May 3: The Reagan Revolution / Post–Cold War America to 2008

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Mark Souther

Please read T&S chapters 36-37.

On the last day of class we will simply retrace some of the most important and influential events, especially Reagan administration’s consolidation of the new conservatism; Reagan’s initial renewal of Cold War confrontation and subsequent efforts to work closely with the Soviets to reduce tensions and nuclear armaments; the end of the Cold War; 9/11 and the War on Terror; and some analysis of the shifting contours of national politics and voting patterns through the 2008 election.

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May 1: Burning Cities / Nixon’s America

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Mark Souther

Please review the pertinent section of T&S chapter 34 and read chapter 35.

Study questions:
1. What were the underlying causes of race riots in the mid to late 1960s?  What “sparks” set off many of these riots?
2. What resulted from the riots? Were lessons learned? To what end?
3. How did the Election of 1968 reflect national concerns that the nation was unraveling in the wake of the urban riots? What role did George Wallace play?
4. How did busing to achieve racial integration of schools progress in the late 1960s and early 1970s? How did the courts treat this experiment?
5. How did Nixon’s America diverge from the America of the 1930s-1960s?
6. How did Watergate become such a crisis, and what were the longer term political implications beyond Nixon’s resignation?

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Final Exam Study Guide

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Mark Souther

For the guide, see the link at right.  The exam will be in our normal classroom on Thursday, May 10, 8:30-10:30 A. M.

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Apr. 26: The Vietnam War

Posted on April 24, 2012 by Mark Souther

Today we will examine the origins of the Vietnam War, why the U.S. became increasingly involved, how the U.S. role shaped the conduct of the war, how Americans reacted to the war, and how the U.S. war effort unraveled. Please review the pertinent portions of T&S chapter 34.

Questions to consider:
1. What happened in Vietnam during World War II, and how did that shape the trajectory toward American entry into the Vietnam War?
2. Why did the U.S. get involved in Vietnam in 1954?
3. What was the basis for the massive escalation of American involvement in Vietnam after 1964?
4. How would you describe the American conduct of the war? What role did technology play?
5. How did the antiwar movement get underway? What ware some of the main complaints that antiwar protesters had about the war?
6. What was the Tet Offensive, and why was it such a critical moment in the war?
7. What made the Election of 1968 particularly significant?
8. How did Nixon plan to conduct the Vietnam War?
9. Why did the U.S. abandon the South Vietnamese in the early-mid 1970s? What resulted?
10. Where does the Vietnam War fit in the Cold War? What were its implications?

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Apr. 19: Civil Rights, 1964-65, & LBJ’s Great Society

Posted on April 17, 2012 by Mark Souther

Please review the pertinent portions of T&S chapter 34.

Study questions:
1. Why did the Civil Rights Movement begin to fragment in the mid-1960s?
2. Why was Selma, Alabama, important in the culmination of the movement?
3. What challenges did the movement address most successfully up to 1965 in the South? What challenges lay ahead in the North? Why were these less suited to the techniques mastered by the movement’s activists in the South?
4. What were the central aims of LBJ’s “Great Society?” Who were the beneficiaries?
5. On what grounds did detractors find the Great Society problematic?
6. When and why did the Great Society “end?”

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Apr. 17: The JFK Presidency & Civil Rights to 1963

Posted on April 12, 2012 by Mark Souther

Today we examine the John F. Kennedy administration of 1961-63 with twin focuses on his Cold War policy abroad and stance toward Civil Rights at home. This portion of class will set up next week’s focus on the Civil Rights Movement at its peak and LBJ’s efforts to fight a War on Poverty concurrently with a war in Southeast Asia.

Please read T&S chapter 34 and preview the opening speeches of the first televised Kennedy-Nixon debate from September 1960. Kennedy’s opening speech is first, and Nixon begins about eight minutes into the video. Which candidate do you think won this debate?

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Apr. 12: The Emerging Civil Rights Mvmt. to 1960

Posted on April 10, 2012 by Mark Souther

Please review T&S chapter 33, focusing on the relevant portions.

Today we examine the emergence of the Civil Rights Movement. After briefly retracing antecedents in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, we focus on the 1930s-50s backdrop for the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case and the impact of Brown in the mid-1950s to early 1960s. Although litigation was not the only weapon against discrimination, a focus on Brown suggests a “bridge” between the case-based focus of the earlier dominant civil-rights organization NAACP and the direct-action focus of the emerging active phase of the movement that symbolically emerged with Rosa Parks’ defiance and culminated in the early-mid ’60s.

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Apr. 10: The Cold War Heats Up, 1949-60

Posted on April 5, 2012 by Mark Souther

Today we examine the Cold War from the loss of the American atomic monopoly in 1949 to the end of the Eisenhower administration twelve years later. Then we turn to how the Cold War impacted American life.

Please read T&S chapter 33 and view the following short films. How does each film reflect and use Cold War fears?

Study questions:
1.) How did the U.S. respond to the loss of its atomic monopoly?
2.) What events led to the rise of communism in China under Mao Zedong, and how did the U.S. react?
3.) How did the U.S. become involved in the Korean conflict in 1950?
4.) What were the outcomes of the Korean War?
5.) How did U.S. Cold War policy change under President Eisenhower? What aspect of his Cold War strategy was most effective?
6.) What actions did “atomic fear” prompt in the United States?
7.) How would you describe the impact of Civil Defense atomic drills?
8.) Why were public fallout shelters controversial?
9.) How did the “search for loyalty” in the late 1940s to mid-1950s reveal itself in the U.S.?  What role did Senator McCarthy play in this?

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Apr. 5: Postwar American Society

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Mark Souther

In preparation for Thursday’s class, please read T&S chapter 32. Then view the following 1957 short film In the Suburbs (or at least the first few minutes of it). Think about the messages the film sends about postwar American society. What images in this film strike you as most important in understanding what it was like to live on this new postwar suburban “frontier?”

(If you are using an iPad, the video may not work because it is a flash video. You can access it in other formats at http://www.archive.org/details/IntheSub1957.) We will revisit some segments of the film to enhance our look at postwar American society.

The following are some key points we’ll explore:
1) The impact of the “Baby Boom”
2) The demand for new housing and “durable goods”
3) The role of the federal government in favoring suburban development (and the philosophy behind it) – and the impacts on those who could not make it into suburbia
4) Levittown’s place as a new extension of Taylorism and vertical integration pioneered in other industries decades before
5) The focus on the “nuclear family”
6) The tight connection between consumerism and the perceived fulfillment of the “American Dream”

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Apr. 3: The Emergence of the Cold War, 1945-1948

Posted on March 29, 2012 by Mark Souther

Please read T&S chapter 31.

Study questions:
1) What was the backdrop for Soviet expansionism in Eastern Europe after World War II? In other words, what conditions and ideas in the Soviet Union made that nation undertake such a sweeping series of incursions into the affairs of its neighbors?
2) How did the “Cold War” emerge in 1946-47? What role did George F. Kennan, Dean Acheson, and President Harry S. Truman play in defining the Cold War? How did Turkey and Greece figure into this?
3) What were the immediate and larger purposes of the Marshall Plan in 1948?
4) To what extent was the Cold War “waged” between the Americans and the Soviets? To what extent was it a redirection of many more local or regional clashes into the framework of two competing superpowers’ desires?
5) What was the Berlin Airlift? To what extent did it influence American Cold War policy in 1948-49?

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