AMERICAN HISTORY SINCE 1945:
Restorea series of lectures offered at Corvinus University, Budapest,
the HabsburgMonday evenings, February-April 2014,
…………dynastyby Richard Major
Mondays 19:10-20:40, room C426 (not 429!)
The week-by-week class-notes are gathered together in one place here.
Lecturer: Dr Richard Major
telephone 0670 364 3877, richard.major@magd.oxon.org
Szakkollegium contact:
Milan Horvath
telephone 0036-30-432-28-29 horvath.milan@heller.uni-corvinus.hu
....................3 February
....................before 1945:
....................America and the world at the end of the war
1945 in global economic history;
the end of isolationism and World War II,
the Soviet alliance, conquest,
decolonisation.
....................Class notes
....................Other resources: the history of the global economy;
.................... George Washington's farewell address: see paragraphs 35-42 for the classic statement of American isolationism;
....................An excellent article by Arnold Beichman about Roosevelt's naivete, or frivolity, or silliness, about Stalin, and his consequent surrender of Central Europe to Bolshevism (skip to noblisse oblige). More of the same by Dennis Dunn.
....................By way of balance, here's an innocent and admiring television documentary about Roosevelt and the war (begin at 38'15"); this more hardbitten documentary by the Cold War International History Project has some excellent footage of Yalta and Potsdam (start at 30'13").
....................10 February
....................1945-1949:
....................the sudden American Empire
....................Class notes
....................Resources: George Kennan's Long Telegram (1946) and the X Article (1947); NSC-68.
.................... Here is a lightweight documentary on the presidency of Truman (stop at 8'25")
....................17 February
....................1945-1973:
....................American society in an age of affluence
Post-industrial capitalism,
Bretton Woods and the gold standard,
civil rights, suburbia, the oil shocks
....................Class notes
....................Resources: punctuated growth; the long bull market
....................24 February
....................1945-1962:
....................America in pictures
....................The witness of the movies: Hollywood and the golden age of capitalism.
.......American film was not merely boosterish, even in the Fifties. It also reflected the other side of post-war American history: global rivalry with Communism and the atomic peril. Here is a taste of the The cinema of the Cold War.
......Finally, American cinema also expresses themes of social and sexual discontent. Here is the self-consciously rancid The Graduate (1967); Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) - here is the trailer - and The Night of the Iguana (1964), both glorious camp horrors (They were down there to film The Night of the Iguana / With a star-studded cast and a technical crew. / They did things at night midst the flora and fauna / That no self-respecting iguana would do.)
....................3 March
....................1954-1963:
....................The Cold War: schism & terror, escalation & containment
Eisenhower and the imperial presidency; de-Stalinisation,
the space race, Kennedy's interventionism: Cuba and Vietnam;
global rivalry and nuclear terror;the Berlin airlift, NATO;
China, Korea, McCarthyism.
....................Class notes
....................Resources: American defence spending; the BBC Cold War archives
....................For some lovely footage about the last years of Stalinism, Alger Hiss and the Hollywood Ten, see episode II of the Cold War International History Project (to 10'02") - you have to take show business very very seriously to care about scriptwriters not getting work, or Paul Robeson solacing Stalin with Ole Man River, but if you do, you do. The hollow pumpkins and the jowls of Nixon are zany, too.
....................10 March
....................1968-1980:
....................The turmoil of the 'Sixties and malaise of the 'Seventies
Riots, cultural chaos, assassinations,
the Great Society and the economic limits of welfarism;
1968 and the degeneracy of the young, Nixon, detente,
the oil shock, inflation,
Watergate, the fall of Saigon, Carter, despair
....................Class notes
....................Resources: America's share of the global economy; a historical graph of American recessions; the history of inflation in America; oil prices since 1861
....................17 March
....................1980-1989:
....................The reversal of the 'Eighties
Reagan: the end of the postwar consensus,
the end of detente, renewed Cold War,
permanent deficits
....................Class notes
....................24 March
....................1989-1991:
....................The end of the revolutionary era
Crisis in socialism, end of the Warsaw Pact,
Afghanistan,
prosperity, the 'end of history'
....................Class notes
....................Resources: the American share of world economy
....................A more impressionistic cartoon image of the course of the Cold War.
....................31 March
....................1991-2001:
....................The New World Order
America again the sole super-power;
capitalism's monopoly;
the first Gulf War;
Soviet dissolution
....................Class notes
....................Resources: the Federal Debt
....................7 April
....................2001-2014, and beyond:
....................A clash of civilisations?
The historic role of Islam; 1492; The Near East, Zionism, political Islam;
9/11; the War on Terror and the Second Gulf War.
The American Age and the centuries.
Inevitable economic decline?
Empire? Decadence?
....................Class notes, parts I and II.
....................Resources: dominating the world economy; on to 2050; what Chinese submarines can still do.
....................14 April
....................finale:
....................THE EXAM
A one-hour paper, mainly factual, three short paragraphs required
Comments or questions
Widget is loading comments...