HIS 3358 American Intellectual History
Examination of competing narratives of the American intellectual tradition, exploring the relative weight given to the American Protestant settlement, Enlightenment and neo-classical revival, Evangelical Awakenings and democratic reform movements, the growth of the social sciences, pragmatism, and progressivism, and the revival of interest in tradition and a particularly American conservatism in the twentieth century. The course will focus on competing readings of various primary sources, culminating in a study of the American reception of Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America from the 1840s to the 1990s.