This course focuses on the Great Depression and World War II and how they led to a major reordering of American politics and society. We will examine how ordinary people experienced these crises and how those experiences changed their outlook on politics and the world around them.

"What then is the American, this new man?" asked J. Hector St-John de Crèvecoeur in his Letters from an American Farmer in 1782. This subject takes Crèvecoeur's question as the starting point for an examination of the changing meanings of national identity in the American past. We will consider a diverse collection of classic texts in American history to see how Americans have defined themselves and their nation in politics, literature, art, and popular culture. As a communications-intensive subject, students will be expected to engage intensively with the material through frequent oral and written exercises.

This subject is devoted to reading and discussing basic American historical texts that are often cited but often remain unread, understanding their meaning, and assessing their continuing significance in American culture. Since it is a "Communications Intensive" subject, 21H.105 is also dedicated to improving students' capacities to write and speak well. It requires a substantial amount of writing, participation in discussions, and individual presentations to the class.

This class examines how and why twentieth-century Americans came to define the "good life" through consumption, leisure, and material abundance. We will explore how such things as department stores, nationally advertised brand-name goods, mass-produced cars, and suburbs transformed the American economy, society, and politics. The course is organized both thematically and chronologically. Each period deals with a new development in the history of consumer culture. Throughout we explore both celebrations and critiques of mass consumption and abundance.

This course explores the experiences and understandings of class among Americans positioned at different points along the U.S. social spectrum. It considers a variety of classic frameworks for analyzing social class and uses memoirs, novels, and ethnographies to gain a sense of how class is experienced in daily life and how it intersects with other forms of social difference such as race and gender.

This course provides an overview of electoral politics in the United States, covering presidential, congressional, state, and local elections. It covers the development of American elections over time, electoral rules and institutions, the macro-structural forces shaping electoral outcomes, the key organizations involved in elections (parties, etc.), candidates' calculations and campaign strategies, and the role of ordinary citizens in the electoral process, as well as potential reforms to the U.S. electoral system.

This course explores the reasons for America's past wars and interventions. It covers the consequences of American policies, and evaluates these consequences for the U.S. and the world. History covered includes World Wars I and II, the Korean and Indochina wars, the Cuban Missile Crisis and current conflicts, including those in in Iraq and Afghanistan, and against Al Qaeda.

This course explores the reasons for America's past wars and interventions. It covers the consequences of American policies, and evaluates these consequences for the U.S. and the world. History covered includes World Wars I and II, the Korean and Indochina wars, the Cuban Missile Crisis and current conflicts, including those in in Iraq and Afghanistan, and against Al Qaeda.

This course examines the causes and consequences of American foreign policy since 1898. Course readings cover both substantive and methods topics. Four substantive topics are covered:

major theories of American foreign policy;
major episodes in the history of American foreign policy and historical/interpretive controversies about them;
the evaluation of major past American foreign policies--were their results good or bad? and
current policy controversies, including means of evaluating proposed policies.

Three methods topics are covered:

basic social scientific inference--what are theories? what are good theories? how should theories be framed and tested?
historical investigative methodology, including archival research, and, most importantly,
case study methodology.

Historical episodes covered in the course are used as raw material for case studies, asking "if these episodes were the subject of case studies, how should those studies be performed, and what could be learned from them?"

Word Count: 101870

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Word Count: 246826

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Introductory course on American Government, designed also to prepare for the College Board's CLEP subject matter exam.

Word Count: 101968

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 American Government is designed to meet the scope and sequence requirements of the single-semester American government course. This title includes innovative features designed to enhance student learning, including Insider Perspective features and a Get Connected Module that shows students how they can get engaged in the political process. The book provides an important opportunity for students to learn the core concepts of American government and understand how those concepts apply to their lives and the world around them. American Government includes updated information on the 2016 presidential election.Senior Contributing AuthorsGlen Krutz (Content Lead), University of OklahomaSylvie Waskiewicz, PhD (Lead Editor)

Government can be defined as the institutions and processes that make and implement a society’s legally authoritative decisions. The government unit can be a city, a school board, a county, a state, a multi-state regional compact, a national government, or even an international body. In the U.S., government includes the national government institutions—Congress, the presidency, the federal courts, and the federal bureaucracies; the 50 state governments—state legislatures, governors, courts, and bureaucracies; and the thousands of local governments—cities, counties, and other special government districts such as school boards and the transportation authorities that govern airports, seaports, and mass transit. These governments make legally authoritative decisions that include legislation, administrative regulations, executive orders, case law rulings, and other public policy actions that are authoritative because individuals and organizations are obligated to obey them or face some kind of legal sanction.

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Contents include:

1. Why Government? Why Politics? 2. The U.S. System of Constitutional Government 3. Congress 4. The Presidency 5. The Judiciary 6. Federalism 7. The Media, Government, and Politics 8. Public Opinion 9. Political Ideology 10. Political Participation 11. Political Parties 12. Interest Groups 13. Public Policy 14. Economic Policy 15. Food Policy 16. Crime Policy 17. Global Affairs 18. Civil Liberties and Civil Rights

An ISU Local Copy of the OpenStax Textbook

Long Description:
Senior Contributing Authors Glen Krutz (Content Lead), University of Oklahoma Sylvie Waskiewicz, PhD (Lead Editor) Contributing Authors Joel Webb, Tulane University Shawn Williams, Campbellsville University Rhonda Wrzenski, Indiana University Southeast Tonya Neaves, George Mason University Adam Newmark, Appalachian State University Brooks D. Simpson, Arizona State University Prosper Bernard, Jr., City University of New York Ann Kordas, Johnson & Wales University Jennifer Danley-Scott, Texas Woman’s University Christopher Lawrence, Middle Georgia State College Instructor Resources on OpenStax Student Resources on OpenStax including the Getting Started Guide, Reading and Notetaking Guide, and Student Time Management Guide

Word Count: 335695

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Long Description:
Based off of OpenStax 2e

Word Count: 317162

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Short Description:
The content of this textbook has been developed and arranged to provide a logical progression from the fundamental principles of institutional design at the founding, to avenues of political participation, to thorough coverage of the political structures that constitute American government. The book builds upon what students have already learned and emphasizes connections between topics as well as between theory and applications. The goal of each section is to enable students not just to recognize concepts, but to work with them in ways that will be useful in later courses, future careers, and as engaged citizens.

Long Description:
This work is based on Lumen Learning’s adaptation of OpenStax American Government 2e with interactive visual and navigational enhancements made by James R. Paradiso at the University of Central Florida’s Center for Distributed Learning (CDL). Cover design by Mireya Ramirez at CDL Graphics.

Word Count: 308444

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