MANHATTANVILLE COLLEGE
History
3182/5182
Summer, 2007
The American Political
Tradition
Mr. Bowling
Requirements:
1. Attendance.
2. Readings.
3. Participation.
4.
Oral reports (longer for graduate students), for which
some library
research time will be provided).
5. Successful completion of two examinations.
Books:
Sean
Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy (New
York, 2005).
Maureen A. Flanagan, America Reformed; Progressives
& Progressivism, 1895-1920
(New York, 2004).
David Allan Mayers, Dissenting Voices in America's Rise
to Power (Cambridge, 2007).
Nelson Lichtenstein, ed., American Capitalism: Social
Thought & Political Economy in
the Twentieth
Century (Philadelphia, 2006).
Dorothy I. Height, Open Wide the Freedom Gates; A
Memoir (New York, 2003).
Course:
The United States has sometimes been called the world's
"oldest modern country," as indicated by the fact that the U.S.
Constitution is the world's oldest written national constitution still in
effect. This celebrated document laid the foundation for American
political practice while also inspiring many other people and political
movements around the world. However, much of the development of the
political history of the U.S. would have surprised the Founders. This
course proposes to study the development, evolution, and changing practice of
representative democracy in America since the Constitution's ratification in
1789. Topics will include the immediate appearance of partisanship in the
creation of the Hamiltonian & Jeffersonian traditions, the rise of
"democracy," the appearance of a two-party system & its intriguing
persistence, the balance among the "persons" of the "holy
trinity" of American governmental structure (executive, legislative, &
judicial), continuing contested discussion concerning issues of federalism &
states' rights, and, inevitably, major personalities who have made the American
political tradition what it is.