Lectures Seminars Course Information

BUILDING THE AMERICAN NATION:
THE U.S., 1789-1920

 

Lecture List

Click on the links on the right for a reading list and more information about each lecture topic. Remember that there is a reading week (no lecture) between weeks 5 and 6 in the First term, and between weeks 15 and 16 in the Second term. For details of the seminars click here.

First Term
1. Introduction: themes in nineteenth century American history
2. War, frontiers and the new nation, 1789-1815

3. Power and politics in the new republic, 1789-1815

4. Markets, communication and economic growth, 1800-1860
5. Democracy: politics and the people, 1815-1860
6. Religion and reform, 1800-1860
7. The slaveholders' republic, 1800-1860
8. Conquest, expansion and sectional conflict, 1815-1854
9. The coming of the Civil War, 1854-1861
10. Overview: the antebellum republic
Second Term
11. The Republic at War, 1861-1863
12. Emancipation and the destruction of the Confederacy, 1863-1865
13. Reconstruction, 1865-1877
14. Race, redemption, and the romance of reunion, 1877-1920
15. The transformation of the West, 1860-1920
16. The "Gilded Age", 1865-1896
17. Immigration, race and national identity, 1830-1920
18. Populists and progressives, 1890-1920
19. The United States and the world, 1898-1920
20. The United States in 1920