Technology and Global Relations in the American Century

Catalog description

This class explores the role of technology in US foreign relations during the twentieth century, when the United States rose to global power. American engineers, scientists, missionaries, executives, and diplomats used technologies to gain strategic advantages, uplift other peoples around the globe, or open new market opportunities. We will look at how Americans employed a wide range of military, development, and consumer technologies, from torpedoes and airplanes to dams, schools, automobiles, and computers. Technologies projected superiority and serve in civilizing missions; they also often reflected on relations of power, gender, and race. Sometimes, technologies moved freely from one place to another, and at other times their circulation was impeded. Based on historical sources and assigned readings, the class discussions will investigate how technologies shaped US foreign relations and were in turn shaped by them.