Globalization and Domestic Politics Prompt
Your job with the analytical paper is to take the information from Rauchway and Katznelsons books and make a persuasive case for political policy change over time. Treat these books as a case study to
explain the critical development of American politics in two phases: one where US policy developed
reactive to global forces c1870-1920, and one where US policy developed as active and interventionist
because of global forces c1930-1950.
What social and economic issues motivated policy development in each era? Using Rauchway, consider effects such as immigration, banking and investment, public health, infrastructure, and industrialization as outside forces shaped internal development in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Using Katznelson, consider next the Great Depression and the ways growing authoritarianism, nazism, and fascism in the world prompted a different path for the US and its New Deal policy in the 1930s and 1940s. In what ways did New Deal laws on banking, labor, and social and economic programs reshape US commitment to its people and to the world? Explain also the New Deals effects on race and class due to a newly empowered southern wing of the Democratic congressional majority.
Make sure your paper includes a thesis that clearly addresses the transformation of US domestic policy from reactive to active and interventionist due to global social and economic forces. Make sure your evidence draws clearly from both books.
Books required for Globalization and Social and Economic Policy Prompt:
Eric Rauchway, Blessed Among Nations: How the World Made America (New York: Hill and Wang), 2006. ISBN 9780809030477. (Whole Book)
Ira Katznelson, Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time (New York: W.W. Norton), 2013. ISBN-10:0871407388; ISBN-13:978-0871407382 (Intro; Chapters 3-7)
