Spring 2007

AMS 370 • American Society & Culture Before the Civil War-W

Course Description

This course will explore the nature of American society in the forty years before the Civil War. Political and economic developments, slavery and sectionalism, reform movements, literature, and everyday life will be some of the aspects of that era we will be considering. We will be looking not only at different topics but also at the ways in which historians grapple with evidence and create visions of the age.

Texts

Abzug, Cosmos Crumbling Douglass, Narrative of Frederick Douglass (Bedford edition, with pref. by Blight) Melville, Benito Cereno and Bartleby the Scrivener (Dover edition) Perdue, The Cherokee Removal Stampp, 1857: A Nation on the Brink Watson, Liberty and Power Wyatt-Brown, Honor and Violence in the Old South Special Assignment: Chapters 1820-1860 of any college text Assorted handouts and Xeroxes READING LIST MAY CHANGE DEPENDING ON BOOK AVAILABILITY

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