[B] = Boyer, Paul. By the Bomb’s Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age. The University of North Carolina Press, 1994. ISBN: 9780807844809.
[N] = Nicolaides, Becky M., and Andrew Wiese, eds. The Suburb Reader. Routledge, 2006. ISBN: 9780415945943.
[S] = Schrecker, Ellen. The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents. 2nd ed. Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2001. ISBN: 9780312393199.
[SP] = Spence, Jonathan D., ed. The Search for Modern China. 3rd ed. W. W. Norton & Company, 2012. ISBN: 9780393934519.
[W] = Williams, Robert F. Negroes with Guns. Martino Fine Books, 2013. ISBN: 9781614274117.
| SES # | TOPICS | READINGS AND FILMS |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introductions | No readings or films assigned |
| 2 | Key Questions, Debates, and Approaches to the Nuclear Age |
Readings Brinkley, Alan. “The Illusion of Unity in Cold War Culture.” Chapter 3 in Rethinking Cold War Culture. Edited by Peter J. Kuznick and James Gilbert. Smithsonian Books, 2010. ISBN: 9781560988953. Hodgson, Godfrey. “The Ideology of Liberal Consensus.” Chapter 4 in America in Our Time: From World War II To Nixon-What Happened and Why. Princeton University Press, 2005. ISBN: 9780691122885. Howe, Irving. “This Age of Conformity.” Partisan Review 21, no. 1 (1954): 7–33. Isaac, Joel. “The Human Sciences in Cold War America.” The Historical Journal 50, no. 3 (2007): 725–46. |
| Unit 1 - The Bomb and Atomic Culture | ||
| 3 | The Dawn of the Nuclear Age |
Readings [B] Chapter 1: The Whole World Gasped. [B] Chapter 2: The Summons to Action. [B] Chapter 3: The Atomic-Bomb Nightmares and World-Government Dreams. [B] Chapter 4: The Political Agenda of the Scientist’s Movement. [B] Chapter 5: ‘To the Village Square’: The Public Agenda of the Scientist’s Movement.
Weiner, Norbert. “A Scientist Rebels.” (PDF) Atlantic Monthly, January 1947. Winkler, Allan M. “Origins of the Atomic Age.” Chapter 1 in Life Under A Cloud: American Anxiety about the Atom. Oxford University Press, 1993. ISBN: 9780195078213. |
| 4 | Duck and Cover: Civil Defense |
Reading Davis, Tracy C. “Civil Defense Concepts and Planning.” Chapter 1 in Stages of Emergency: Cold War Nuclear Civil Defense. Duke University Press Books, 2007. ISBN: 9780822339700. [Preview with Google Books] Film The Atomic Cafe. Directed by Jayne Loader, Kevin Rafferty, and Pierce Rafferty. Color and Black and White, 85 min. 1982. |
| 5 | Domestic Containment and the Nuclear Family |
Readings Mrs. Carnegie, Dale. “How to Help Your Husband Get Ahead.” Chapter 23 in Women’s Magazines 1940–1960: Gender Roles and the Popular Press. Edited by Nancy A. Walker. Bedford / St. Martin’s, 1998. ISBN: 9780312102012. May, Elaine Tyler. “Explosive Issues: Sex, Women, and the Bomb.” Chapter 8 in Recasting America: Culture and Politics in the Age of Cold War. Edited by Lary May. University of Chicago Press, 1992. ———. “Cold War-Warm Hearth: Politics and the Family in Postwar America.” Chapter 6 in The Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order, 1930–1980. Edited by Steve Fraser and Gary Gerstle. Princeton University Press, 1990. ISBN: 9780691006079. [Preview with Google Books] Spigel, Lynn. “Television and the Family Circle.” Chapter 2 in Make Room for TV: Television and the Family Ideal in Postwar America. University of Chicago Press, 1992. ISBN: 9780226769677. [Preview with Google Books] |
| Unit 2 - Enemies from Within: The Culture and Politics of Security | ||
| 6 | McCarthyism and the Red Scare |
Readings [S] Part 1: The Age of McCarthyism. [S] Chapter 5: Communists in Government and the Big Spy Cases. [S] Chapter 6: Atomic Espionage. [S] Chapter 7: The Loyalty-Security Program. [S] Chapter 10: Congressional Committees and Unfriendly Witnesses. [S] Chapter 11: Red-Baiting and Careerism: Joseph McCarthy at Work. [S] Chapter 12: Congressional Investigations and the ‘Loss’ of China. [S] Chapter 14: Blacklists and Other Economic Sanctions. [S] Chapter 16: The Legacy of McCarthyism. “‘Enemies from Within’: Senator Joseph R. McCarthy’s Accusation of Disloyalty - February 9, 1950,” History Matters, George Mason University. “‘You Are the Un-Americans, and You Ought to be Ashamed of Yourselves’: Paul Robeson Appears Before HUAC - June 12, 1956,” History Matters, George Mason University. |
| N/A | No Class Meeting |
Reading Scheinfeld, Amram. “Are American Moms a Menace?” Chapter 19 in Women’s Magazines 1940–1960: Gender Roles and the Popular Press. Edited by Nancy A. Walker. Bedford / St. Martin’s, 1998. ISBN: 9780312102012. Film The Manchurian Candidate. Directed by John Frankenheimer. Black and White, 126 min. 1962. |
| 7 | Sex, Gender, and the Lavender Scare |
Readings Johnson, David K. “Peurifoy’s Revelation: The Politics of the Purges.” Chapter 1 in The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government. University of Chicago Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780226401904. Paschen, Stephen H., and Leonard Schlup, eds. “Employment of Homosexuals and Other Sex Perverts: Senate Investigations Subcommittee Report. " In Documents Depicting the 1950s: A Decade of Conformity and Dissent. Edwin Mellen Press, 2008. ISBN: 9780773450653. |
| 8 | Psychology in an Age of Anxiety |
Readings Dunne, Matthew W. “The Origins of Brainwashing.” Chapter 1 in A Cold War State of Mind: Brainwashing and Postwar American Society. University of Massachusetts Press, 2013. ISBN: 9781625340412. Menand, Louis. “Freud, Anxiety, and the Cold War.” Chapter 7 in After Freud Left: A Century of Psychoanalysis in America. Edited by John Burnham. University of Chicago Press, 2012. ISBN: 9780226211862. [Preview with Google Books] |
| Unit 3 - The Military-Industrial-Academic Complex | ||
| 9 | The Emergence of Computing Technology |
Readings Bush, Vannevar. “As We May Think.” The Atlantic, July 1945.
Optional Isaacson, Walter. “Walter Isaacson on the Women of ENIAC.” Fortune, September 18, 2014. |
| 10 | Humans, Machines, and the Reorganization of Work |
Readings Friedman, Ted. “Filming the ‘Electronic Brain’.” Chapter 3 in Electric Dreams: Computers in American Culture. NYU Press, 2005. ISBN: 9780814727409. Markusen, Ann. “Cold War Workers, Cold War Communities.” Chapter 2 in Rethinking Cold War Culture. Edited by Peter J. Kusnick and James Gilbert. Smithsonian Books, 2010. ISBN: 9781560988953. Film Desk Set. Directed by Walter Lang. Color, 103 min. 1957. |
| 11 |
MIT and the Cold War Guest Speaker Professor David Kaiser, MIT |
Reading
Optional Kaiser, David. “Turning Physicists into Quantum Mechanics.” Physics World 20, no. 5 (2007): 28–33. |
| 12 | Organization Men and Their Critics |
Readings Menand, Louis. “Fat Man: Herman Kahn and the Nuclear Age.” The New Yorker, June 27, 2005. Mills, C. Wright. “The Higher Circles.” Chapter 1 in The Power Elite. Oxford University Press, 2000. ISBN: 9780195133547. [Preview with Google Books] Eisenhower, Dwight D. “Military-Industrial Complex Speech.” Whyte, William H. “Introduction.” Chapter 1 in The Organization Man. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780812218190. Film (optional) Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Directed by Stanley Kubrick. Black and White, 95 min. 1964. |
| Unit 4 -The Politics of Space and Race | ||
| 13 | Suburbanization, White Flight, and Urban Crisis |
Readings [N] Chapter 10.1: Folksinger Lavina Reynolds Critiques Suburbia in Song, 1962. [N] Chapter 10.4: Lewis Mumford Points to the Failures of Modern Suburbia, 1961. [N] Chapter 10.5: Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, 1963. Jackson, Kenneth T. “The Baby Boom and the Age of the Subdivision.” Chapter 13 in Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States. Oxford University Press, 1987. ISBN: 9780195049831. [Preview with Google Books] Sugrue, Thomas J. “Introduction.” In The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit. Princeton University Press, 2014. ISBN: 9780691162553. Film Crisis in Levittown, PA. Black and White, 31 min. 1957. |
| 14 | The Malling of America |
Readings Cohen, Lizabeth. “From Town Center to Shopping Center: The Reconfiguration of Community Marketplaces in Postwar America.” American Historical Review 101, no. 4 (1996): 1050–81. Hayden, Dolores. “Edge Nodes.” Chapter 8 in Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth, 1820–2000. Vintage, 2004. ISBN: 9780375727214. Film Shopping Can Be Fun: A New Concept in Merchandising. Directed by George H. Kelley. Color, 17 min. 1957. |
| 15 | Race and the Space Race |
Readings “Commentary: Racing the Russians to the Moon,” Soul City Times, December 21, 1968. “Commentary: The Not So Great Adventure,” Soul City Times, July 26, 1969. “Editorials: Earth First,” Milwaukee Star Times, April 27, 1972. “Tougaloo Conference Watches Space Jobs,” Mississippi Free Press, January 25, 1964. Petit, Michael D. “Ain’t That A Trip? $50 Billion Shot Into Space,” Milwaukee Star Times, April 27, 1972. Spigel, Lynn. “Outer Space and Inner Cities: African American Responses to NASA.” In Welcome to the Dreamhouse: Popular Media and Postwar Suburbs. Duke University Press Books, 2001. ISBN: 9780822326960. [Preview with Google Books] Thomas, Pat. “Commentary: ‘Why Wasn’t a Black Astronaut in the Bunch?’ Youngster Asks,” Soul City Times, July 26, 1969. Film Space is the Place. Directed by John Coney. Color, 85 min. 1974. |
| Unit 5 - The Global Cold War | ||
| 16 | The Global Cold War and the Making of Three Worlds |
Readings Minh, Ho Chi. “Declaration of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam - September 2, 1945,” History Matters, George Mason University. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China Party Literature Research Center of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. “We Are In An Era When Imperialists Fear Us (May 3, 1960).” In Mao Zedong on Diplomacy. Foreign Languages Press, 1998. ISBN: 9787119011417. Westad, Odd Arne. “Creating the Third World: The United States Confronts Revolution.” Chapter 4 in The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times. Cambridge University Press, 2007. ISBN: 9780521703147. [Preview with Google Books] |
| 17 |
China’s Cold War Guest Lecturer Professor Christopher R. Leighton, MIT |
Readings [SP] Chapter 19.1: Treaty with the Soviet Union, February 1950. [SP] Chapter 20.1: Mao Zedong: ‘The Chinese People Cannot Be Cowed by the Atom Bomb,’ January 28, 1955. [SP] Chapter 20.2: Mao Zedong: ‘U.S. Imperialism is a Paper Tiger,’ July 14, 1956. [SP] Chapter 21.5: ‘The Origin and Development of the Difference Between The Leadership of the CPSU and Ourselves,’ September 6, 1963. [SP] Chapter 23.1: The Shanghai Communiqué: Joint Communiqué. [SP] Chapter 23.2: Deng Xiaoping, Speech at the United Nations, April 10, 1974. Xiaoping, Deng. “Build Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.” In Sources of Chinese Tradition, Volume Two: From 1600 through the Twentieth Century. 2nd edition. Edited by William Theodore de Bary and Richard Lufrano. Columbia University Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780231112710. Zedong, Mao. “Leaning to One Side.” In Sources of Chinese Tradition, Volume Two: From 1600 through the Twentieth Century. 2nd edition. Edited by William Theodore de Bary and Richard Lufrano. Columbia University Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780231112710. |
| 18 | Cold War Civil Rights |
Readings [W] “Prologue.” [W] Chapter 1: Self-Defense Prevents Bloodshed. [W] Chapter 2: An NAACP Chapter is Reborn in Militancy. [W] Chapter 5: Self-Defense Prevents a Pogrom: Racists Engineer a Kidnapping Frameup. [W] Chapter 6: The Monroe Case: Conspiracy Against the Negro. Dudziak, Mary L. “Brown as a Cold War Case.” Journal of American History 91, no. 1 (2004): 32–42. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China Party Literature Research Center of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. “Statement in Support of the Struggle of the American Black People Against Racial Discrimination (August 8, 1963).” In Mao Zedong on Diplomacy. Foreign Languages Press, 1998. ISBN: 9787119011417. Skim [W] Chapter 3: The Struggle for Militancy in the NAACP. [W] Chapter 4: Non-Violence Emboldens the Racists: A Week of Terror. [W] Chapter 7: Self-Defense: An American Tradition. |
| Unit 6 - Rebels, Critics, and the End of Consensus | ||
| 19 | Delinquents and Rebels: The 1950s as Prelude to the 1960s |
Readings Bloom, Alexander, and Wini Breines, eds. “‘Past as Prologue’: The 1950s as an Introduction to the 1960s.” In Takin’ It to the Streets: A Sixties Reader. 4th edition. Oxford University Press, 2015. ISBN: 9780190250706. Crowther, Bosley. “The Screen: Delinquency; ‘Rebel Without Cause’ Has Debut at Astor,” New York Times, October 27, 1955. David, Lester. “Newspaper Survey: Are You a Conformist or a Rebel?, 1959.” In Major Problems in American History Volume II: Since 1865: Documents and Essays. 3rd edition. Edited by Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman, Edward J. Blum, and Jon Gjerde. Wadsworth Publishing, 2011. ISBN: 9781111343163. Gilbert, James. “Mass Culture and The Fear of Delinquency: The 1950s.” Journal of Early Adolescence 5, no. 4 (1985): 505–16. Isserman, Maurice, and Michael Kazin. “The Making of a Youth Culture.” Chapter 8 in _America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960_s. 5th edition. Oxford University Press, 2015. ISBN: 9780190217181. Menand, Louis. “Drive, He Wrote.” The New Yorker, October 1, 2007. |
| 20 | The End of Consensus: The Student Movement and the New Left |
Readings Bloom, Alexander, and Wini Breines, eds. “‘My Generation’: The Student Movement and the New Left - The Port Huron Statement.” Chapter 2 in Takin’ It to the Streets: A Sixties Reader. 4th edition. Oxford University Press, 2015. ISBN: 9780190250706. Isserman, Maurice, and Michael Kazin. “The New Left.” Chapter 9 in America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s. 5th edition. Oxford University Press, 2015. ISBN: 9780190217181. Lubar, Steven. “‘Do Not Fold, Spindle, or Mutilate’: A Cultural History of the Punch Card.” Journal of American Culture 15, no. 4 (1992): 43–55. |
| 21 | Rethinking Nature in a Nuclear Age |
Readings Carson, Rachel. “A Fable For Tomorrow.” Chapter 1 in Silent Spring. 50th Anniversary Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002. ISBN: 9780618249060. [Preview with Google Books] ———. “The Obligation to Endure.” Chapter 2 in Silent Spring. 50th Anniversary Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002. ISBN: 9780618249060. [Preview with Google Books] May, Timothy. “The End of Enthusiasm: Science and Technology.” In The Columbia Guide to American Life in the 1960s. Edited by David Farber and Beth Bailey. Columbia University Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780231113731. Robertson, Thomas. “Introduction: From Rubbish to Riots.” In The Malthusian Moment: Global Population Growth and the Birth of American Environmentalism. Rutgers University Press, 2012. ISBN: 9780813552729. Tyrrell, Ian. “Modern Environmentalism.” Chapter 17 in A Companion to Post-1945 America. Edited by Jean-Christophe Agnew and Roy Rosenzweig. Wiley-Blackwell, 2006. ISBN: 9781405149846. Skim Dr. Ehrlich, Paul R. “The Problem.” Chapter 1 in The Population Bomb. Ballantine Books, 1971. ISBN: 9780345021717. Optional Carson, Rachel. “Elixirs of Death.” Chapter 3 in Silent Spring. 50th Anniversary Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002. ISBN: 9780618249060. [Preview with Google Books] Holden, Constance. “Ehrlich versus Commoner: Environmental Fallout.” Science, New Series 177, no. 4045 (1972): 245–47. |
| 22 | The Return of Fear and the Anti-Nuclear Movement |
Readings Davidon, Ann Morrissett. “The U.S. Anti-Nuclear Movement.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 35, no. 10 (1979): 45–48. [Preview with Google Books] Rubinson, Paul. “The Global Effects of Nuclear Winter: Science and Antinuclear Protest in the United States and the Soviet Union during the 1980s.” Cold War History 14, no. 1 (2014): 47–69. Walker, J. Samuel. “From the ‘Atomic-Age’ to the ‘Anti-Nuclear Age’: Energy in Politics, Diplomacy, and Culture.” Chapter 26 in A Companion to Post-1945 America. Edited by Jean-Christophe Agnew and Roy Rosenzweig. Wiley-Blackwell, 2006. ISBN: 9781405149846. Winkler, Allan M. “A Resurgence of Concern.” Chapter 8 in Life Under A Cloud: American Anxiety about the Atom. Oxford University Press, 1993. ISBN: 9780195078213. |
| Conclusions | ||
| 23 | Legacies of the Cold War and the Unfolding Nuclear Age |
Readings May, Elaine Tyler. “Security Against Democracy: The Legacy of the Cold War at Home.” Journal of American History 97, no. 4 (2011): 939–57. Rogers, Paul. “A Century on the Edge: From Cold War to Hot World, 1945–2045.” (PDF) International Affairs 90, no. 1 (2014): 93–106. Skim Waters, C.N., James Syvitski, et al. “Can Nuclear Weapons Fallout Mark the Beginning of the Anthropocene Epoch?” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 71, no. 3 (2015): 46–57. Optional van Munster, Rens, and Casper Sylvest. “[Pro-Nuclear Environmentalism: Should We Learn to Stop Worrying and Love Nuclear Energy?](http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1353/tech.2015.0107)” Technology and Culture 56, no. 4 (2015): 789–811. |
