HISTORY OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS MOD.2

Professor

Degree Programmes and curricula

Other parts of the course

Contents

Educational Goals

The course will provide students with a detailed introduction to the history of the transatlantic relationship between Europe and the United States in the second half XXth Century. The main goal of the course is the understanding of the actors and the patterns of development of the transatlantic relationship in their bilateral and global dynamics.

Requirements

Basic knowledge of US and European Contemporary History. Though not being needed, the basic knowledge of Economic History is highly welcomed.

Contents

The sections of the course will deal with the following topics:
1-The origins and main developments affecting the relations between the US and Europe from 1945 to the 1960s.
2-The actors and the forces that have dynamically shaped the relationship during the crucial years of the 1970s.
3-The patterns of cooperation and competition between the US and Europe in the Third World: the quest for global hegemony.In

The first section of the course (10 hours), Dr. Massimiliano Trentin will outline the basic timeline of the transatlantic relationship since 1945. The NATO alliance and the process of European integration featured as the main institutions of the relationship.
In the second section (10 hours), the course will focus on the crucial period of the 1970s. Previous patterns of cooperation now adjusted to a new international context where economic competition, unilateral moves and regionalization coupled with the long-standing alliance against Communism and revolutionary movements at home and abroad.
The third and last section of the course (10 hours) will approach the transatlantic relationship from a historical and global perspective: it will focus on the patterns of cooperation and competition between the US and the European states for the expansion or exclusion of their influence in the “rest” of the world. Patterns of modern development promoted and implemented by the US and European powers in the so called Third World will be compared with the projects and actions taken by their local partners: the Middle East and Latin America will be the main regions put under scrutiny.
All these topics will be approached by way of comparing and detecting the links between the theoretical elaborations and the practice of cooperation and competition between the US and Europe. At the end of the section, students will be able to understand and read critically by their own the dynamics at display in contemporary transatlantic relationship and global politics.

Recommended Reading List

For all students, beside the materials provided by the professor in his webpage:

G. Lundestad, The US and Western Europe since 1945, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005.

G. Lundestad ed., Just Another Major Crisis? The United States and Europe Since 2000, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008, Chapters 1, 2, 4, 10, 15.

For students who will not attend classes, in addition to the previous texts one the following is highly recommended:

Mark T. Berger, The Battle for Asia. From Decolonization to Globalization, London, Routledge, 2004, pp. 1-148


Letture utili per tutti gli studenti sono anche:

G. Mammarella, I destini incrociati, Bari, Laterza, 2004
G. Mammarella, Europa e Stati Uniti dopo la guerra fredda, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2010
T. Judt, Dopoguerra, Milano, Mondadori, 2007
P. Kastor, America's struggle with empire, Washington DC, Sage, 2008
M. Del Pero, Libertà e impero, Bari, Laterza, 2008
G.C. Herring, From colony to superpower, New York, Oxford University Press, 2008

Assessment

oral

Teaching Methods

The course is based on conventional frontal lectures involving the use of electronic slides, documentaries and multimedia when necessary. Guest lecturers are scheduled to further advance and compare the topics under scrutiny.

Teaching Language

Italiano e Inglese