HIST 2062 - Modern America: From Blues to Hip Hop

This course will chart the emergence of American imperialism and American freedom. It will analyse the simultaneous creation of an American global empire, a development often viewed with distrust by ordinary people in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, and the development of liberal reform movements within the nation including the New Deal, Johnson's Great Society programs of the 1960s, and the Civil Rights Movements for women, African-Americans, and for Gay and Lesbian peoples. American popular culture will be analysed at various junctures of the course to illustrate the tensions between American as imperialist and American as a liberal, and sometimes radical, nation of reform. Blues, Jazz, and Rock and Roll have all aided twentieth-century emancipatory projects, but American culture was also put into the service of Cold Warriors in the 1950s and can be viewed as at the centre of American materialism and extreme individualism. Along the way we will view these developments from the perspective of a diverse range of Americans, as well as non-Americans who were increasingly under the influence of American economics and culture.