American Political History Seminar
The monthly American Political History Seminar series seeks to enrich the study of politics by increasing knowledge and understanding of important topics in American history. Over the last several years, IGS has invited both well-established and junior scholars, as well as a number of journalists, to speak on a recent publication relevant to the seminar series. The authors are invited to Berkeley to deliver an hour-long talk, followed by questions from attendees. To maximize the benefit from the visit of each author, copies of the work to be discussed are distributed in advance to faculty, visiting scholars, and graduate students, in order to encourage informed and thought-provoking questions.
This seminar series will construe "American political history" broadly (to include internationally as well as nationally focused studies, and to include studies of political argument and political culture as well as of political institutions, processes, and interest groups), and will thus strive to make the Seminar of interest to faculty and graduate students from a number of units on this campus, including but not limited to law, political science, sociology, and public policy, as well as history. Any suggestions about future sessions should be sent directly to David Hollinger at davidhol@berkeley.edu.
All seminar sessions take place at noon in the Harris Room, 119 Moses Hall.
Seminar Schedule
FALL 2008
Friday, September 5, 2008
Formerly Rhodes Professor of American History at the University of Oxford; Professor Emeritus, UCLA Department of History
What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America 1815-1848 (Oxford University Press 2007)
Daniel Howe's interpretation of the era between the end of the War of 1812 and the end of the Mexican War is strikingly at odds with the widely discussed interpretations of Charles Sellers and Sean Wilentz. Non-specialists in the antebellum era might find of interest the New Yorker's review of the book by Jill Lepore (online here), which alerts readers to some of Howe's more distinctive turns, and their relation to previous scholarship. Howe, a Berkeley Ph.D. who taught for many years at UCLA, has recently retired as Rhodes Professor of American History at the University of Oxford. What Hath God Wrought won the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction and general history in April 2008.
Monday, October 13, 2008
London School of Economics
The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times (Cambridge University Press 2006)
Our guest will be Arne Westad of the London School of Economics (where he is Professor of International History and Director of the Cold War Studies Centre). This book was published late in 2006, and is thus not as recent as is the norm for books discussed in the Seminar, but it has been chosen on account of the extraordinary swath it has cut through the field of Cold War studies, including the winning of three prizes (including the Michael Harrington Award from the "New Political Science" Organized Section of the American Political Science Association in 2006, the Akira Iriye International History Book Award for 2005 from Pacific Quest, and the 2006 Bancroft Prize).
Friday, November 21, 2008
University of Southern California Gould Law School
Exporting American Dreams: Thurgood Marshall's African Journey (Oxford University Press 2008)
Our guest will be Mary Dudziak of the Law School at the University of Southern California. The book will be Dudziak's just-released (July 2008) Exporting American Dreams: Thurgood Marshall's African Journey. Dudziak, a legal and constitutional scholar who is well known for her earlier book on the foreign policy context of the civil rights movement, focuses in this new book on Thurgood Marshall's intimate and sustained involvement in the creation of the nation-state of Kenya, including his drafting of its constitution and his friendships with several of its leaders, including Jomo Kenyatta and Tom Mboya.
PAST SEMINARS
Spring 2007
February 2
Gregg Herken
Professor of History, UC Merced
Brotherhood of the Bomb: The Tangled Lives and Loyalties of Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence and Edward Teller
February 23
Byron Shafer
Hawkins Professor of Political Science, University of Wisconsin
The End of Southern Exceptionalism: Class, Race and Partisan Change in the Postwar South
March 14
Akhil Reed Amar
Southmayd Professor of Law and Political Science, Yale University
America's Constitution: A Biography
April 6
Richard M. Abrams
Professor of History, UC Berkeley
America Transformed: Sixty Years of Revolutionary Change, 1941-2001
Fall 2006
September 15
Thad Kousser
Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of California, San Diego
Term Limits and the Dismantling of State Legislative Professionalism (Cambridge University Press 2005)
Professor Kousser's webpage and CV
October 13
David S. Brown
Associate Professor, History Department, Elizabethtown College
Richard Hofstadter: An Intellectual Biography (University of Chicago Press 2006)
October 20
Jim Newton
City-County Bureau Chief, Los Angeles Times
Justice for All: Earl Warren and the Nation He Made
Bio from Mr. Newton's 2003-2004 appointment as a John Jacobs Fellow
November 17
Robin Einhorn
Professor, Department of History, University of California, Berkeley
American Taxation, American Slavery (University of Chicago Press 2006)
Information about Professor Einhorn, including links to articles and essays
Spring 2006
January 27
Thomas J. Reese
Visiting Scholar, Santa Clara University
A Flock of Shepherds: The National Conference of Catholic Bishops
Bio, courtesy America magazine
February 17
Walter J. Stone
Professor and Chair of Political Science, University of California at Davis
Three's A Crowd: The Dynamic of Third Parties, Ross Perot, and Republican Resurgence
Professor Stone's web page, including CV
March 17
David B. Robertson
Professor, University of Missouri-St. Louis
The Constitution and America's Destiny
Profile of Professor Robertson
March 24
Ernest R. May
Charles Warren Professor of American History (Harvard)
Senior Research Associate, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Collaborator on The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
Fall 2005
September 16
Victor Navasky
Editorial Director and Publisher of The Nation
Director of the George Delacorte Center for Magazine Journalism, Columbia University
A Matter of Opinion
Mr. Navasky's bio, from The Nation
October 21
Richard Parker
Senior Fellow, Shorenstein Center
Lecturer in Public Policy, Kennedy School of Government
John Kenneth Galbraith: His Life, His Politics, His Economics
Site dedicated to this book, including several excerpts and a profile of Professor Parker
November 18
Charles O. Jones
Hawkins Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Wisconsin
Nonresident Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution
The Presidency in a Separated System (Second Edition)
A profile of Professor Jones courtesy of Brookings
December 9
Geoffrey Kabaservice
Practice Manager, The Advisory Board Company
The Guardians: Kingman Brewster, His Circle, and the Rise of the Liberal Establishment
A profile of Mr. Kabaservice, courtesy of the Advisory Board Company
Fall 2004 - Spring 2005
December 10
Michael Janeway, Columbia University
The Fall of the House of Roosevelt: Brokers of Ideas and Power from FDR to LBJ
January 28
Morris Fiorina, Stanford University
Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America
February 18
Matthew Dickinson, Middlebury College
Bitter Harvest: FDR, Presidential Power and the Growth of the Presidential Branch
March 18
Alan Ware, Oxford University
The American Direct Primary: Party Institutionalization and Transformation in the North
April 8
Daniel Farber, Boalt Hall, UC Berkeley
Desperately Seeking Certainty: The Misguided Quest for Constitutional Foundations
April 29
Robert Collins, University of Missouri
More: The Politics of Economic Growth in Postwar America