As with the last paper, for the one due on November 8th you can choose to answer pretty much any question you want that pertains to anything from 1890s imperialism to World War II. For example, do you agree with historians who have argued that the New Deal was ultimately conservative in nature, being too limited in its ambitions and having as its goal merely the preservation of capitalism? Or do you think it was actually “revolutionary” in a sense, or at least represented radical, transformative change in the relation between government and society? (If you want, you can even agree with conservative critics like the Liberty League who thought it went too far.)
A variation of this would be: do you think the New Deal largely “succeeded” or it largely “failed”? What are the most important criticisms that could be made of it?
You could even discuss what you think were the major causes of the Great Depression, although this might require using several scholarly articles and/or books to base your arguments on.
Another possibility, for example, is to go back to the topic of the beginning of overseas imperialism and explain what caused the country, or its elites, to embark on this expansionistic path. Were economic goals more important than ideological (nationalistic, racist, religious, etc.) ones, or vice versa?
Progressivism, the 1920s, and World War II are acceptable topics too, if you can find (or think of) a question or thesis statement that interests you.
Please use at least five different primary sources in this paper (unless you want to use several scholarly sources in addition, in which case three or four primary sources would be okay). Again, this website (https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/ has a lot of good ones. The paper should be about four or five pages long.
