KC Johnson

US Foreign Relations (fall 2023)

This course explores American foreign relations from the Progressive Era to the present day. The course will be structured as a combination of lectures (on-line, asynchronous, via snippets) and synchronous small-group meetings.

Requirements:

  • Final exam (30%)
  • NSC Group Participation (30%)
  • Quizzes [from lecture snippets] (20%)
  • Participation (20%)

Contact Info:

Office: Zoom, M11.30-1; T12.15-2, F11-12: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82246646081

email: kcjohnson9@gmail.com; text: 207-329-8456

All journal articles will be emailed, and each class also will feature additional reading from primary sources.

Schedule:

Week 1:

August 28 (synchronous).  Introduction

lecture snippets posted to YouTube as of evening of 8-28. Quiz with question/comment back to me by 8-31.

Week 2 (one class session–asynchronous only–b/c college calendar only one class scheduled for M/W classes this week).

asynchronous: Progressivism

lecture snippets posted to YouTube as of evening of 9-3. Quiz with question/comment back to me by 9-7.

Reading

  • Nancy Mitchell, “The Height of the German Challenge: The Venezuela Blockade, 1902–3,” Diplomatic History 20 (1996), pp. 185-210.
  • Mary Barton, “The Global War on Anarchism: The United States and International Anarchist Terrorism, 1898–1904,” Diplomatic History 39 (2015), pp. 303-330.

Week 3: 1910s

asynchronous: World War I & the League of Nations

lecture snippets posted to YouTube as of evening of 9-10. Quiz with question/comment back to me by 9-14

synchronous session: reading discussion

  • Ross A. Kennedy, “Woodrow Wilson, World War I, and American National Security,” Diplomatic History 25 (2001), pp. 1-32.
  • Gerwarth and Manela, “The Great War as a Global War: Imperial Conflict and the Reconfiguration of World Order, 1911–1923,” Diplomatic History 38 (2014), pp. 788-800.
  • Emily Rosenberg, “World War I, Wilsonianism, and Challenges to U.S. Empire,” Diplomatic History 38 (2014), pp. 852-863.
  • League-related documents & maps

Week 4: Interwar Era

asynchronous: Interwar Diplomacy

lecture snippets posted to YouTube as of evening of 9-17. Quiz with question/comment back to me by 9-21

synchronous session: reading discussion

  • William Walker III, “Crucible for Peace: Herbert Hoover, Modernization, and Economic Growth in Latin America,” Diplomatic History 30 (2006), pp. 83-117.
  • Joseph Fronczak, “Local People’s Global Politics: A Transnational History of the Hands Off Ethiopia Movement of 1935,” Diplomatic History 39 (2015), pp. 247-274.
  • documents

Week 5: 1936-1941

asynchronous: Path to U.S. entry into World War II

lecture snippets posted to YouTube as of evening of 9-24. Quiz with question/comment back to me by 9-28

synchronous: reading discussion

  • Eric Paul Roorda, “Genocide Next Door: The Good Neighbor Policy, the Trujillo Regime, and the Haitian Massacres of 1937,” Diplomatic History 20, pp. 301-320.
  • Douglas M. Charles, “Informing FDR: FBI Political Surveillance and the Isolationist-Interventionist Foreign Policy Debate, 1939–1945 Diplomatic History 24 (2000), pp. 211-232.
  • documents

Week 6: 1941-1950

asynchronous: World War II & Aftermath

lecture snippets posted to YouTube as of evening of 10-1. Quiz with question/comment back to me by 10-5

synchronous: reading discussion

  • Sarah Ellen Graham, “American Propaganda, the Anglo-American Alliance, and the ‘Delicate Question’ of Indian Self-Determination,” Diplomatic History 33 (2009), pp. 223-259.
  • Marc Trachtenberg, “The United States and Eastern Europe in 1945: A Reassessment,” Journal of Cold War Studies 10, pp. 94-132.
  • documents

Week 7: 1950-1960

asynchronous: The Militarization of the Cold War

lecture snippets posted to YouTube as of evening of 10-8. Quiz with question/comment back to me by 10-12

synchronous: reading discussion

  • Michelle Getchell, “Revisiting the 1954 Coup in Guatemala,” Journal of Cold War Studies 17 (2015), pp. 73-101.
  • Robert Frazier, “Kennan, ‘Universalism,’ and the Truman Doctrine,” Journal of Cold War Studies, Volume 11, pp. 3-34.
  • documents

Week 8: 1961-1964

asynchronous: The High Cold War

lecture snippets posted to YouTube as of evening of 10-15. Quiz with question/comment back to me by 10-19

synchronous: reading discussion

  • David Coleman, “The Missiles of November, December, January, February . . . : The Problem of Acceptable Risk in the Cuban Missile Crisis Settlement,” Journal of Cold War Studies 9.3 (2007), pp. 5-48.
  • Thomas Allcock, “Becoming “Mr. Latin America”: Thomas C. Mann Reconsidered,” Diplomatic History 38 (2014), pp. 1017-34.
  • documents

Week 9: 1964-1968

asynchronous: LBJ and Vietnam

lecture snippets posted to YouTube as of evening of 10-22. Quiz with question/comment back to me by 10-26

synchronous: reading discussion

  • Pierre Aselin, ““We Don’t Want a Munich”: Hanoi’s Diplomatic Strategy, 1965–1968,” Diplomatic History 36 (2012), pp. 547-81.
  • documents

Week 10: 1969-1980

asynchronoys: Nixon, Human Rights

lecture snippets posted to YouTube as of evening of 10-29. Quiz with question/comment back to me by 11-2

synchronous: reading discussion

  • Evelyn Goh, “Nixon, Kissinger, and the ‘Soviet Card’ in the U.S. Opening to China, 1971–1974,” Diplomatic History (2005).
  • Tanya Harmer, “Fractious Allies: Chile, the United States, and the Cold War, 1973–76,” Diplomatic History 37 (2013), pp. 109-143.
  • Pat Holt (Foreign Relations Committee staffer) oral history
  • documents

Week 11: 1980s

asynchronous: Crisis and Cold War End

lecture snippets posted to YouTube as of evening of 11-5. Quiz with question/comment back to me by 11-9

  • Evan McCormack, “Freedom Tide,” Journal of Cold War Studies 16 (2014), pp. 60-109.
  • Mark Kramer, “The Collapse of East European Communism and the Repercussions within the Soviet Union (Part 1),” Journal of Cold War Studies, 5.4 (2003), pp. 178-256.
  • documents

Week 12: 1990s

asynchronous: Bush I & Clinton

lecture snippets posted to YouTube as of evening of 11-12. Quiz with question/comment back to me by 11-16

synchronous: reading discussion

  • Batholemew Sparrow, “Realism’s Practitioner: Brent Scowcroft and the Making of the New World Order, 1989–1993,” Diplomatic History 34 (2010), pp. 141-175.
  • Mary Elias Sarotte, “Not One Inch Eastward? Bush, Baker, Kohl, Genscher, Gorbachev, and the Origin of Russian Resentment toward NATO Enlargement in February 1990,” Diplomatic History 34 (2010), pp. 119-140.
  • documents

Week 13: 2000s

(one class only due to college schedule)

asynchronous: Bush & 9/11

lecture snippets posted to YouTube as of evening of 11-19. Quiz with question/comment back to me by 11-23

Week 14: 2010s

Obama and Trump

lecture snippets posted to YouTube as of evening of 11-26. Quiz with question/comment back to me by 11-30

synchronous: reading discussion

  • TBA.
  • documents

Week 15: group presentations

Mock-NSC presentations

TBA: Final Exam

Learning objectives for this course include: (1) ability to read and interpret key historical sources; (2) ability to determine how important themes in U.S. foreign relations change over time; (3) ability to present key historical arguments orally. Item (1) will occur throughout the course; item (2) will occur in the final examination; item (3) will occur in the oral presentation.

This course follows all applicable college policies; see more in:

Click to access 2023-2024-Undergraduate-Bulletin.pdf