Description

This SDG will use U.S. foreign relations as the lens through which to tell the story of America's rise from thirteen disparate colonies huddled along the Atlantic coast to the world's greatest superpower. This course will cover America's interaction with other peoples and nations of the world. This story is one of stunning successes and sometimes tragic failures which illuminates the central importance of foreign relations to the existence and survival of the country and highlights its ongoing impact on the lives of ordinary citizens. It will further show how policymakers defined American interests broadly to include territorial expansion, access to growing markets, and the spread of "the American way of life." Statesmen such as Benjamin Franklin, Woodrow Wilson, and Harry Truman played key roles in America's rise to world power.

The core book for this SDG will be the first part of award-winning From Colony to Superpower by George Herring which is part of the distinguished Oxford History of the United States. Herring argues that United States foreign policy has been "spectacularly successful," but he notes that its claims to being morally superior, a light to all nations, has frequently given way to great-power actions. And, though enjoying all the benefits of a great power, it has been sadly unaware of the limits of that power.