American in Depression and War

Catalog description

This course is a cultural and intellectual history of the United States during the Great Depression and World War II. Americans’ ideas about success and failure, the proper role of government in a market economy, the relationship between politics and art, the place of morality in war, and the role of American democracy in the world during these years figure centrally. Major events and themes include, among others, the worldwide Depression, New Deal politics, the Popular Front and popular culture, the war from the home-front, and the campaigns, strategies, and tactics employed in the European and Pacific theaters.