Short Course Description
This course debates an idea central to US identity and its foreign reception: ?American decline.? It examines the persistence of American prospects and considers what factors promote and resist decline. We will assess the contribution of several factors to US staying power since the founding. We will debate whether these have been the basis of perpetual renewal and whether they will remain so.
This course is not a paean to American greatness or permanence. You are not obliged to accept that the US is incapable of profound decline or to deny that that process might be already well advanced. Rather, the course seeks to elucidate the strengths which underlay America?s rise to better understand their status.
A powerful force for over two centuries, has American nationalism fractured? Has racial division trumped immigrant assimilation? Does US military strength mask a deteriorating internal condition? Does China now offer a superior alternative to American global power? This class offers historically informed answers to contemporary questions like these.
Full syllabus is to be published
