Kathryn L. MacKay, Ph.D.

office:SS 244
phone:626-6782
email: kmackay@weber.edu
web page: http://faculty.weber.edu/kmackay/ (Links to an external site.)

Course Syllabus

Course Schedule

As defined by the Census Bureau, the western United States includes 13 states:Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Utah,Washington, and Wyoming.

Other scholars define the West as the 22 states west of the Mississippi.

This course examines both the “place” and the “process” of the history of the U.S. West.

The West is a shifting region of Native North America that was the object first of Spanish, French, English, and then American expansionism.
The West is a distinct region with a unique relationship to the U.S. federal government, distinctive patterns of race relations, and a unique place in American cultural memory. While this course is a general survey of the west as a region,

This course will examine the West as both a geographic and as an idea in American culture and in the popular imagination. The focus will be on the historical development of the trans-Mississippi west stretching from the Great Plains to the Pacific Ocean.

This course will be built on films, monographs, memoirs, letters, and academic articles and literary fiction in order to explore the struggle for land, resources, identity, and power, which have characterized the West and its role in the history of the American nation.

copyright 2015

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