History 414: Oliver Stone, Hollywood and the World
Fall 2014
Dale Graden

Course Overview

August 25 Introduction and view Midnight Express

September 1, Labor Day, no class

South America

September 8 Salvador

September 15 South of the Border

September 22 Savages

Vietnam

September 29 Platoon

October 6 Born on the Fourth of July

October 13 Heaven and Earth

October 20 The Doors

Culture

October 27 Any Given Sunday

November 3 Wall Street

November 10 Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

November 17 The People vs. Larry Flynt

November 24, Thanksgiving break, no class

Leadership

December 1 Nixon

December 8 W.

December 15-19, final exams

Books

Tentative readings

Robert Brent Toplin, Oliver Stone’s USA: Film, History, and Controversy

Le Ly Hayslip, When Heaven and Earth Changed Places

Susan Sherman, America’s Child: A Woman’s Journey through the Radical Sixties

Joseph B. Frazier, El Salvador could be Like That: A Memoir of War, Politics and Journalism on the Front-Row of the Last Bloody Conflict of the US-Soviet Cold War

Robert Jensen, Arguing for our Lives: A User’s Guide to Constructive Dialog

Recommended is Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick, The Untold History of the United States, book and dvd

Recommended is an interview with Oliver Stone entitled "Oliver Stone's America" available in dvd and on reserve at UI library