Surveys the history of U.S. foreign policy since World War II, with special attention to analyses and interpretations of the determining factors of continuing significance in U.S. policy, including trends in the international and domestic environments.

The purpose of the course is to provoke debate on the current choices facing US foreign policy. The course does not offer in-depth training in debating or public speaking, but does allow students to acquire practical skills and experience in those areas; in other words, to 'learn by doing.' The course consists of formal, public, four-person (and possibly two-person) debates based on topics provided in the syllabus, and others suggested by the class. Students submit their preferences and are grouped together at the beginning of the semester. Each debate lasts one class session, plus a period of general discussion. Usually, nine debates are held per semester. Detailed guidelines on debates will be handed out at the first session.

This course explores China’s domestic and foreign policy trajectories since 1945 through the present. Lectures investigate the relationship between revolution and modernization, nationalism and internationalism, and the interplay between legitimating ideologies and power struggle. The course covers the Chinese Civil War and the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, including Mao Zedong’s decision to “lean to one side” towards the Soviet Union and Beijing’s decision-making in the Korean War. These form an important backdrop for the discussion of China’s economic reforms in the 1950s – from fast-paced Soviet-style modernization to the tragic utopia of the Great Leap Forward. Mao’s leftward turn in the early 1960s serves as an entry point for lectures on the Sino-Indian conflict, the Sino-Soviet split, and China’s engagement and disillusionment with the “Global South.” The course also includes a foray into the causes and consequences of the Cultural Revolution. We will also look at why China and the US mended fences in the early 1970s, and what this meant for the Global Cold War. The course then explores China’s road from “reform and opening” to the Tiananmen massacre, focusing in particular on the roads not taken. Final lecturers look at China’s grand strategy, and its relationship with other great powers. The course concludes with a discussion of what the Chinese Communist Party has learned from its years in power, and how memory politics in modern China reinforce the party’s legitimacy discourse. The broad aim of “China and the World” is to acquaint students with the most important developments in recent Chinese history, providing a solid background for understanding China’s contemporary dilemmas and policy choices.