KC Johnson

Required Books:

• Dale Carpenter, Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas (WW Norton, 2013)
• Eric Foner,  Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 (Harper Paperback, 2002)
• Patrick Hagopian, The Vietnam War in American Memory: Veterans, Memorials, and the Politics of Healing (University of Massachusetts Press, 2009)
• David Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 (Oxford History of the United States) (Oxford University Press, 1999)
• Michael Klarman, From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality (Oxford University Press, 2004)
• Matthew Lassiter, The Silent Majority: Suburban Politics in the Sunbelt South (Princeton University Press, 2007)
• Fredrik Logevall, Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam(Random House, 2012)
• David Nasaw, The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life of and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy (Penguin Press, 2012)
• Mae Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (Princeton University Press, 2003)
• Charles Postel, The Populist Vision (Oxford University Press, 2007)
• Daniel Rodgers, Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000)
• Judith Stein, Pivotal Decade: How the United States Traded Factories for Finance in the Seventies (Yale University Press, 2010)
• Thomas Sugrue, Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (Princeton University Press, 1998)
• Sean Wilentz, The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974-2008(Harper, 2008)

Requirements:

• Weekly reading
• Two 1000 word essays (due Tues. at 5, via e-mail, as assigned below) summarizing the review literature on the common assignment and examining the book’s role in the historiography
• Six supplementary book assignments, with bullet-point summary to be posted on the course website
• Final examination at the end of the semester

My Contact Information:

• email: kcjohnson9@gmail.com
• cell: 207-329-8456
• Office Hours, Wed., 6.15-7.15, 5404

Schedule:

Feb. 3: Reconstruction

Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877

Feb. 10: Late 19^th Century

Charles Postel, The Populist Vision (Amanda Brennan)

Supplementary readings:

• Morton Keller, Affairs of State: Public Life in Late Nineteenth Century America (Harvard University Press, 1977) (Alexander Gailing)
• Sven Beckert, The Monied Metropolis: New York City and the Consolidation of the American Bourgeoisie, 1850-1896 (Cambridge University Press, 2001) (Alexander Gambaccini)
• Richard Franklin Bensel, The Political Economy of American Industrialization, 1877-1900 (Cambridge University Press, 2000) (Marc Kagan)

February 17: Progressive Era

Daniel Rodgers, Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age ; Mae Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (Parts 1 and 2) (Alexander Gailing)

supplementary readings:

• Michael McGerr, The Decline of Popular Politics: The American North, 1865-1928 (Oxford University Press, 1986) (Amanda Brennan)
• Robert Wiebe, The Search for Order, 1877-1920 (Hill and Wang, 1966) (Todd Fine)
• Moshik Temkin, The Sacco-Vanzetti Affair: America on Trial (Yale University Press, 2011) (Andrew Lang)

February 24: New Deal, World War II

David Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945; Ngai, Impossible Subjects (Part 3) (Todd Fine)

Supplementary readings:

• Alan Brinkley, End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War (Vintage, 1996) (Alexander Gailing)
• Colin Gordon, New Deals: Business, Labor, and Politics in America, 1920-1935 (Cambridge University Press, 1994) (Alexander Gambaccini)
• William Leuchtenburg, Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal (2009 or earlier editions) (Marc Kagan)

March 2: Mid-Century Race & Gender

Michael Klarman, From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality; Ngai, Impossible Subjects (Part 4) (Alexander Gambaccini)

supplementary readings:

• George Chauncey, Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940 (Basic, 1994) (Amanda Brennan)
• Michael Pfeifer, Rough Justice: Lynching and American Society, 1874-1947 (2004) (Todd Fine)
• Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era (Basic Books, 1990) (Andrew Lang)

March 9: Race, Liberalism & Urbanization

Thomas Sugrue, Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (Andrew Lang)

supplementary readings:

• David Freund, Colored Property: State Policy and White Racial Politics in Suburban America (University of Chicago Press, 2007) (Alexander Gailing)
• Karl Boyd Brooks, Before Earth Day: The Origins of American Environmental Law, 1945–1970 (University of Kansas Press, 2009) (Alexander Gambaccini)
• Owen Gutfreund, Twentieth-Century Sprawl: Highways and the Reshaping of the American Landscape (Oxford University Press, 2005) (Marc Kagan)

March 16: United States & The World

Fredrik Logevall, Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam (Marc Kagan)

supplementary readings:

• Tim Naftali and Alexandr Fursenko, “One Hell of a Gamble“: Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958-1964 (WW Norton, 1997) (Amanda Brennan)
• John Lewis Gaddis,George F. Kennan: An American Life (Penguin, 2011) (Todd Fine)
• Kurkpatrick Dorsey, Whales and Nations: Environmental Diplomacy on the High Seas (University of Washington Press, 2014) (Andrew Lang)

March 23: Transition Day

March 30: The 1970s

Judith Stein, Pivotal Decade: How the United States Traded Factories for Finance in the Seventies (Amanda Brennan)

supplementary readings:

• Jefferson Cowie, Stayin’ Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class(New Press, 2010) (Alexander Gailing)
• Nelson Lichtenstein, State of the Unions: A Century of American Labor(Princeton University Press, 2002) (Alexander Gambaccini)
• William Graebner, Patty’s Got a Gun: Patricia Hearst in 1970s America (University of Chicago Press, 2008) (Marc Kagan)

April 6:  Conservatism

Alan Brinkley, “The Problem of American Conservatism,” American Historical Review, Volume 99, Issue 2 (Apr. 1994), 409-429; Matthew Lassiter, The Silent Majority: Suburban Politics in the Sunbelt South (Alexander Gailing)

supplementary readings:

• Joseph Crespino, In Search of Another Country: Mississippi and the Conservative Counterrevolution (Princeton University Press, 2007) (Amanda Brennan)
• Kevin McMahon, Nixon’s Court: His Challenge to Judicial Liberalism and Its Political Consequences (University Press of Chicago, 2011) (Todd Fine)
• Steven Miller, Billy Graham and the Rise of the Republican South(University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009) (Andrew Lang)

April 13: History & Memory

Patrick Hagopian, The Vietnam War in American Memory: Veterans, Memorials, and the Politics of Healing (Todd Fine)

supplementary readings:

• Philip Napoli, Bringing It All Back Home: An Oral History of New York City’s Vietnam Veterans(Hill and Wang, 2013) (Alexander Gailing)
• Linethal and Engelhardt, eds., History Wars: The Enola Gay and Other Battles for the American Past (Holt, 1996) (Alexander Gambaccini)
• Alessandro Portelli, They Say in Harlan County: An Oral History(Oxford University Press, 2010) (Marc Kagan)

April 20: Recent History                                      

Sean Wilentz, The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974-2008 (Alexander Gambaccini)

Supplementary readings:

• Louis Hyman, Debtor Nation: The History of America in Red Ink (Princeton University Press, 2010) (Amanda Brennan)
• Colin Gordon, Dead on Arrival: The Politics of Health Care in 20^thCentury America (Princeton University Press, 2004) (Todd Fine)
• Susan Levine, School Lunch Politics: The Surprising History of America’s Favorite Welfare Program (Princeton University Press, 2008) (Andrew Lang)

April 27: Spring Break

May 4:  Civil Rights & Civil Liberties

Dale Carpenter, Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas (Andrew Lang)

supplementary readings:

• Lauri Lebo, The Devil in Dover: An Insider Story of Dogma v. Darwin in Small-Town America (New Press, 2009) (Alexander Gailing)
• David Garrow, Liberty and Sexuality: The Right to Privacy and the Making of Roe v. Wade (Berkeley: University of California Press, rev. ed.) (Alexander Gambaccini)
• Kristin Luker, When Sex Goes to School: Warring Views on Sex—And Sex Education—Since the Sixties (WW Norton, 2006) (Marc Kagan)

May 11: History & Biography

David Nasaw, The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life of and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy (Marc Kagan)

supplementary readings:

• Robert Caro, Master of the Senate: Years of Lyndon Johnson, Vol. 3 (Knopf, 2002) (Amanda Brennan)
• Jean Baker, Margaret Sanger: A Life of Passion (Hill and Wang, 2011) (Todd Fine)
• Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-1963 (Simon and Schuster, 1989) (Andrew Lang)

May 18: Review