HIST 3431 - [Obama and Lincoln]

(crosslisted)
(also AMST 3431) (HA-AS)

Fall. 4 credits.

Next offered 2013–2014.

E. Baptist.

Constant comparisons link the x and y presidents of the U.S., Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama. This course will use the histories of the eras in which the two became president, and their administrations (in the case of Obama, his administration so far) in order to teach students about the following topics: the history of American political campaigns, the history the American party system, the uses of American political rhetoric in the speeches and texts of two acknowledged masters of the genre, the question of how we measure ethics in politics and the presidency, the role of race and the history of slavery in the context of American national self-definition, and the changing history of the presidency itself.