HIST 145 The Founding Fathers
They are everywhere: on our money, on our bookshelves, in our politics: the Founders. Americans invoke them constantly to help us make sense of the world we live in today; we think of their wisdom as timeless, applicable in all times and places. But of course the Founders were actual people, living in an historical world very different from our own, that shaped them and their ideas. In this course we will learn about the Founders in their own words and in their own world, trying to understand them on their own terms and as products of their historical era. We will also learn about how Americans (and others) have thought about the Founders, and compare the popular understanding of the Founders to what we discover in the class. We will ask who the founders were - and who they are; whether it is good for us to focus on them as much as we do; and what to make of their shortcomings. This course counts as a foundational course in History or Political Theory within the liberal arts core requirements.