With the events of the past year - including the pandemic, a racial reckoning, and a presidential election unprecedented in many respects - it seems almost imperative that a course that reaches the present begin with that present. These events will be our starting place. Throughout the course we will be interested in situating individuals - including ourselves, our families, our communities - in history.
Our focus will be structured by four broad themes: (1) war time; (2) the consumers' republic; (3) technology and globalization; and (4) citizenship, justice, rights, and belonging. The period from WWII to the present has been fundamentally shaped by war. Ask yourself: Has there been any period in this time not lived in the shadow of war? This reality has shaped every facet of American life and the lives of others around the globe. So too, the "consumers' republic". WWII brought the U. S. out of the depression and ushered in an era of unprecedented American prosperity. But what were the limits of that prosperity and what implications did it have for democracy? We can't think of either war or the consumers' republic without considering technology and globalization. Consider: the atomic bomb, television, transistors, computers, satellites, jet airplanes, container ships, the cell phone. We'll talk about them all. Each of these themes has likewise been bound up in the pursuit of rights, citizenship, justice, and belonging. In every class we will engage one or more of these themes that like interwoven threads give this period in American history its defining structure.