Week 3: Early naval wars / podcasts

Before class

Introduction, Chapter 2, and Chapter 3 of Armstrong, Benjamin. Small Boats and Daring Men: Maritime Raiding, Irregular Warfare, and the Early American Navy. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2019. (This book is available online through the GMU library.)

Sofka, James R. “The Jeffersonian Idea of National Security: Commerce, the Atlantic Balance of Power, and the Barbary War, 1786–1805.” Diplomatic History 21, no. 4 (1997): 519–44.

Sofka, James R. “‘ ‘The Jeffersonian Idea of National Security” Revisited.’” In Rough Waters: American Involvement with the Mediterranean in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, edited by James R. Sofka, Silvia Marzagalli, and John J. McCusker, 161–84. . Liverpool University Press, 2010. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt21pxjs0.14.

Choose an episode of NPR’s Throughline from the last three months (June, July, August). Listen to it carefully and dissect it: take notes on what different parts there are, how the hosts interact with each other, how they use music, guest experts, sound effects, and more. Post your dissection report in Slack (as a separate post from your reading response).

In class

We talk to Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei of Throughline from NPR! Come with lots of questions about the podcast form and the way this podcast approaches challenging history.

We might also be talking to Cmdr B.J. Armstrong about his book!