Explore the inner workings of the American political system just before the 2012 election starts heating up in the Fall. This course is an appropriate first step on the path toward earning a Major or Minor in Political Science and, for students pursuing degrees at the University of Kentucky, also fulfills the U.S. citizenship requirement of UKCore.

This course examines American history from 1877 to the present: political, economic, and social—Gilded Age, Progressive Era, New Deal, Age of Affluence and of Limits, Great Society and two Great Wars. You will find how much, how little, America has lived up to its ideals: how it grew from a nation of farms and cotton mills to an industrial giant; how it became a world power and what problems this created. Because we will cover over 130 years of American history, we will focus our coverage on moments in the American past where the rights of citizens contracted or expanded.