0

Responsible teacher

Teresa Raquel Nunes Pereira

Hours

Weekly - 4

Total - 168

Teaching language

English

Prerequisites

N/A

Bibliography

BROWN, Seyom, Faces of Power: Constancy and Change in United States Foreign Policy from Truman to Obama.(3rdEdition), New York: Columbia University Press 2015
COOLE, Alexander, Exit from Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order Oxford: Oxford University Press2020
HERRING, George The American Century and Beyond: U.S. Foreign Relations, 1893-2014. Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress 2017
IKENBERRY, John G. Liberal Order and Imperial Ambition: Essays on American Power and World Politics. Cambridge:Polity Press 2006
Kupchan, Charles A. Isolationism: A History of America's Efforts to Shield Itself from the World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020

Teaching method

Theoretical introductory exposition of the basic problematics of the syllabus, as contextualization of the primarysources under analysis, followed by student centered group discussions of those primary sources.

Evaluation method

Continuous assessment - Writing / oral presentation of short research essay (response paper)(40%), Writing of short essays in exam form(60%)

Subject matter

The workings of the American political system
The American isolationist tradition from independece to WWI
The American participation in WWII and the Rosevelt projects of post-war coexistance
The first steps into the Cold War
The economic, military and cultural profiles of containment
Kennedy´s reformed foreigh policy
The involvment in Vietnam
The years of détante
Carter and dilemas of human rights based foreign policy
Reagan and the end of the Cold War
Bush and the parameters of the"New World Order"
Clinton and the reinterpretation of national interest
September 11 and the George W. Bush response
Tendencies and priorities of Barack Obama´s foreign policy
The challenges of the new isolationism post-2016

Programs

Programs where the course is taught: