The United States in the Twentieth Century
Code
711121051
Academic unit
Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas
Department
Línguas, Culturas e Literaturas Modernas, Secção de Estudos Ingleses e Norte-Americanos
Credits
6
Teacher in charge
Teresa Botelho da Silva
Weekly hours
4
Teaching language
English
Objectives
a) To identify the American institutions responsible for designing foreign policy and the dynamics of the decision making process;
b) To read critically revelevant texts (speeches, memoranda, interviews, internal documents, traties and other official documents) that prceeded and folowed the decisions under analysis;
c) To acquire a hightened understanding of American foreign policy making from the Truman Doctrine to the first Barack Obama administration, problematizing alternatives and consequences and identifying processes of continuity and change.
d) To research and organize, under supervision, a short critical essay centered on one of the primary texts of the syllabus, to be presented orally.
Prerequisites
Not applicable
Subject matter
1- The American political system and the foreigh policy making institutions
2- The end of WWII and the rooseveltian projects of post-war coexistance;
3- The first steps of the Cold War
4-The militarization of containment
5- Kennedy´s reformist foreign policy
6- The American involvement in Vietnam
7- The years of détante
8- Dilemas of Carter´s human rights foreign policy
Reagan and the end of the Cold War
10- Bush and parameters of the \"New World Onder\"
11- Clinton and the reinterpretation of the american national objectives
12- 9/11 and the responses of George W. Bush´s administration
13- Tendencies and priorities of Barak Obama´s foreign policy.
Bibliography
Ambrose, Stephen E. and Douglas Brinkeley, Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy since 1938 (9th revised edition) New York: Penguin, 2012
Chittick, William O., American Foreign Policy: A Framework for Analysis. Washington: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2006
Ferguson, Niall, Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire, (2nd ed.) New York: Penguin, 2009
Nye, Joseph, Presidential Leadership and the Ceation of the American Era. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013
Strong, Robert A., Decisions and Dilemas: Case Strudies in Presidential Foreign Policy since 1945. (2nd edition) New York: ME Sharpe, 2005
Zakaria, Fareed, The Post-American World.New York: W.W.Norton, 2008
Teaching method
Theoretical introductory exposition of the basic problematics of the syllabus, as contextualization of the primary sources under analysis, followed by student centered group discussions of those primary sources.
Evaluation method
Oral presentation of short research essay (40%).
Writing of written short essays in exam form (60%).