I really loved Dr. Savage. He is clearly incredibly intelligent, very understanding, extremely accomplished, and genuinely cares about the material. The course is very interesting, especially if you want to learn more about the American Revolution, American political thought, and what follows from that period. He also holds debates every semester, which makes the class more engaging and gives students a chance to think through the material more actively. The workload is definitely reading-heavy, usually at least 100 pages before class, but there is only one class per week. The grade is based on one midterm, one final, and participation, which comes from short weekly essays on the readings. My advice is to come prepared, keep a good attitude about learning, and take the readings seriously. If you do that, you will finish with a strong grade.

I have liked almost all my political theory classes. I was unsure about taking American Political theory because it seemed bland.
I was not wrong... However, I think the class was very valuable as an American and someone who likes to analyze politics.
The syllabus was intimidating and Professor Savage said he was going to run the class as a 4000 level class.
You have to write a one-page (single-spaced) summary of the readings every week. I grew to really like them because I found it was the only class I ended up actually reading for every week. The lectures were pretty much summaries of the readings and discussions.

The grades were very fair. All my summaries were given a "good essay" or "great essay". Additionally, the papers were easy to write and also fairly graded.

If you do not have an understanding of the father of the constitution to the abolishment of slavery and in the Politics track I encourage you to take this class. I have used my knowledge from this class in all my other political theory classes.