HIS-204 History of the Modern U.S.
This course explores the major themes and pivotal developments in the political, social, cultural, and economic history of the United States since the Civil War, focusing on both domestic and international affairs. We will examine major eras and transformations such as Reconstruction, the rise of big business and organized labor, Western expansion and imperialism, the Progressive era, the rise of mass culture, the Great Depression and New Deal, World War II and the cold war, the civil rights movement, the Vietnam era, conservatism and the "Reagan Revolution," and the changing place of the United States in the world from the 1970s onward. From multiple perspectives, the course will emphasize the struggles for freedom and conflicts over citizenship in the context of a national political culture that has promised as well as limited equality, democracy, and liberty.