(.5 unit credit)
This course presents a thematic survey of American history from European colonization to the end of the Civil War. Lectures and discussions will examine the nation's colonial origin, the impact of European conquest of the native peoples, the struggle for independence and the formation of the national government, the expansion of a market economy, chattel slavery, the factory system, urbanization, the rise of egalitarianism, the transformation of the American family, religious movements, the beginnings of the women's movement, and the defeat of the southern secession movement and the formation of the American nation.
(.5 unit credit)
This course presents a thematic survey of American history from Reconstruction to the present. Lectures and discussions will examine the transformation of the United States from a rural, largely Protestant society into a powerful and diverse, urban-industrial state. topics will include constitutional developments, formation of a national economy, urbanization, immigration, political change, the secularization of public culture, the formation of a welfare economy, the impacts of World War I and World War II, the Cold War, the Vietnam War, suburbanization, the civil rights movement, the women's and gay rights movements, and the resurgence of conservative and religious-based politics.