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Taught by: Alan Brinkley
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In The Rise of the Right , the final e-seminar in the ten-part series America Since 1945, historian Alan Brinkley discusses the emergence of conservatism as a powerful political and cultural force in the United States during the past quarter-century. Professor Brinkley traces the movement back to the galvanizing effect that Barry Goldwater's defeat in 1964 had on American conservatives, who, after enduring the relative liberalism of President Gerald Ford a decade later, eventually achieved a large measure of success when Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980. Among the different strands of American conservatism, both inside and outside the academy, that Professor Brinkley examines is the New Right, a populist movement led by social conservatives who oppose abortion, for example, and support school prayer.
Included in all the e-seminars in this series are timelines, biographical sketches of key historical figures, and a wealth of archival video and photography from the period.
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| 3–5 hours |
| Anytime |
| Not-for-Credit |
| None |
| None |
| FREE
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Note: Columbia students, faculty, staff, and alumni will need to use their University Network ID (UNI) to access e-seminars.
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E-Seminar Objectives | Outline | Instructor's Background | Recommended Reading | Technical Requirements
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Show that the rise of conservatism in American politics and culture is relatively recent.
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Provide an understanding of the events that motivated conservatives to mobilize.
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Introduce media representations from the period.
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1. Introduction
2. The Marginalization of the Right
3. The Revival of the Right
Credible Leadership
Tax Revolt
4. The Triumph of the Right
Capitalist Conservatism
Neoconservatism
The Populist Right
Antagonism Among Conservatives
5. Ronald Reagan
The Search for National Self-Confidence
From Fear to Optimism
6. Restoring the American Century
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Alan Brinkley is the Allan Nevins Professor of History at Columbia University in New York, where he has taught since 1991. He is currently Chair of the Department of History. His published works include Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and the Great Depression (Knopf, 1982), which won the 1983 National Book Award; The Unfinished Nation: A Concise History of the American People (Knopf, 1992); The End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War (Knopf, 1995); and Liberalism and Its Discontents (Harvard, 1998). He is presently writing a biography of Henry R. Luce, to be published by Knopf.
His essays, articles, and reviews have appeared in scholarly journals and in such periodicals as the New York Review of Books, the New Yorker, the New York Times Book Review, the New York Times Magazine, the New Republic, the Times Literary Supplement, and the London Review of Books. He has received fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson Center, the National Humanities Center, the Media Studies Center, Russell Sage Foundation, and others; and he was the recipient of the Joseph R. Levenson Memorial Teaching Prize at Harvard. He is chairman of the board of trustees of the Century Foundation (formerly the Twentieth Century Fund), a member of the editorial board of the American Prospect, a member of the board of directors of the New York Council for the Humanities, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1998–99 he was the Harmsworth Professor of American History at Oxford University.
He received his A.B. from Princeton and his Ph.D. from Harvard.
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Gillon, Steven M. The Democrats' Dilemma: Walter F. Mondale and the Liberal Legacy. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992.
Himmelstein, Jerome L. To The Right: The Transformation of American Conservatism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.
Hodgson, Godfrey. The World Turned Right Side Up: A History of the Conservative Ascendancy in America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996.
McGirr, Lisa. Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001.
Schoenwald, Jonathan M. A Time for Choosing: The Rise of Modern American Conservatism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Wills, Garry. Reagan's America: Innocents at Home. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1987; New York: Penguin, 2000 (with new introduction).
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You will need to use a computer with Internet access to complete this course. We recommend the following minimum
configurations:
IBM-COMPATIBLE PC
Windows 95, 98, 2000, XP, or NT
64 MB of RAM (128 recommended)
Monitor: 800x600 resolution recommended
Connection: Internet service and 56K modem minimum
Browser: Internet Explorer 4 or above (Internet Explorer 5 strongly recommended) or Netscape 4.7 or above
Sound Card (if you can hear audio you have a sound card)
Plug-ins: RealPlayer 7 or later; Flash Player 5 or later; Acrobat Reader 5 or later
(all plug-ins are free)
MACINTOSH
MAC OS 8.6 or higher
64 MB of RAM (128 recommended)
Monitor: 800x600 resolution recommended
Connection: Internet service and 56K modem minimum
Browser: Internet Explorer 5 or above or Netscape 4.7 or above
Sound Card (if you can hear audio you have a sound card)
Plug-ins: RealPlayer 7 or later; Flash Player 5 or later; Acrobat Reader 5 or later
(all plug-ins are free)
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