After successful completion of this course, you will be able to:

1) identify key themes, actors, events and patterns in transatlantic relations in various time periods and understand contemporary developments and issues in their historical context;

2) assess the foundations of (cultural) diplomacy, collective security, and multilateral collaborations based on a detailed knowledge of the postwar foreign policy exchanges between the US and Europe;

3) collect and critically analyze relevant academic literature, understand and apply relevant concepts and theories, identify historiographical debates, and formulate research questions.

Foreign affairs are determined, among other things, by domestic politics, ideologies, and cultural values. Likewise, transatlantic relations reflect the differences and similarities between political systems, cultural worldviews, utopian dreams and - sometimes - dystopian nightmares on both sides of the Atlantic. In this course, you will learn to adopt a long-term perspective on the cultural, diplomatic, military-strategic, conceptual and institutional foundations of transatlantic relations. It will enable you to contrast the isolationist distaste for entangling alliances of the American founding fathers with the European nationalism and imperialism of the Westphalian world order; or the US liberal internationalism and globalism of the postwar years with the European project of integration, collaboration and expansion. You will examine how the historical ideals of the Marshall Plan and the fears of Cold War culture changed into today's disenchanting realities of a post-American Europe and a unilateralist America, shaking the very foundations of a post-war liberal world order coming apart at the seams. This will enable you to understand the traditions and historical patterns in transatlantic relations, recognize key actors, and place key terms such as isolationism, internationalism, realism and idealism in their time. You will also study the concepts and theories American and European scholars have formulated to better understand, analyze and debate current affairs in transatlantic relations.