A BIT OF HOUSEKEEPING

We’re 1/3 of the way through the semester, so I’d like to hear how you’re doing. Please fill out this Google form to assess your work thus far in the class; please also use it to tell me how I can help you do better.

Activities

Read Dull, Jonathan R. “A New Navy Fights France and the Barbary States, 1783–1805.” In American Naval History, 1607-1865, 33–48. University of Nebraska Press, 2012. (Use your library skills to find an online version of this in our library!)

Then listen to this podcast (transcript here), which is basically what I would have said to you in person if we had been meeting in person. 🙂 However, bonus “points” if you can identify one of the three or four factual errors in this recording (this is what I get for talking extemporaneously instead of from my notes).

Finally, take a look at these two maps, one of the Quasi-War, and one of the First Barbary War, and think about what the maps might be saying about how these wars were fought.

Response

Respond to the reading, podcast, and maps by considering these questions:

• Was the United States a “naval power” in this period?
• If not, what hampered it from being a power?
• Was the navy successful during this period?