77092 - United Stated International Relations

Learning outcomes

The course will study the history of US international relations, looking at the national and international institutions and the economic, cultural and political understandings that have shaped US foreign policy. At the end of the course students will be expected to know the key events and issues of US international relations and their impact on the XX and XXI century international system, and the interaction between domestic politics and foreign policy.

Course contents

The course is organized in lectures and seminars, as detailed in the following program. Lectures (16 hours in remote on MS TEAMS) aim to introduce students to the core tenets of the discipline. Seminars (12 hours) aim to provide occasions for in-depth discussions of class materials and exercises. For the seminar section of the course, students will be divided in two groups according to their preferences and according to rules concerning the current pandemic emergency: one group will do the seminar in classroom (12 hours) and another group will do the seminar remotely on MS TEAMS (12 hours), for a total of 28 hours for each student. Students are required to carefully read the assigned material before the session and - in the case of seminars - active participation through presentations of existing scholarship and case studies will also be expected. Regardless of the health-related conditions and the specific organization of the course, students will be able to follow the lessons of the entire course remotely on MS TEAMS.

Starting from the current debate about the “end of the American century” (the “decline of the American empire”, the “hegemonic crisis” of the United States in the liberal international order, and the hypothetical ascendancy of a “post-American world”), the course will study key issues in US international relations (from the 1898 Spanish-American war up to the First and Second World War, from the politics of modernization of the Sixties to the end of the Cold War, from the 9/11 and the war on terror to the American First of Trump) paying attention to some of the fundamental concepts that have shaped the US foreign policy (exceptionalism, isolationism, internationalism, modernization, globalization, unilateralism). Lectures will focus on Mario Del Pero, Libertà e Impero. Gli Stati Uniti e il Mondo, 1776-2016, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2017. Seminars focus on historiographical sources and research to be carried out on various historical – economic and political, racial and cultural, scientific and ideological – aspects of the rise and fall of the American Century, based on the essays contained in Andrew J. Bacevich (ed.), The Short American Century. A Postmortem, Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard University Press, 2012.

Readings/Bibliography

Attending Students 

- Mario Del Pero, Libertà e Impero. Gli Stati Uniti e il Mondo, 1776-2016, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2017.

Più un volume a scelta fra:

- Frank Ninkovich, The Wilsonian Century. U.S. Foreign Policy since 1900, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1999.

- Michael Latham, The Right Kind of Revolution: Modernization, Development, and U.S. Foreign Policy from the Cold War to the Present, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2011.

Not Attending Students

- Mario Del Pero, Libertà e Impero. Gli Stati Uniti e il Mondo, 1776-2016, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2017.

- Andrew J. Bacevich, The Short American Century. A Postmortem, Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard University Press, 2012.

Più due monografie a scelta fra le seguenti:

- Mario Del Pero, Henry Kissinger e l'ascesa dei neoconservatori: alle origini della politica estera americana, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2006.

- Mario Del Pero, Era Obama. Dalla speranza del cambiamento all'elezione di Trump, Milano, Feltrinelli, 2017.

- Michael Latham, The Right Kind of Revolution: Modernization, Development, and U.S. Foreign Policy from the Cold War to the Present, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2011.

- Frank Ninkovich, The Wilsonian Century: U.S. Foreign Policy since 1900, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1999.

- Federico Romero, Storia della guerra fredda: l'ultimo conflitto per l'Europa, Torino, Einaudi, 2009.

- Anders Stephanson, Destino Manifesto. L'espansionismo americano e l'Impero del Bene, Milano, Feltrinelli, 2004.

Preliminary book for those who have never attended courses in United States History: Arnaldo Testi, Il secolo degli Stati Uniti, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2017

Teaching methods

Lectures and Seminars

Assessment methods

Oral exam

Teaching tools

Scientific and historiographical Essays, documents and presidential addresses

Office hours

See the website of Matteo Battistini