America's Funniest Writers

Description

Hoping to raise our mood during difficult times, we propose to read many of our country’s best humorists.

Andy Borowitz, “America’s satire king”, a nationally known comedian and comic writer has edited selections from The 50  Funniest American Writers in an anthology from the Library of America.  Each participant will introduce us to two or three authors and their work, with recommendations for further reading. 

 Included is a Who’s Who of comic writers, including Mark Twain, James Thurber, Dorothy Parker, Lenny Bruce, Woody Allen, Nora Ephron, and Dave Barry. Included are lesser known pieces from The New Yorker, The Atlantic, National Lampoon, and The Onion.

There will be lots to learn and plenty of laughs.

Weekly Topics

Participants will select two or three writers from our core book, lead discussions on the short stories included therein, and introduce us to the authors and their other, more extensive works. We will discuss at least two authors each week.

Bibliography

The 50 Funniest American Writers: ,
Andy Borowitz (Editor) Published 2011 by Library of America

The Silk Road: Looking at Central Eurasia

Description

It was on the Silk Road that the East and West first encountered each other through trade and conquest, leading to the spread of ideas, cultures and religions.  From the rise and fall of empires to the spread of Buddhism and the advent of Christianity and Islam, right up to the great wars of the 20th century, we will examine how the West has always been linked to the East.

Beckwith describes the great Eurasian empires: Scythians, Huns, Turks, Tibetians, Chinggis Khan and the Mongols and the cultural and economic life of Central Eurasia.  The Indo-European migration from the region also affected Greco-Roman, Slavic, Germanic, Persian, and Indian languages and civilizations.

This book and our SDG will place Central Eurasia into a world historical framework.

Weekly Topics

1. Introduction to the Silk Road and its Peoples

2. First Regional Empire Period in Eurasia

3. Material culture; Technology and Trade

4. Revolutions and Rebellions; 

5. Art and Architecture along the Silk Road

6. Caves of 1,000 Buddhas in Dunhuang

7. Third Regional Empire 

8. Technology and Trade – Metalworking; Silk making; Papermaking

9. Littoral Commerce

10. Music Along the Silk Road

11. Religions of the Silk Road  - 2 presentations

12. Travelers, Pilgrims and Explorers Along the Silk Road

13. Modern Archaeologists and Treasure Hunters

14. Slaves and Barbarians

15. Images of The Silk Road and the Future of The Silk Road

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/chinas-massive-belt-and-road-initiative

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2020/10/01/seven-years-into-chinas-belt-and-road/

Bibliography

CORE READING:  

• *Christopher Beckwith Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Asia from the Bronze Age to the Present. (Princeton University Press, 2009) 

• *Susan Whitfield Silk, Slaves, and Stupas: The Material Culture of the Silk Road (UC Press, 2018)

• *Frances Wood. The Silk Road: Two Thousand Years in the Heart of Asia (UC Press, 2002)

• NHK Silk Road – 12 videos by Chinese-Japanese television

SUGGESTED READINGS:  

• Peter Frankopan The Silk Roads: A New History of the World (Bloomsbury, 2015)

• Peter Hopkirk Foreign Devils on the Silk Road (London, 1980) 

• James Millward The Silk Road: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2013)

• Marco Polo. Travels

American Public Schools/Higher Education: What Changes Should We Make?

Description

My household has always been filled with education.  My Dad served as a superintendent of schools and principal as well as boys' counselor.  In addition, he taught world and American history, typewriting, band and orchestra.  In my college, I gravitated to business education because of a fine high school business teacher I admired.  After bachelor's and master's in business education, I taught my first junior high school class in typewriting to 275 ninth graders every two days.  After that experience, I ended up teaching high school business law, business math, shorthand and typewriting.  In the meantime, I was attracted to doctoral work in business education and a minor in higher education.  That resulted in struggling with a dissertation on "Automated Data Processing Concepts for High School Business Students."  Three more college teaching jobs followed with courses taught in office management, introduction to business, records management, shorthand, typewriting, elementary accounting, seminar in data processing education, analysis of communications in business, word processing management (started one of the first courses in the nation), office systems analysis, and University 100 (First-time college students).  I can proudly say 45+ years have been spent in the teaching profession.  

Everyone has an opinion on how public/higher education can be improved.  We hear how our students cannot read or write after graduating from high school.  We find students who have few marketable skills for computer-enhanced environments.  Our children are exposed to gun violence, drug availability, and gender and racial inequalities.  Surveys of global education show American public education lagging in 27th place.     

Higher education has also received considerable criticism for wealthy parents and celebrities who will do anything to get their children into Ivy League or well-known universities.  With the Covid-19 Pandemic still continuing, questions are being asked whether college students are getting a traditional college education by virtual learning.   Although our universities are world class, student debt accrued to attend these universities is now over one trillion dollars.  In addition to financial and curriculum concerns.  Will college brick and mortar buildings begin to disappear or become functional at a slower pace?  Will the traditional lecture be replaced with newer technological ways to present information in a faster, cheaper manner?  Will the tuition rates and college costs have to be adjusted to accommodate virtual learning and soaring costs of maintaining building, paying faculty, administrators, and staff, and keeping research programs solvent?  

This S/DG will explore the "crises" in both forms of education today, learn about ideas that are being proposed by educators and others, and enjoy meaningful dialogue to define the problems and suggest solutions.  We will discuss both the rational and the moral sides of these issues.

There is probably no other single issue that is as important to America's future as the education of our young.  

Each class meeting will begin with a 10-minute discussion of a current news event in public and higher education.

Weekly Topics

1. Overview of American Higher Education.

2. Overview of American Public (K-12) Education, Layperson’s Guide for Involved Teachers, Students. And Parents

3. Teacher Bashing, Student Test Scores, Budget Cuts

4. Violence in the Classroom, Mike’s Case, Accountability Systems. Impact of Nation at Risk

5. Bullying, Truancy, Prediction-Reliance Policy, The Fallacy of Great Schools, Misuse of Data, Teacher Quality, What Passes for Science, Contextual Accountability

6. Failing to Be a Superperson, Importance of ESL, Destructive Idealism: Superteachers, Education Reform Movement, Teacher Cheating, No-Excuses Charter Schools, Fight for Academic Excellence

7. Black-hat Reformers, Merit Pay, Effect of Low-Income Poverty, Disrespect in the Classroom, Satisfaction in the Profession, Public Schools: Beyond Redemption, Mendacious School Reasoning.

8. Common Core State Standards, No Child Left Behind (G. Bush), Fiscal Strain of Public Schools, “Achievement/Opportunity Gaps”

9. Politically Powerless Parents and Inadequate Schools, State Funds Per Pupil, No-excuses Equality, The Failing Citizen, Nation at Risk 2?, Six Solutions

10. Skepticism about Civic Education in College Preparing Citizenry, Lasting Effect of Critical Thinking, Evaluating Social Media News, Preparing to Live in Interdependent World, Rationale for International Studies and Global Citizenship, Intercultural Competence, Issues of Study Abroad 

11. Standards of Ethical Behavior and Personal Responsibility in Colleges, Students' Beliefs about Ethics Working to Their Advantage (e.g. College Cheating), Growth of Moral Reasoning Courses, Transition Courses for High School to College (First-Year Students or e.g. University 100), Teaching Empathy in College, College Plagiarism (Academic Dishonesty), Teaching Conscientiousness (Work Ethic)

12. Personal Philosophy for College Students, Greater Health and Longevity, Seeking Help from Career Offices, Changing Student Values, Effect of Great Books Courses, Happiness Courses, Taking Smorgasbord of Courses Approach

13. Softer Skills: Teamwork, Resilience, Tolerance, and Creativity, Lifelong Learning, Prospects for Change, Research Universities vs. Comprehensive Universities, Community Colleges, Independent Colleges, Three Impediments: Research, Faculty Resistance, Leadership

14. Public Will Reforms Work? Slow Spread of Reform, Improving Educational Research, Incentives for Reform-Minded Leaders, Tenure and Persuading Faculties, Creating Teaching Faculty, Faculty Unionization, Graduate Education and Its Dilemma, Decisive Role of Faculties, Improving Confidence of Public

Bibliography

Core Books  

• Bok, Derek.  Higher Expectations:  Can Colleges Teach What They Need to Know in the 21st Century?  Princeton, New Jersey:  Princeton University Press, 2020.

• Kuhn, John.  Fear and Learning in America:  Bad Data, Good Teachers, and the Attack on Public Education.  New York:  Teachers College Press, Columbia, 2014.

Selected Bibliography 

• Bastedo, Michael N., Altbach, Philip G., and Patricia J. Gumport, eds.  American Higher Education in the 21st Century: Social, Political, and Economic Challenges. 4th ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016.  

• Callahan, David.  The Cheating Culture:  Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead.  Orlando, Florida:  Harcourt, Inc., 2004.

• Cohen, Arthur M., Florence B. Brawer, and Carrie B. Kisker.  The American Community College.  6th ed.  San Francisco:  Jossey-Bass, a Wiley Brand, 2014. 

•  Eisner, George W.  The Arts and Creation of Mind. Harrisonburg, Virginia: R. R. Donnelly & Sons, 2002.  

• Ellis, John M.  The Breakdown of Higher Education: How It Happened, the Damage It Does, and What Can Be Done. New York: Encounter Books, 2020.

• Goldstein, Dana.  The Teacher Wars:  A History of America's Most Embattled Profession.  New York:  Anchor Books, a Division of Penguin Random House LLC, 2014.  

• Howard, Tyrone C.  Why Race and Culture Matter in Schools:  Closing the Achievement Gap in America's Classrooms.  New York:  Teachers College Press, Columbia, 2010.

• Kirp, David.  The College Dropout Scandal.  New York:  Oxford University Press, 2019.

• Lucas, Christopher J.  American Higher Education:  A History.  2d ed.  New York:  Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. 

• Neem, Johann N.  Democracy's Schools:  The Rise of Public Education in America.  Baltimore:  Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017. 

• Noguera, Pedro A.  City Schools and the American Dream: Reclaiming the Promise of Public Education. New York and London: Teachers College Press, Columbia University, 2003.  

• Noddings, Nel.  Education and Democracy in the 21st Century.  New York and London:  Teachers College Press, Columbia University, 2013.  

• Ravitch, Diane.  Reign of Error:  The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools.  New York:  Alfred A. Knopf, 2013.  

• Spring, Joel.  The American School: From the Puritans to the Trump Era. 10th ed.   New York and London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2018.  

• Wexler, Natalie.  The Knowledge Gap:  The Hidden Cause of America's Broken Education System--And How to Fix It.  New York:  Avery, Penguin Random House LLC, 2019.  

Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow"

Description

A scientific flood from psychology poured into economics and undermined its most basic premise.  The result was Behavioral Economics.  Inventing it won psychologist Daniel Kahneman a Nobel Prize.  We'll study it using his accessible, surprise-packed book.

Kahneman presents new understandings about how the mind works.  The brain has two ways of processing information, as if it had two separate systems.  One system is slow and goes step by step.  It does rational thinking.  The other system is fast and associative.  It provides an endless stream of responses made from memory and sensory associations.  We will study the many unexpected ways in which the two systems collide and interact.

Then we will explore why human statistical intuition is stunningly bad.  Why does the mind prefer to use substitutes, or heuristics, when simple statistics would give better answers?  Kahneman connects heuristics and fallacies to risk analysis, prediction, intuition, and human overconfidence for some important and remarkable results.  

We will even meet a new species--the Econ.  Econs are humanoids who don't have our fast, associative mental system with its behavioral quirks.  For centuries economists have used totally-rational Econs instead of humans to explain economic behavior.  Join us as we learn what happens when real humans at last enter the world of the economists.

This SDG is a repeat of Thinking About Behavioral Economics as offered in Winter 2013, with the same core book, Coordinator, and course plan.

Weekly Topics

Book Key Topics

Week Chapters

1. I, 1 Introduction; System 1 and System 2

2. 2, 3, 4 paying attention; lazy System 2; priming

3. 5, 6, 7 cognitive ease; intentional causality; "What You See Is All There Is"

4. 8, 9, 10 basic assessments; heuristic question; small samples yield extreme results

5. 11, 12, 13 anchoring; availability bias; availability cascade

6. 14, 15, 16 representativeness; conjunction fallacy; causal stereotypes

7. 17, 18 regression to the mean; intuitive predictions

8. 19, 20, 21 narrative fallacy; illusion of validity; statistical outcome prediction

9. 22, 23, 24 intuitive expertise; planning fallacy; the premortem

10. 25, 26, 27 expected utility theory; prospect theory; endowment effect

11. 28, 29, 30 loss aversion; the fourfold pattern; denominator neglect

12. 31, 32, 33 broad framing; disposition effect; preference reversals

13. 34, 35, 36 framing effects; the experiencing self and the remembering self; duration neglect

14. 37, 38, C experienced well-being; the focusing illusion; Conclusions

Bibliography

Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2011

Jane Austen's Revolutionary Novels: Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, and Pride and Prejudice

Description

This SDG will explore Jane Austen's early fiction and her debt to the feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft. After reading the sections of Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) that most heavily influenced Austen, we will look first at Austen's biography and her hilarious juvenilia, History of England and Love and Freindship (sic).  We will then read her first three novels in the order in which they were written, in the context of the social and political debates of her time concerning the education, roles and legal standing of women, the competing values of reason and sympathy, and the political demands of the French Revolution. We will also discuss the best film adaptations of these novels.

Weekly Topics

• Week 1. Wollstonecraft - selections from Vindication of the Rights of Woman (online)

• Week 2. Austen's Biography / History of England / Love and Freindship (sic)

• Weeks 3-4. Northanger Abbey

• Weeks 5-7. Sense and Sensibility

• Weeks 8 - Sense and Sensibility (dir. Ang Lee, with Emma Thompson and Kate Winslett)

• Weeks 9-11 - Pride and Prejudice

• Week 12 - Pride and Prejudice (BBC, with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth)

Bibliography

Core books: Jane Austen, Juvenilia; Northanger Abbey; Sense and Sensibility; Pride and Prejudice

Films are available online

Reimagining Global Health

Description

The COVID-19 pandemic reminds us that no country acting alone can respond effectively to health threats in a globalized world. Global governance is necessary to coordinate the global health response.

The core book “Reimagining Global Health” provides a comprehensive, original and compelling introduction to the field of global health. It evaluates the history and underlying philosophy of global health, from its colonial times through the present. In addition to evaluating successful and failed programs, it offers an overview of how our thoughts of reasonable expectations and limitations have changed.

 The book examines creative ways of conducting programs pioneered by Partners in Health and other organizations and replicated to help populations treat HIV, TB, etc. Their interdisciplinary approach is multifaceted and requires an all hands-on deck approach that is geographically broad and historically deep.

Given the historic opportunity to reimagine global health governance in the age of COVID-19, it’s critical that our global society explore where we go from here, both philosophically and practically.

Weekly Topics

1. A Biosocial Approach to Global Health

2. Unpacking Global Health: Theory  and Critique

3. Colonial Medicine and Its Legacies

4. Health for All? Competing Theories and Geopolitics

5. Redefining the Possible: The Global Aides Response

6. Building an Effective Rural Health Delivery Model in Haiti and Rwanda Haiti, Rwanda, Uganda: Comparison of Health Delivery Models

7. Scaling Up Effective Delivery Models Worldwide

8. The Unique Challenges of Mental Health and MDRTB: Critical Perspectives on Metrics of Disease

9. Values and Global Health

10. Taking Stock of Foreign Aid

11. Global Health Priorities for the Early Twenty-First Century

12. A Movement for Global Health Equity
    

Bibliography

Reimagining Global Health by Paul Farmer

Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe 10 weeks

Description

As we look at the governments of the various countries of Europe today, we see, not surprisingly, a great variety.  Some, such as the United Kingdom, France, and Germany have reasonably robust democracies.  Others, such as Hungary, have a form of populism that borders on authoritarianism.  Illiberal democracy is often used to describe the governments of Poland and Turkey. 

Our S/DG will study how these and the other major countries of Europe arrived at their current state.  (For this S/DG Europe will stop at the border of the former Soviet Union.)  To guide us in our study, we will read Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe by Sheri Berman, a professor of Political Science at Barnard College, Columbia University.  The subtitle of the book, From the Ancien Régime to the Present Day, gives the historical time periods covered.  The chapter titles, shown in the weekly topics below, give an excellent idea of the topics covered.  In week 10 we will read and discuss an article (to be provided) by Sheri Berman and a colleague.

For each of the countries and time periods covered, our book gives us the political, economic, and social conditions that help us understand why that country went the way it did at that particular time.  Berman believes that the ultimate goal for any country is “consolidated liberal democracy,” with elections, the rule of law, individual liberties, and minority rights.  That is a rare, and hard-won achievement.  A step forward is often followed by a step back.  We will see why democracy is so difficult to achieve.  

In our study of liberal democracies, we will explore the tension between democracy—rule by the people that can slide into repression of minority views, and liberal—respect for each individual.

In a sentence with a lot of long words, Francis Fukuyama well says: “Sheri Berman is one of the best comparativists going, providing an encompassing framework for understanding the historical development of modern institutions.”

I don’t think we have to worry about not having enough to talk about every week.

Weekly Topics

1. Ch. 1.  Questions about Political Developmen / Ch. 2.  The Ancien Régime

2. Ch. 3.  English Exceptionalism / Ch. 4.  The French Revolution

3. Ch. 5.  1848 / Ch. 6.  The French Third Republic

4. Ch. 7.  Italian Unification / Ch. 8.  German Unification

5. Ch. 9.  The Struggle for Democracy in Interwar France / Ch. 10.  English Exceptionalism II

6. Ch. 11.  The Collapse of Democracy and the Rise of Fascism in Italy / Ch. 12.  The Collapse of the Weimar Republic and the Rise of National Socialism in Germany

7. Ch. 13.  Political Development in Spain / Ch. 14.  The Consolidation of Democracy in Western Europe

8. Ch. 15.  The Transition to Communist Dictatorships in East-Central Europe / Ch. 16.  The Transition to Democracy in Spain

9. Ch. 17.  The Transition to Democracy in East Central Europe

10. Ch. 18.  Lessons from Europe Sheri Berman and Maria Snegovaya.  "Populism and the Decline of Social Democracy.” Journal of Democracy, July 2019.

Bibliography

Sheri Berman, Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe: From the Ancien Régime to the Present Day.  Oxford University Press, 2019

Sheri Berman & Maria Snegovaya, "Populism and the Decline of Social Democracy," Journal of Democracy (July 2019), 19 pp.

Elena Ferrante: The Furies & Visceral Pleasures of Italy's Greatest Living Novelist

Description

Set mostly in postwar Southern Italy, Elena Ferrante's four-part novel about the discordant yet loving trajectories of two female friends from childhood to adulthood has gained widespread acclaim. The HBO series My Brilliant Friend is based on her work. Ferrante is that rarest of authors—one who is equally adept at depicting both sides of the romance and not-so-romantic transactions between men and women. 

This SDG covers the first half of the Neapolitan Quartet, My Brilliant Friend and The Story of a New Name. The New Yorker review loudly proclaims: “…the sensation...a hungry, relentless urge to keep going, the same feeling that drives you to borrow all someone’s clothes, or pinch them as hard as you can when they don’t understand you. Ferrante shows us the friction that generates human heat—she reminds us what the experience of liking is like.”

Ferrante's gift, one critic argues, is her "unflinching willingness to lead us toward 'the mutable fury of things'" —in particular, toward the passion and bitterness between women and men, and women and women. Ferrante's novels explore the recesses and limits of intimacy: "How many words," one of her heroine's asks, "remain unsayable even between a couple in love?"

Weekly Topics

1. My Brilliant Friend (2011), pp. 19 - 79

2. My Brilliant Friend, pp. 79 - 125

3. My Brilliant Friend, pp. 125 - 182

4. My Brilliant Friend, pp. 183 - 223

5. My Brilliant Friend, pp. 233 - 287

6. My Brilliant Friend, pp. 287 - 331

7. The Story of a New Name (2012), pp. 15 - 73

8. The Story of a New Name, pp. 73 - 131

9. The Story of a New Name, pp. 132- 188

10. The Story of a New Name, pp. 189- 247

11. The Story of a New Name, pp. 247- 303

12. The Story of a New Name, pp. 303 – 362

13. The Story of a New Name, pp. 362 - 419

14. The Story of a New Name, pp. 419 - 471

Bibliography

I will make the HBO series My Brilliant Friend available to all members via encrypted website. We may want to draw on this for reference. Watch the official Trailer:

For rabid devotees such as myself, I recommend The Days of Abandonment (2005). At 188 pages, this is a short novel in which Ferrante lays out her major themes in her mature style. Her husband, also a widely successful Italian writer, penned the book Ties (2017), which is the flip side of The Days of Abandonment, see this New York Times article 

Core Books

1. Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend (2011) Europa Editions, Edizioni E/O, 331pp

2. Elena Ferrante, The Story of a New Name (2012) Europa Editions, Edizioni E/O, 471pp

Recommended Readings

In addition to the novels listed above, here are a few readings (one by Ferrante herself) that are worth looking at:

• Ferrante, Frantumaglia: A Writer's Journal (2017), 400 pp.

• Sarah Chihaya et al., The Ferrante Letters: An Experiment in Collective Criticism. Columbia University Press, 2020. 

• Rachel Vorona Cote,"In 'My Brilliant Friend,' Companionship and Survival Are Forever Linked," Bitchmedia (February 1, 2019).

• James Wood, "Women on the Verge," New Yorker (January 14, 2013).

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Description

All of us remember Dwight Eisenhower.   We know he led the D-Day invasion and served as president for eight years.  Most of us remember attitudes that developed around Ike’s presidency.  Now that 76 years have passed since D-Day and 60 years have passed since he left office, there has been time to appraise Ike and his leadership of the D-Day invasion and his presidency.  Not surprisingly, books have been written in the last 20 years which do just that.  Ike served during a crucial period which included World War II, the recovery of Europe, the dominance and robust economy of the U.S. and early days of the Cold War.  

The principal purposes of this SDG will be to (1) study Ike’s background,  family, education and time at West Point, (2) look at the difficulties inherent in the D-Day invasion and how crucial it was and how it was conducted, (3) study Ike’s leadership of the invasion and how he made the tough decisions, (4) see how Ike decided to run for president and (5) view the actions of Ike and his administration on important domestic and international issues of the day.   We will try to look at the issues Ike faced with the information he had, as well as appraising his decisions and actions with the benefit of hindsight.  It is impossible to understand the years since Ike’s presidency without understanding how Ike’s presence and actions prepared the way for them.  It will be interesting to see how the impressions of Ike which all of us carry jibe with recent scholarship.

We will use two core books:  (A) "Eisenhower in War and Peace" by Jean Smith, an excellent biography, particularly on the years through the end of World War II and (B) "Eisenhower: The White House Years" by Jim Newton, an excellent account of Ike's presidency.  Both books offer sufficient detail to get a good "feel" for the subject, as well as conclusions (both positive and negative) on Ike's actions.  Other works, including Ike's own books, are cited below.  In addition, there are literally hundreds of other sources, including books, on line articles and documentaries, and consulting them will be encouraged              

Weekly Topics

1. Background:  Family, education, West Point, early army years 

2. Rising through the ranks, including serving with MacArthur, Bradley, Marshall and other important officials

3. Participation in World War II before being selected to lead D-Day invasion, including North African landing and Italian invasion

4. Ike's leadership of the planning of D-Day, resolving disputes with  Allies as to place, date and methods 

5. D-Day invasion, liberation of France

6. Participation in the War after liberation of France,  leadership of NATO, Presidency of Columbia University

7. Presidential election of 1952:  Decision to run, political advisors, selection and retention of Nixon, selection of cabinet officers and other important officials  

8. East Asian policies, including ending Korean War, Indo China and Formosa (Quemoy & Matsu)

9. Middle East policies, including Suez, Lebanon and Eisenhower Doctrine

10. Domestic policies, including, civil rights and and school integration (Little Rock),  Interstate Highway System, space program, National Defense Education Act, St. Lawrence Seaway

11. Domestic disputes, including defeat of McCarthy, defeat of Bricker Amendment, attempts to reform GOP

12. Cold War actions and decisions to avoid military actions, including Guatemala and Iran

13. Dealings with USSR and China, including  protection of Europe, nuclear diplomacy, covert actions U-2 crisis 

14. Farewell Address on military industrial complex and appraisal of Ike’s presidency

Bibliography

Core Books

• Jean Smith, Eisenhower in War and Peace

• Jim Newton, Eisenhower:  The White House Years

Good References (among many)

• Dwight Eisenhower, Waging Peace

• Dwight Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe

• Dwight Eisenhower, The White House Years

• Jesse Smith (Basementia Publications), The Military Industrial Complex (full text of Farewell Address with commentary)

• Theatlantic.com—long article on the Eisenhower presidency

•  Millercenter.org—summaries of important events in Eisenhower’s career

•  Wikipedia—long article on the Eisenhower presidency