Course Description

This course will trace the political economy of national state formation from the last decades of the antebellum period, through the Civil War and Reconstruction eras, and conclude with the transition to a more industrial society during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Utilizing a broad survey of the literature on these periods, the course will investigate: (1) the connection between slavery and the emergence of southern separatism; (2) the impact of conflict between the plantation South and industrializing North on American state formation; (3) the failure of post-Civil War attempts to remold the southern political economy; (4) the role of finance capital markets in industrial and western agrarian expansion and the consequent emergence of monetary issues in national politics; (5) the political economic basis of possible developmental trajectories other than the high-tariff, gold-standard one actually followed; and (6) the failure of intense conflict between labor and capital on the factory floor to move into national politics. Course Requirements: Students can choose between two options. Both options commit you to organize and lead the opening discussion for at least two of the sessions (usually a 30-35 minute responsibility)