History provides a powerful set of tools for policy analysts, practitioners, and advocates. This course teaches students how to use history to: better understand U.S. policy processes; deepen policy analysis; advocate for policy interventions; and weigh alternative solutions to longstanding problems. Rather than surveying the past, this course begins from current U.S. policy problems for example, the persistence of racial inequality in social welfare provision, mass detentions and deportations of immigrants, and new challenges to U.S. global authority amid rising isolationism at home and authoritarianism abroad. Emphasizing the way intersections of race, gender, and labor have structured U.S. policy systems and political power, our readings and discussions traverse a variety of historical subfields, including policy and political history, labor and social history, and diplomatic and legal history. Students will also have the opportunity to conduct their own historicized policy analysis or advocacy project. No previous experience in history is required.
