American Power and Energies -- A History of the United States

HIUS 2071 / STS 2071

American Power and Energies -- A History of the United States

John K. Brown

America today is a high-energy society.   For over a century, the United States has also wielded vast economic, political, and military power.  How do energy sources relate to social, corporate, or political power?  This course examines that question across the history of the United States.  It draws from political, business, technological, and environmental history to chart the growth, effects, and limits of energy and power in its varied forms.

The course presumes no knowledge of American history; its major textbook (Pursell) will guide you through the big events of that story.  But don’t think of the class simply as events walled off in the past.  The energy choices and policies that we make today are deeply shaped by our energy pasts.  No academic discipline offers a full view of energy issues, but history provides an ideal window into the complex ways in which humans try to wield energy and power.

Two lectures and one discussion section each week (attendance and active participation in discussion is required and counts for 20 percent of overall course grade).  Four Reading Analysis Papers (two pages each; 40 percent of grade) that analyze course readings.  Additional elements of the final grade include: a midterm exam (15 percent), a final exam (20 percent), and unannounced quizzes (5 percent).  Readings will average 120 pages per week.

Reading list (some titles may change before the semester starts):

• Carroll Pursell, The Machine in America: A Social History of Technology   (second edition) (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007).  ISBN - 0-8018-8579-5.
• Carol Sheriff, The Artificial River: The Erie Canal and the Paradox of Progress, 1817-1862 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1997) ISBN-10: 0809016052.
• Charles R. Morris, The Tycoons: How Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould and J.P. Morgan Invented the American Supereconomy (New York: Henry Holt, 2006)  ISBN - 978-0805081343.
• Rudi Volti, Cars and Culture: The Life Story of a Technology (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006) ISBN-10: 0801883997.
• Gary Cross, An All Consuming Century: Why Commercialism Won in Modern America (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000).  ISBN - 978-0231-11313-7.
• Richard White, The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River (New York: Hill and Wang, 1997).  ISBN-10: 0-8090-1583-8.
• Andrew J. Bacevich, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism  (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2008).  ISBN - 0805088156.
• Jay Hakes, A Declaration of Energy Independence (New York: Wiley, 2008).  ISBN-10: 047 026 7631.