Why did a prosperous people get so mad about a modest tax increase? How did a scattered, squabbling array of colonies, who felt closer to Great Britain than to one another, unite sufficiently to declare independence from the “mother country” in 1776? How did they then defeat the greatest military power of the age while also contending with dissension in their own ranks, rebellious slaves in their midst, and powerful Indian nations at their backs? How, having won independence, did the victors avoid tyranny, civil war, or re-colonization while other Americans-poor men, white women, Native peoples, the enslaved-busily tested the elasticity of the phrase “all men are created equal”? Exploring these questions, we will also keep in mind a historian’s recent observation that this era “bequeathed us many of the values and institutions…that are now sites of important political, social, and ideological conflicts.” Mr.
As these two men knew, the American Revolution ranks high among history’s mysteries. In 1815 John Adams asked Thomas Jefferson: “Who shall write the history of the American Revolution? Who can write it? Who will ever be able to write it?” “Nobody,” Jefferson replied. History’s Greatest Mystery: Revolutionary America, 1750-1830 While keeping in mind that the genesis of America today can be found in that long-ago era-the tangled roots of race relations, the curious blend of materialism and lofty ideals, the boisterous political culture, the freedom for self-fashioning-we will take early America as much as possible on its own terms rather than on ours.
Nation of gods and earths chess plus lesson free#
Slaves who became free and Indians who became Puritan, con men who tricked gullible colonists and pious folk who heckled learned ministers-these and other forgotten actors join the usual suspects (Saints and witches, John Smith and Benjamin Franklin) on a crowded colonial stage. The new American world that emerged from this momentous encounter was at once stranger and more interesting than conventional wisdom would have it. Without ignoring the Pilgrims, Pocahontas, and other popular icons of colonial times, this course will put them into a larger context of what unfolded between 15 when three worlds bordering the Atlantic-western Europe, west Africa, and eastern North America-first came together. HIST 274 - Beyond Jamestown and Plymouth Rock: Revisiting, Revising, and Reviving Early America Semester Offered: Fall We also reflect on some of the contemporary developmental dilemmas as well as opportunities confronting post-colonial Africa. Amongst the major themes covered by the course are: colonial ideologies, African resistance, colonial economies, gender and cultural change, African participation in the two world wars, urbanization, decolonization and African nationalism. Particular attention will be paid to understanding how these responses shape the trajectories of African as well as global developments. Drawing on primary sources, film, memoirs, and popular novels, we look at the creative responses of African groups and individuals to the contradictory processes and legacies of colonialism. This course explores the changing African experiences before, during, and after European colonization of their continent. Between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Africans lost and regained their independence from different European colonial powers.
(Same as AFRS 272 ) Africa has experienced profound transformations over the past two centuries. By engaging the ideologies, politics, and culture of the Black Power Movement, we gain a deeper understanding of how people claim their rights and personhood against seemingly insurmountable odds. Major sites of inquiry include education, arts and media, police brutality, welfare rights, electoral politics, and economic empowerment. In addition to studying black radicalism in the early twentieth century, the course explores the philosophies and tactics of civil rights activism questions of feminism and masculinity radicalism and conservatism violence, nonviolence, and self-defense and community control, nationalism, and internationalism.
(Same as AFRS 270 ) This course examines the Black Power Movement as a burgeoning social movement in the post World War II period, while also placing it in the long traditions of black political thought and radicalism within American democracy. HIST 270 - The Black Power Movement Semester Offered: Spring
0 kommentar(er)
