Università Roma Tre

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 as well as a close look at the contemporary history of Canada. The second unit, whose title could be “Imagined America”, adopts a cultural approach, focusing on the various perceptions of America present both among its inhabitants and in Europe.

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

and one volume chosen among the following ones:

- Luca Codignola and Luigi Bruti Liberati, Storia del Canada, Bompiani, Milano 2018 (first or second section)
- 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 modernità. Europa e America nel lungo Novecento, Carocci, Roma 2012 (English version available)
- Federico Romero, Storia della guerra fredda. L’ultimo conflitto per l’Europa, Einaudi, Torino 2014
- Raffaella Baritono and Elisabetta Vezzosi, Oltre il secolo americano? Gli Stati Uniti prima e dopo l’11 settembre, Carocci, Roma 2011
- G. John Ikenberry and Thomas Knock, The Crisis of American Foreign Policy: Wilsonianism in the Twenty-first Century, Princeton, Princeton University Press 2011

This unit, whose title could be “Imagined America”, adopts a mostly cultural approach, focusing on the various perceptions of America present both among its inhabitants and in Europe. The dynamics of attraction/repulsion brought about by these ‘images’ of the U.S. influenced 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.

Two volumes chosen among the following ones:

- Antonello Gerbi, La disputa del Nuovo Mondo. Storia di una polemica (1750-1900), edited by Sandro Gerbi, Adelphi, Milano 2000 (introduction by Sandro Gerbi and chapters 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 available)
- Robert Ryddell e Rob Kroes, Buffalo Bill Show: il West selvaggio, l’Europa e l’americanizzazione, Donzelli, 2006 (English version available)
- Stefano Rosso (edited by), L’invenzione del West(ern). Fortuna di un genere nella cultura del Novecento, Ombre Corte, Verona 2010, together with Frederick J. Turner, La frontiera nella storia americana, Il Mulino, Bologna 1953 (introduction and chapters 1 and 9);
- Anders Stephanson, Manifest Destiny. American Expansion and the Empire of Right, Hill and Wang, New York 1999
- Bruno Cartosio, Verso ovest. Storia e mitologia del Far West, Feltrinelli, Milano 2018