America

PART A (20%)

Why does David Finkel call his book THE GOOD SOLDIER? Is his soldier good? Is his soldier bad? Write a brief analysis of this book that is focused on the moral ambiguity of war as it is presented here.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/books/review/Stanton-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 here is a link to a book review I found on line, please do your best on this part of the assignment.)

PART B (40%)

1. Write an essay in which you discuss the consequences of the failure of the Great Society Programs of the late 60s. Follow the thread of that failure as it plays out in the 70s. 80s and the 90s. Be sure to include Pruitt-Igoe, Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop and finally the War on Drugs and the growth of the Prison-Industrial Complex.

2. Stokely Carmichael once made the claim that what was good for Black people was good for American democracy. Discuss this claim and build a case for or against it for the period from 1954 to the present, drawing on course readings, lectures and films.

3.Cornel West has argued that America’s will toward racial justice is weak. Discuss this claim, using evidence gleaned from the lectures. films and your reading.

4. The central philosophical underpinning of all of the significant social movements of the 60s and the 70s was the concept of participatory democracy. We now live in an age in which the gathering and the dissemination of information has been greatly democratized by a whole range of social media. Write an essay in which you 1) trace the influence of participatory democracy on one of the following social movements, paying particular attention to the ways in which the broad participation of adherents shaped the movement as a whole: Women’s liberation, environmental, Black Power, Gay & Lesbian rights movement, Chicano Movement. 2.) In a brief conclusion you might want to imagine the impact on that movement of 21st century social media.

5. Alice Echols writes: In a sense the individual became the site of political activity in the 60s. Discuss. (not only in terms of the women’s movement.)

6. Write an essay in which you describe and discuss the waves of movements concerned with social justice that took place in the 60s and 70s. You need to begin with a brief comment on the Classical phase of the civil rights movement and then discuss at least three significant social movements of the period: Free Speech Movement, the anti-war movement, the Black Power movement, the women’s movement and the gay and lesbian movement. You may also choose to discuss the Chicano power movement or environmentalism.

( for part B, you can choose whichever one of these questions that you feel comfortable answering. please choose one that you can do a great job on.)

PART C (40%)

2. A historian has referred to the 1970s as a decade in which it seemed like nothing happened, suggesting a more complacent and conservative decade after the social activism and upheavals of the 60s. Discuss.

3. One historian has argued that Watergate was the crucial event that brought down the imperial presidency which emphasized a powerful activist president. Evaluate this view, examining presidential power and challenges to this power between the 1960s and the Reagan Administration

4. How have both male and female gender identities been redefined since the 1950s? What were the larger effects of this redefinition on American society and politics? Be sure to refer to your readings whenever possible.