Spring 2005

GOV 379S • The Johnson Years - HON

Course Description

Course number may be repeated for credit when topics vary. The years of Lyndon Johnson’s Presidency were a critical time in the history of the United States, a time of both great accomplishments and serious divisions when triumph and tragedy walked in lock step. The 29 sessions of this course will cover the legislative activity that formed the basis of Johnson’s “Great Society” and also review the ever-widening decisions that lead to the trauma of Vietnam. Four classes will look at activities inside the White House, with guests who were part of the Johnson experience. Three other classes will also hear invited guests who are experts in their fields. The students will be introduced to the process of research. In two sessions at the LBJ Library, Library archivists will describe the materials available on various subjects, and students will then select the topics they will research. Students will have several weeks to conduct their research and write their papers. Those papers will serve as the course’s only exam.

Grading Policy

TBA

Texts

LBJ: The White House Years, by Harry Middleton; Johnson’s: first address to Congress, “Great Society” speech, “We Shall Overcome” speech, memoir; “The Ship Sails On,” a speech by Joseph Califano, Jr.; In Retrospect, by Robert S. McNamara; “Vietnam and Southeast Asia,” from Concept and Controversy, by W.W. Rostow; “The War in Vietnam,” by George Herring, a chapter in Exploring the Johnson Years

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