#  Gen Ed 1017: Not Like Us? Americans as Occupiers and Nation-Builders 

 





 Semester:   Spring 

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 Year offered:  2022 

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 Link: [Course Website](https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/97653) 

 

 

 

**Head Teaching Fellow for Professor Erez Manela and Professor Andrew Gordon |**  *How have perceptions of racial difference shaped US military occupations abroad, such as the Philippines, Japan, and most recently Afghanistan and Iraq?* The United States has launched numerous projects of military occupation and nation-building in foreign lands since the late 19th century. These have been contradictory enterprises, carrying ideals of freedom and self-determination "offered" by force or by fiat. This course will assess the meanings and legacies of these projects by examining the ideas, strategies, policies, and outcomes of occupations ranging from the Philippines and Haiti early on, to Japan, Germany, and Korea in mid-century to, most recently, Afghanistan and Iraq. The course focuses on American activities and ideas but also examines the responses of the occupied.