International and Area Studies 150
Market Empire and American
Foreign Intervention
Professor Patrick Iber
Spring 2015 / MWF 11-12 / 122 Wheeler
Office Hours: Stephens 140, Friday 12-2
The foreign policy of the United States has been shaped,
since the beginning of the twentieth century, by the country’s position as the
preeminent defender of capitalism, which its leaders generally consider both
an ethical system as well as one of political economy. But how often have its
interventions worked? What were their long-term consequences? This course will
look at the history of U.S. foreign interventions from a political economy
perspective—not only from the point of view of U.S. policy elites, but also
from the “outside in,” by those who managed and resisted U.S. rule.
Course texts:
Emily S. Rosenberg, Spreading
the American Dream: American Economic and Cultural Expansion, 1890-1945,
(New York: Hill and Wang, 1982), 0809001462,
978-0809001460, $21.
Nick Cullather, Secret
History: The CIA’s Classified Account of Its Operations in Guatemala 1952-1954,
2nd ed., (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006), 0804754683, 978-0804754682, $19.
Graham Greene, The
Quiet American, (New York: Penguin Classics, 2004), 0143039024, 978-0143039020, $16.
Mark Atwood Lawrence, The
Vietnam War: A Concise International History, (New York; Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2010), 0199753938,
978-0199753932 , $15
Rajiv Chandrasekharan, Imperial
Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone, (Vintage: New York,
2007), 0307278832, 978-0307278838, $16.
Course schedule:
Week 1: Introduction
W, Jan. 21: Introduction
to the class, syllabus
F, Jan 23: No class meeting
Readings:
Please listen to the “National
Pride, National Shame” debate held between Angela Davis, Richard Rorty, and
Gordon Wood in 2003: http://auroraforum.stanford.edu/event/national-pride-national-shame
Week 2, The Rise of the
United States
M, Jan 26: No class meeting
W, Jan 28: The Rise of the
United States
F, Jan 30: Discussion: What does it mean for the United
States to be an empire?
Readings:
Rosenberg, Spreading the American Dream, 1-62
Mark Twain, “To the Person
Sitting in Darkness”
Odd Arne Westad, Chapter
1, “The Empire of Liberty,” in The Global
Cold War, 8-38
Week 3, Dollar Diplomacy
M, Feb 2: Dollar Diplomacy
W, Feb 4: Primary
documents: Smedley Butler
F, Feb 6: Instructor-led debate
Readings:
Rosenberg, Spreading the American Dream, 63-160
Alan McPherson, The Invaded, 53-58, 73-90, 213-237
Week 4, Anti-Fascism
M, Feb. 9: Good Neighbor
Policies
W, Feb. 11: World War II
F, Feb. 13: Student-led debate
Reading:
Henry Luce, “The American
Century”
Rosenberg, Spreading the American Dream, 161-234
Benn Steil, “Red White,” http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/138847/benn-steil/red-white
Benn Steil, “How Dollar
Diplomacy Spelled Doom for the British Empire,” http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2013-03-06/how-dollar-diplomacy-spelled-doom-for-the-british-empire
Week 5: Constructing Anti-Communism
M, Feb. 16: No Classes
W, Feb. 18: Post-war
Europe and Japan
F, Feb. 20: Student-led debate
Readings:
David Riesman, “The Nylon
War,” Common Cause 4, no. 7 (February
1951): 379-385.
Paul Nitze, NSC-68, http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsc-hst/nsc-68.htm
Victoria de Grazia, Irresistible Empire, 1-15, 336-375
Mire Koikari, “Exporting
Democracy?: American Women, ‘Feminist Reforms,’ and the Politics of Imperialism
in the U.S. Occupation of Japan, 1945-1952,” Frontiers 23, no. 1 (2002): 23-45.
Week 6: The First Cold War
Interventions: Guatemala and Iran
M, Feb. 23: Covert
Intervention
W, Feb. 25: Guatemala and
Iran
F, Feb. 27: Student-led debate
Reading:
Cullather, Secret History
Week 7: Vietnam I
M, Mar. 2: The Vietnam Era
W, Mar. 4: Primary
documents: W.W. Rostow, The Stages of
Economic Growth
F, Mar. 6: Student-led debate
Reading:
Graham Greene, The Quiet American
Week 8: Vietnam II
M, Mar 9: Film: The Fog of War
W, Mar. 11: Film: The Fog of War
F, Mar. 13: Student-led debate
Reading: Mark Atwood
Lawrence, The Vietnam War
Week 9, Chile
M, Mar. 16: The World of
Henry Kissinger
W, Mar. 18: Film: The Trials of Henry Kissinger
F, Mar. 20: Student-led debate
“Project FUBELT,” pp.
1-35, 47-48, 58-61 and “Destabilizing Democracy: The United States and the
Allende Government,” pp. 79-115, 138-139, 146-149 in Peter Kornbluh, The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on
Atrocity and Accountability, (New York: New Press, 2003).
Fermandois, Joaquin. “The persistence of a myth: Chile in the eye
of the Cold War hurricane.” World Affairs 167, no. 3 (Winter 2005),
101-112.
Juan Gabriel Valdés, Pinochet’s Economists, pp. 16-38
March 24-28: SPRING BREAK
Week 10: Liberation and
Repression in the 1980s
M, Mar. 30: Liberation: Eastern
Europe
W, Apr. 1: Repression:
Central America
F, Apr. 3: Student-led debate
Timothy Garton Ash, The Magic Lantern, 25-46
Carl Bernstein, “The Holy
Alliance,” Time, February 24 1992, http://www.carlbernstein.com/magazine_holy_alliance.php
Greg Grandin, Empire’s Workshop, 52-86
Thomas Sheehan, “Friendly
Fascism: Business as Usual in America’s Backyard,” from Richard J. Golsan, ed.,
Fascism’s Return: Scandal, Revision, and
Ideology since 1980, pp. 260-300.
Week 11: The 1990s
M, Apr. 6: The End of the
Cold War
W, Apr. 8: Unipolarity and
decline?
F, Apr. 10: Student-led debate
Readings:
Emily S. Rosenberg,
“Consumer Capitalism and the end of the Cold War,” 489-512 in Cambridge History of the Cold War, vol.
III.
Victoria de Grazia, Irresistible Empire, “Supermarketing,”
376-415
Daniel Rodgers, Age of Fracture, “The Rediscovery of the
Market,” 41-76
Week 12: The War on Terror
I
M, Apr. 13: The response
to 9/11
W, Apr. 15: Film: The Unknown Known
F, Apr. 17: Film: The Unknown Known
Reading: Chandrasekaran, Imperial Life in the Emerald City [for
next Monday]
Week 13: The War on Terror
II
M, Apr. 20: Student-led debate
W, Apr. 22: Supervised time
to work on projects
F, Apr. 24: Supervised
time to work on projects
Week 14: Group Projects
M, Apr. 27: Poster
presentations
W, Apr. 29: Poster presentations
F, May 1: Summing up
Your grade will be based on the following:
24% Debate brief. Once during the semester, each student will
be responsible for writing a debate brief of 5-7 pages. You should identify a
key controversy raised by the week’s readings. To be a good question, it should
be possible to imagine various reasonable responses to it. Some examples might
be: Is Robert McNamara guilty of war
crimes?, or Did the United States
contribute more to dismantling or to building empire in the 1950s? Your
paper should present your question and lay out a defense of the position you
find most convincing. You may also want to address opposing views and the
reasons you find them less compelling. You may use class readings; you will
likely find it useful to do some outside research, though a lot is not
expected. You should plan to meet with me in the half-hour before the relevant
debate to discuss your question and how we will talk about it during class. You
may then be responsible for leading teams of discussion during in-class debate.
18% Debate and discussion participation.
26% project. Using FRUS documents, or more recent WikiLeaks
materials, you will examine an important aspect of US foreign policy of your
choosing. You will develop a poster or PowerPoint presentation that shows and
interprets the documents in question. Your work will be presented and displayed
during the final week of class. This project may be done alone or in a group,
as long as divisions of labor are clear.
32% final. As required in 100-level courses, there is an
in-class final. Ours is scheduled for May 12, from 7-10pm.
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