Internationalizing The Teaching Of Early U.S. History

Abstract

As I have been teaching the history of the United States for the past few years, I have increasingly come to the conclusion that my, and other, survey courses need to be revamped to internationalize the teaching of United States history and thereby situate the nation more fully into the larger transnational and global context. At the moment, most teachers ofUnited States History since 1865 rarely consider events beyond the country's borders and when they do it is only to examine briefly America's role in the two World Wars and the Vietnam War or maybe to discuss immigration to the United States. Those teaching the early American history survey spend even less time on events outside the United States, suggesting the nation had little economic, military, or cultural influence on the rest of the world in this period. Instead, they concentrate on the history of the various English colonies and the internal political policies and practices of the new nation while rarely mentioning other countries.