HIST 291 - Advanced Topics in International Relations

Spring 2012: This course will explore the life and times of Ronald Reagan, whom many Americans regard as the greatest U.S. president during the second half of the 20th century. We will spend some time examining Reagan’s rise from his small-town beginnings in northern Illinois to his B-movie career in Hollywood and then on to his life in politics, first in Sacramento and then in Washington, D.C. Although we will examine the domestic policies of the Reagan administration during the 1980s, the last two-thirds of the course will focus mainly on the foreign policy of America’s 40th president, from his confrontation with the Soviet Union to his controversial actions in the Third World.