Thanks for the wide discussion last night. I am pleased by how many of you had something to say. In all likelihood, we'll revisit that question next week as Congress continues to debate a military strike.
For Tuesday, you need to read Outdone By Reality, a short interesting piece from the NY Times about popular culture in the wake of September 11. The article is linked in the shedule.
For Thursday, you have a longer piece of reading - the first chapter from Matthew Frye Jacobson's Barbarian Virtues. Rather than assign you the introduction, and save you about ten pages of reading, I decided to summarize the ideas for you. The pdf is also available on the schedule. Please go to the library and print out your own copy.
While you're reading, think about this: In my mind, there are two scholars in the United States that share the top spot when it comes to the history of immigration. Matt Jacobson is one of them and his book is really, really smart. Basically, Barbarian Virtues tries to understand why immigration came to be such a consuming question for the United States at the beginning of the 20th century. And here, in a nutshell, is his explanation:
Industrial expansion required more people to work in factories.
Aggressive American foreign policy put the nation in contact with new people - from the shtetls of Europe to the grass huts of the Pacific Ocean.
But many Americans felt that all these new people arriving were barbarian, savage, and did not fit the American ideal. They should not, or could not, be part of the "one out of many." In particular, they lacked civilization and were "unfit for self-government."
For Tuesday, you need to read Outdone By Reality, a short interesting piece from the NY Times about popular culture in the wake of September 11. The article is linked in the shedule.
For Thursday, you have a longer piece of reading - the first chapter from Matthew Frye Jacobson's Barbarian Virtues. Rather than assign you the introduction, and save you about ten pages of reading, I decided to summarize the ideas for you. The pdf is also available on the schedule. Please go to the library and print out your own copy.
While you're reading, think about this: In my mind, there are two scholars in the United States that share the top spot when it comes to the history of immigration. Matt Jacobson is one of them and his book is really, really smart. Basically, Barbarian Virtues tries to understand why immigration came to be such a consuming question for the United States at the beginning of the 20th century. And here, in a nutshell, is his explanation:
It's obviously more complicated, with many interesting nuances.
No comments:
Post a Comment