Catalog Description: This course is a brief survey of American history, with special emphasis
on constitutional and political development. It satisfies Associate Degree
History/Government requirement for Associate Degree occupational programs.
It is not intended to satisfy the History/Government requirement for transfer
or the General Education requirement at CSU. It is not open to credit for
students who have completed HIST 117A & HIST 117B, or HIST 105 and PS
102.
Course Content: The Founding of America (2 weeks)
1. The heritage of the old World
2. The evolution of the American Colonies
3. The Emergence of an American Identity - Culture and Character Revamped, Revised
and Reconstructed.
America the Revolutionary (1 week)
1. Why Revolution?
2. Revolution Breeds Change - Confederation and Constitution
3. America and the Heritage of Revolution
The American Revolution and English Constitutionalism Revised (1 week)
The Early Development of Constitutional Democracy in U. S.: The Articles of Confederation
Weaknesses, Accomplishments and Opponents of the Articles of Confederation
The Formation of the Constitution (2 weeks)
Compromises in the Constitutional Convention
How Democratic was the Constitution?
The Nation Takes Shape (2 weeks)
1. Conservative Federalists and Liberal Jeffersonians
2. The Emergence of American Political Pattern
3. The New Nation and the World - A second Struggle for Independence and the
Birth of Isolationism
4. Concern for the Continent - Burgeoning Western Expansion
5. Equalitarianism Upsurgent - Jackson and the Rise of the Common Man
6. Metamorphosis of the New Nation
a. Rise of American Technology
b. Rise of Industrial Capitalism
c. An American Mind and Heart take on Substance
Political Parties (3 weeks)
1. Washington, Jefferson and Jackson: Collective Influence on Party Politics
2. Republicanism: A History 1854-1967
3. The Democratic Party Since 1865
The Civil War - and after (2 weeks)
1. Sectional conflict
2. The end of slavery
3. Industrialization and Urbanization
4. Immigration and social conflict
5. The call for reform
a. Agrarian reform - the Populists
b. The Progressives
The Twentieth Century and the Modern Presidency (2 weeks)
1. The Presidency prior to the Civil War
2. The American President and Industrialization, 1865-1920
3. The Modern Presidency
The U. S. and Global Power (2 weeks)
1. A time of war
a. World War I and after
b. World War II - Hitler to Hiroshima
c. The Cold War
