Zachary Schrag's Syllabus

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These instructions are specific to students in Zachary Schrag's directed readings courses. The course will meet every other week, for a total of seven meetings during the semester. Meetings run about 90 minutes to two hours.

Although the main purpose of a directed-readings course is to prepare the student for a written or oral comprehensive exam, it remains a letter-graded course in its own right, with its own requirements.

Contents

Requirements

Reading

Prior to each meeting, each MA student will read two books, and each doctoral student will read three. In some cases, two or three students may read the same book, but most of the time you will be the only student reading a particular text. Each topic page on the Historiographiki lists books on the topic, and I have posted general advice on Choosing books. But please let me know your particular interests, so that I can suggest titles, approve titles you come up with, and coordinate your readings with your classmates'.

You are not expected to read every word of every book, but to read enough to understand the argument and its factual underpinnings, and to write a thorough critique.

Writing

For each book, each student will post a response to the Historiographiki. If no page exists for that book, add one by adding a link to the topic page. If a blank page exists, fill it, following the instructions on Adding a book entry. If a page already exists, improve it, by editing the current summary, and by adding your own commentary at the bottom.

See

Discussing

Professor Schrag will lead the first discussion meeting of the term; the remainder will be led by students. The student discussion leader is responsible for updating the page for the topic under discussion. To do this, she will need a good understanding not only of the books she has read, but also those read by her classmates, and the relationship of all the books together. The discussion meeting is her opportunity to make sure she understands the content of each book and the connections among them.


Schedule, Fall 2008

Tuesdays, 3-4:30 pm.

Bonnie: McGovern, And A Time For Hope and Gordon, Pitied but Not Entitled
David: Kennedy, Freedom from Fear and Badger, The New Deal
Bonnie: Bentley, Eating for Victory and Goodwin, No Ordinary Time
David: Albrecht, World War II and the American Dream and Zieger, The CIO, 1935-1955
Bonnie: Oshinsky, Polio and Lewis, The White South and the Red Menace
David: Fried, Nightmare in Red, and Bird and Sherwin American Prometheus
Bonnie: Evans, Personal Politics and Levy, Civil War On Race Street
David: Fredrickson, The Dixicrat Revolt and the End of the Solid South:1932-1968 and Theoharis and Woodard eds., Freedom North
Bonnie: Rosen, The World Split Open and Davies, From Opportunity to Entitlement
David: Isserman and Kazin, America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s and Califano, Jr., The Triumph & Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson


Bonnie: Durr, Behind the Backlash and Luker Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood
David: Perlstein, Nixonland and McGirr, Suburban Warriors:


Bonnie: Collins, Transforming America and Ehrman The Eighties: America in the Age of Reagan
David: Wilentz, The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974-2008 and Pembeton, Exit with Honor: The Life and Presidency of Ronald Reagan

Schedule, Fall 2007

Discussion leaders in parentheses.

  • August 27: Progressivism (Zach)
Amy: McGerr, A Fierce Discontent and Frankel and Dye, Gender, Class, Race, and Reform in the Progressive Era
Curtis. Molina, Fit to Be Citizens? and Rosenberg, Financial Missionaries to the World
Patricia: Irvin, Standing at Armageddon: The United States 1877-1919 and Gullett, Becoming Citizens: The Emergence and Developement of the California Women's Movement
  • September 10: World War I (Patricia)
Amy: Sterba, Good Americans and Keene, Doughboys, the Great War, and the Remaking of America
Curtis: Woodward, Trial by Friendship and Keith, Rich Man's War, Poor Man's Fight
Patricia: Zieger, America's Great War: World War I and the American Experience and Kennedy Disloyal Mothers and Scurrilous Citizens: Women and Subversion During World War I
  • September 24: New Deal (Amy)
Amy: Bold, The WPA Guides and Phillips, This Land, This Nation
Curtis: Schwarz, The New Dealers and McDannell, Picturing Faith
Patricia: Fagette, Digging for Dollars and Kirby, Black America in the Roosevelt Era
  • October 8: World War II (Curtis)
Amy: Boyer, By the Bomb's Early Light and Kryder, Divided Arsenal
Curtis: Brooks, Defining the Peace and Savage, Broadcasting Freedom
Patricia: Roger, Prisoners Without Trial and Larrabee, Commander in Chief
  • October 22: Suburbanization (Patricia)
Amy: Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier and Horowitz, Betty Friedan and the Making of The Feminine Mystique
Curtis: Rome Bulldozer in the Countryside and Wiese, Places of Their Own
Patricia: Findlay, Magic Lands and Karal, As Seen on TV
  • November 5: Civil Rights (Curtis)
Amy: Gayle, Window on Freedom and Evans, Personal Politics
Curtis: Lassiter and Lewis, The Moderates' Dilemma and May, The Informant
Patricia: Branch, At Canaan's Edge and Torres, Black, White and in Color
  • November 19: Backlash (Amy)
Amy: Perlstein, Before the Storm
Curtis: Mason, Richard Nixon and the Quest for a New Majority and Rozell and Wilcox, Second Coming
Patricia: Durr, Behind the Backlash and Andrew, The Other Side of the Sixties

Schedule, Spring 2007

Kent: Pitied but not entitled; Designing a New America
Lisa: A New Deal for the American People; Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal
Liz: Brinkley,Voices of protest; Kelley, Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression
Kent: War without mercy, The Rise of American Air Power
Lisa: Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War; The Best War Ever
Liz: Free to Die for Their Country; Forum For Protest
Kent: The Big Show in Bololand; Rethinking the Korean War
Lisa: The Cold War; Cold War Constructions: The Political Culture of U.S. Imperialism, 1945-1966
Liz: Direct Action; A Peril and A Hope
Kent: Bourgeois Utopias; Building Suburbia
Lisa: Places of Their Own: African American Suburbanization in the 20th Century ; Magic Lands: Western City Scapes
Liz: Crabgrass Frontier; Bulldozer in the Countryside
Kent: Presidential decisions for war; Analogies at War
Lisa: America's Longest War;The Vietnam War: A study in the Making of American Foreign Policy
Liz: Confronting the War Machine; The Brothers' Vietnam War
Kent: White Flight; Behind the Backlash
Lisa: Law and Order: Street Crime, Civil Unrest, and the Crisis of Liberalism in the 1960s; When Sex Goes to School
Liz: The Silent Majority: Suburban Politics in the Sunbelt South; God Gave us the Right
Kent: Why Americans hate welfare; In the shadow of the poorhouse
Lisa: The Eighties; Morning in America
Liz: Poverty and Power;

Schedule, Fall 2006

Dave: Leuchtenberg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932-1940; Kennedy, Freedom From Fear
Jim: Fagette, Digging for Dollars, American Archaeology and the New Deal; Organizing the Lakota, The Political Economy of the New Deal on the Pine Ridge and Rosebud Reservations
Dave: Weinberg, A World at Arms; Nash, American West Transformed
Jim: Hastings, Overlord; Wainstock, The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb
Dave: Gladdis, The Cold War; Boyer, By the Bomb's Early Light
Jim: Cahn, Killing Detente; Powers, Operation Overflight


Dave: Ashmore, Civil Rights and Wrongs; Morris, Origins of the Civil Rights Movement
Jim: Newman, The Civil Rights Movement; Whalen, The Longest Debate
Dave: Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest; Schulzinger, A Time for War
Jim: Appy, Working-Class War; Krepinevich, The Army and Vietnam


Dave: McGirr, Suburban Warriors:; Lienesch, Redeeming America
Jim: Andrew, The Other Side of the Sixties; Brennan, Turning Right in the Sixties


Dave: Troy, Morning in America; Patterson, Restless Giant
Jim: Ehrman, The Eighties; Berman, Looking Back on the Reagan Presidency

Schedule, Spring 2006

Comprehensive Exams

I have posted some advice on "The Comprehensive Exam" on my personal website.

Master's students planning to take written comprehensive exams with me and doctoral students planning to include me on their committee should compile, as early as possible, a list of all scholarly books and journal articles on which they expect to be tested. These will mostly be taken from your graduate syllabi, but if you have read books on your own or for research projects and know them well, do include them.

I encourage you to schedule a practice exam with me some weeks before the actual exam.

--Schrag 23:15, 7 Dec 2005 (EST)

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