Università Roma Tre

The course intends to provide the basic overview of the history of North America. It is centered on the United States from its formation to the present but also includes outlines of the preceding centuries as well as the contemporary evolution of Canada. In the course we will analyze pivotal aspects of U.S. national history and international relations, mainly with Europe.

First Unit (6 CFU)


Oliviero Bergamini, Storia degli Stati Uniti, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2010

and a volume chosen among the following ones:

- Luca Codignola e Luigi Bruti Liberati, Storia del Canada, Bompiani, Milano 2017
- Ferdinando Fasce, I presidenti USA: due secoli di storia, Carocci, Roma 2008
- Tiziano Bonazzi, Abraham Lincoln, un dramma americano, Il Mulino, Bologna 2015
- David Ellwood, Una sfida per la modernita’. Europa e America nel lungo Novecento, Carocci, Roma 2012
- Federico Romero, Storia della guerra fredda. L’ultimo conflitto per l’Europa, Einaudi, Torino 2014
- Raffaella Baritono e Elisabetta Vezzosi, Oltre il secolo americano? Gli Stati Uniti prima e dopo l’11 settembre, Carocci, Roma 2011

The course is divided into two connected but independent units. The first one centers on the political and social history of the United States from its origins to the present. It includes the analysis of key moments and figures of this evolution as well as a close look at the contemporaneous history of Canada. The second unit, whose title could be “Imagined America”, adopts a mostly cultural approach, focusing on the various perceptions of America constructed both among its inhabitants and in Europe. The dynamics of attraction/repulsion brought about by these ‘images’ of the U.S. influenced relevant historical processes and at the same time revealed deep-root aspects of the cultures of different countries situated on the two sides of the Atlantic.

Second Unit: Imaged America (6 CFU)

Two volumes chosen among the following ones:

Antonello Gerbi, La disputa del Nuovo Mondo. Storia di una polemica (1750-1900), a cura di Sandro Gerbi, Adelphi, Milano 2000 (introduzione di Sandro Gerbi e cap. 3, 5, 7, 8)
Emilio Franzina, L’immaginario degli emigranti. Miti e raffigurazioni dell’esperienza italiana all’estero fra i due secoli, Pagus, Treviso 1992
Daniela Rossini, Il mito americano nell’Italia della Grande Guerra, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2000(English version: Woodrow Wilson and the American Myth in Italy. Culture, Diplomacy and War Propaganda, Harvard UP 2008)
Robert W. Ryddell e Rob Kroes, Buffalo Bill Show: il West selvaggio, l’Europa e l’americanizzazione, Donzelli, 2006 (English version: Buffalo Bill in Bologna. The Americanization of the World, 1869-1922 Chicago UP 2005)
Michela Nacci, L’anti-americanismo in Italia negli anni Trenta, Bollati Boringhieri, Torino 1989
Stefano Rosso (a cura di), L’invenzione del West(ern). Fortuna di un genere nella cultura del Novecento, Ombre Corte, Verona 2010, insieme a Frederick J. Turner, La frontiera nella storia americana, Il Mulino, Bologna 1953 (introduzione e capitoli primo e nono);
Anders Stephanson, Manifest Destiny. American Expansion and the Empire of Right, Hill and Wang, New York 1999