American History and Politics

At the end of this course students will be able to:

A) Discuss critically the diverse historical and political evolution of the United States of America, using properly conceptual tools to describe the transformation of the territory in different periods (North, South, East, West), and comparing specific historical phenomena (for example, the encounter with the Western culture and the Indians, the creation of new States, the Civil War etc.). Finally, establishing the correlation among past events, exploring historical continuity and change in the creation of the American Republic.

B) Apply the historical understanding of the area developed during the course to address contemporary issues concerning the United States and its politics (for example, to discuss the present election).

C) Analyze critically historical sources, identifying different types of historical source (direct, indirect, primary, secondary), selecting useful information from historical sources, and finally detecting and interpreting the author's intent and the aim of the source.

Corcerning knowledge and understanding the course aims to apply original ideas in a research context, and to solve new problems in the field, making judgements on new issues, as well as the ability to communicate these skills to a broad publlic. Finally with the exercise of the comprension of historical cases we will try to obtain learning skills to study in an autonomus way.