CHAPTER 23

1. .What was fascism, and what motivated Germany, Japan, and Italy to challenge
the existing world order in the 1930s? (You'll have to go a bit long for this one,
no way around it...)
Fascism is an authoritarian system of government characterized by dictatorial rule,
extreme nationalism, disdain for civil society and a conviction that imperialism and
warfare are the principal means by which nations attain greatness.
Germany struggled under the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles. In Germany
Hitler wanted a spiritual reawakening of the German people.
Japan wanted raw materials and overseas markets, they wanted to expand colonial
possessions and have overseas influence.
In Italy Benito Mussolini had long denounced the Treaty of Versailles which denied
Italy’s colonial claims in Africa and the Middle East after WWI. Italian fascists wanted
overseas colonies for raw materials, markets and national prestige.

2. Who were the “merchants of death” and why were they significant regarding
American attitudes toward involvement in other nation’s problems in the early-
to-mid 1930s?

Merchants of death were the arms manufacturers. Gerald P. Nye launched an

investigation into the profits of munitions makers in WWI and he claimed that they
had maneuvered President Wilson into the war. He failed to prove this however this
led to Congress to pass a series of acts to prevent the nation from being drawn into
war.
3. What was the difference between the isolationists and the interventionists?
Isolationists were people, mostly conservatives, that opposed America’s involvement
in the war on pacifist or moral grounds. The Committee to Defend America by Aiding
the Allies was a group of interventionists who believed in engaging with, rather than
withdrawing from, international developments. Interventionists became increasingly
vocal in 1940 as war escalated in Europe.
America First Committee was A committee organized by isolationists in 1940 to
oppose the entrance of the US into WWII. The membership of the committee
included senators, journalists, and publishers and such well-respected figures as the
aviator Charles Lindbergh.
4. Briefly touch on the events that led the United States slowly but surely into
involvement in the war, prior to Pearl Harbor, and how were the above events
similar to the events that led to American involvement in World War I?
- Germany had gained control of most of Europe leaving only Britain to fend off
against them.
 - FDR believed that aiding Britain was essential for American safety and stated
the four freedoms and lend lease Act to Britain first and then the Soviet Union,
which would be the unofficial entry of the US into the war.
- Japan wanted to expand and invaded China in 1937 and Japanese military
and imperial ambitions expanded.
- Hideki Tojo dispatched Japanese troops to occupy the northern part of the
French colony of Indochina and with this Roosevelt froze Japanese assets in
the United States and stopped all trade with Japan (oil accounted for almost
80% of Japanese consumption).
- General Tojo became prime minister and accelerated secret preparation for
war against the United States.
- American intelligence knew that Japan was going to attack but did not know
where and on December 7 they attacked Pearl Harbor. FDR asked for a
declaration of war and 3 days later Germany and Italy declared war on the
United States.
5. Describe the state of the U.S. military at this time in terms of racism and
discrimination?
During WWII the armed forces of the United States forces enlisted people from every
region and economic station. The American army segregated the nearly one million
African Americans in uniform, however the Native Ameriicans and Mexican
Americans, on the other hand, were never officially segregated.
6. Why were Japanese-Americans put in internment camps? Does the
government’s decision seem right or wrong? Can this action be justified?
Because after what happened in Pearl Harbor, fear against Japanese was raised. In
my opinion the government’s decision was completely wrong and contradictory
because in Hawaii they didn’t implement these methods while Japanese Americans
that posed no threat were completely alienated. I don’t think this action can be
justified because even if their main fear was that they were spies they could have
done some investigations to see if they were in fact spies and they didn’t so in my
opinion this was unjust and completely unjustified.
7. What was the Manhattan Project?
Top-secret project authorized by Franklin Roosevelt in 1942 to develop an atomic
bomb ahead of the Germans. The Americans who worked on the project at Los
Alamos, New Mexico (among other highly secretive sites around the country),
succeeded in producing a successful atomic bomb by July 1945.
8. For This Question: Consider whether the United States should have been
involved in World War II? As a result we went from being an isolationist nation
to one with an internationalist perspective, getting much more involved in the
affairs of other countries – so was it a good or a bad thing, looking back from a
vantage point of more than three-quarters of a century?
In my opinion, while America might not have had any involvement because it didn’t involve
them first hand and their claims to join it before pearl harbor happened were non-existing.
However seeing how it aided the economy and how it ended the depression; then I can say
that it was a good choice. Was this because of the entry to the war or because of the selling
of goods to those who were fully involved at the beginning? i think these two go hand in
hand so overall i do believe it was a good choice.

CHAPTER 24
1. What were the two “critical questions at the center of global history” during the
Cold War?

Would Capitalism or Communism shape the nations of Europe and Asia? And how would
the European colonies in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa gain their independence and take
their places on the world stage?

2. What transpired at the Yalta Conference? And Potsdam? (Slideshare Images

2-3)

In the Yalta Conference President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill, and Joseph Stalin in
February 1945 discussed treatment of Germany, the status of Poland, the creation of the
United Nations and Russian entry into the war against Japan.

3. Briefly, show your understanding of the following (choose three):

a. Containment strategy: It was a basic U.S policy of the Cold War, which
sought to contain communism within its existing geographic boundaries.
Initially, containment focused on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, but in
the 1950s it came to include China, North Korea, and other parts of the
developing world.

b. Truman Doctrine: President Harry S. Truman’s commitment to

“support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by
armed minorities or by outside pressures.” First applied to Greece and
Turkey in 1947, it became justification for U.S intervention into several
countries during the Cold War.

c. Marshall Plan: Aid program begun in 1948 to help European

economies recover from WWII.

4. How did the “loss” of China occur?

Civil war in China has been going since the 1930s Communist forces led by Mao
Tse-Tung fought Nationalist forces under Jiang Jieshi. The U.S provided $2 billion to
Jiang’s army but didn’t intervene militarily. Truman cut off aid and left the Nationalists
to their fate and eventually The People’s Republic of China was formally established
under Mao on Oct. 1, 1949

5. What was Cold War liberalism?

 A combination of moderate liberal policies that preserved the programs of the
New Deal welfare state and forthright anticommunism that vilified the Soviet
Union abroad and radicalism at home. Adopted by President Truman and the
Democratic Party during the late 1940s and early 1950s

6. How did the Election of 1948 foreshadow the future turmoil within the
Democratic Party?
Truman occupied the center of FDR’s sprawling New Deal coalition. On his left were
progressives, civil rights advocates, and peace activists critical of the Cold War. On
his right were segregationist southerners, who opposed civil rights and were allied
with Republicans on many economic and foreign policy issues. He tried to manage
the contending forces however there was too much pressure and the party was in
disarray.

7. Discuss the second Red Scare. Show that you understand the
significance of Executive Order 9835, HUAC, and McCarthyism. Were
the actions of those involved in the Red Scare justified? Try to put
yourself in their shoes, take your mind back, and really think about this
question before answering. (SSI 4)

The Second Red Scare was much bigger than the first one in the sense that the
Order 9835 was passed to create the Loyal - Security Program that was supposed to
allow investigations for “subversive” activities though said activities were not
regulated and it gave way to a lot of people losing their jobs with no actual
justification. The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) also gave way to
false accusations like in the case of Alger Hiss who lied to Congress about his
Communist affiliation but there was no evidence of him being a spy. McCarthysm is
the clear example of anti-semitism and how sometime we can be blinded by media
and what we want to hear and how easily it is to spread fear. McCarthy had no
evidence and all he wanted to do was fuel the already prominent “Red Scare” with
false information however in the end with the Army-McCarthy hearings he was
exposed.

8. Why was the containment policy important in the post-colonial world?

Because it meant that the U.S had made possible a global reach containment
over Communist nations, to stop the spread of Communism.

9. what problems were confronting the U.S. government in the Middle

East?
After the U.S refused to help build a dam in the Nile river and egypt decided to
nationalize the Suez-Canal, Britain and France along with Israel seized the canal.
This led to Eisenhower to advise France and Britain to pull back and avoid a larger
war.
 10. What was the significance of the Election of 1960? (SSIs 5-18)
Kennedy won the election over Nixon by just a difference of 120,000 votes. Kennedy
brought young people, ambitious newcomers. A host of trusted advisors and
academics flocked Washington to join the New Frontier.
11. At this time, how did the U.S. begin to get more involved in the affairs of
Vietnam?

Kennedy basically inherited Eisenhower’s commitment in Vietnam. In 1961,

he increased military aid to South Viertnamese and expanded the role of the
U.S Special Forces who would train Vietnamese army in unconventional,
small-group warfare tactics. In its efforts to achieve victory for the Diem
regime the U.S brought defeat ever closer and Diem was assassinated in
1963.

12. take a moment to reflect on the Cold War, based on the readings. The
historian David Halberstam once wrote that the US and the USSR were
like two blind scorpions trapped in a jar, trying to sting their enemy to
death, all unaware of how similar they were to one another. Do you
think the Cold War was inevitable, and if so, was it because the US and
the USSR were so alike, or so different?

I do believe it was inevitable because the U.S and USSR were the only two
remaining powers and each wanted to be the one that stood above all. In my opinion
they had the same goals and the same motivations however they were so different
because of their ideologies America was liberal and the Soviet Union was radical so
it definitely was the combination of both the same goal but different ways to achieve
it and enforce it.

Chapter 25

1. In the Introduction to this chapter, there is a discussion of “Cold War politics by

other means.” What does this refer to, and does this mentality exist in any
recognizable form today? Is there a modern parallel to the idea that during the Cold
War, the Soviet Union and its communist allies were a direct threat to the United
States and everything that it stands for - ?

It refers to the symbolic contest over which country’s standard of living was higher. I do
believe this exists nowadays because as Americans try to show that our way of living is the
best there is and the American dream still exists and Americans try to encourage people to
come to this country and experience a better life.
The most close comparison to what the soviet union entailed back then from my perspective
is the Chinese communist party because it is the exact opposite of what the United States is
and stands for

2. What transpired at the meeting at Bretton Woods in 1944?

Economic institutions were created like the World Bank that was founded to provide loans for
the reconstruction of war-torn Europe as well as for the development of former colonized
nations. The International Monetary Fund was also created to stabilize currencies and
provide a predictable monetary environment for trade, with the U.S dollar being the
benchmark. These two guided the global economy after the war and gave way to an open-
market global economy.

4. How did the G.I. Bill change the United States?

The G.I bill helped fuel the economy by creating more opportunities for veterans to have
higher education which meant higher earning power and higher earning power translated
into consumer spending. Home ownership was increased because the houses built were
financed through a GI bill mortgage and there was even a building boom that created jobs in
the construction industry and fueled consumer spending in home appliances and
automobiles.

5. How did the growth of the power of labor unions change the country after World
War II?
Trade unions and collective bargaining became major factors in the nation’s economic life,
manufacturing tripled its earnings and there was a gaining of union workers an
unprecedented measure of security for their future, benefits expanded and there was an
increase in the rate of home ownership.
6. How was television changing American culture? (Slideshare Images 2-10)
In the 40’s Television was only a privilege a year later CBS and NBC began offering regular
programming and by 1950 Americans owned 7.3 million sets. It became the principal
mediator between the consumer and the marketplace. I love Lucy is the perfect example of
the influence TV had on American lives people preferred to stay at home and watch the first
sitcom ever instead of consuming.
9. How were the lives of American women changing at this time? (SSIs 18-22)

Two powerful forces shaped women’s relationships to work and family life in the postwar
decades. One was the middle-class domestic ideal, in which women were expected to raise
children, attend to other duties in the home and devote themselves to their husband’s
happiness. The second force was the job market which was closed to men and only offered
“women’s jobs”. Women started entering the job force after WWII (around 8 million) after the
war ended the women wanted to keep their jobs but 2 million were forced home due to
veterans needing their jobs back. However most women stayed in their jobs and had their
own earnings.
10. How were American attitudes towards sex changing in the 1950s?
People began to be more open and through Alfred Kinsey books what once was a hidden
revolution started becoming less taboo and people were more open in their talkings about
sex.
11. Talk a little time here and discuss about what seems interesting to you as regards
the chapter’s discussion of the suburbs, housing, highways, or fast food. Focus on
any or all of these topics.
Suburbs expanded because there had been an ever-growing migration to the suburbs for
quite a while and after WWII this grew immensely. Farmland on the outskirts of cities filled
up with tract housing and shopping malls. Entire counties that had once been rural went
suburban and by 1960, one third of Americans lived in suburbs. This gave way to home
construction that had previously halted during the Great Depression. William J. Levitt started
implementing mass-production techniques and turning out new homes at an amazing speed.
This houses were priced at $7,990 (about $86,000 today), thanks to the Federal Housing
Administration and the Veterans Administration that brought the mortgage market within
reach of a broader range of Americans, with mortgages as little as 5% and interest ar 2 or 3
percent, home ownership jumped to 60% by 1960.
It is also important that minorities were restricted by covenants prohibiting occupancy “by
members other than the Caucasian Race” and the Shelley v. Kraemer that outlawed this
restrictive covenants on the occupancy of housing developments. However discrimination
persisted until the Fair Hausing Act was passed in 1968.
12. For This Question: Consider what this chapter has to say about the "separate and
unequal" situation that was written about in American cities. How different are things
today? A little...or a lot?
I do believe there is not much difference now from back then the two societies, one black,
one white, separate and unequal. We have come a long way from the social injustices that
were seen back then however there still are radical differences and separation. One clear
example is the need of the Black Lives Matter movement to think that nowadays we still
need to make sure that all the rights of all the people are respected speaks volumes of how
similar we are from back then.

Chapter 26

1. How was liberalism redefined by the black civil rights movement and its
offshoots?
The black civil rights movement with its model of nonviolent protests and its calls for self-
determination inspiried the new left, feminims, the chicano movement, the gay rights
movement, and many others. It formed a new rights liberalism: the idea that individuals
deserve state protection from discrimination.
2. What were the two tracks in the battle against racial injustice?
They were at the grass roots and in government institutions, such as federal courts, state
legislatures, and ultimately the U.S congress.
3. What were the factors that led to the civil rights movement arising when it did?
There was important influence from World War II, committed to fighting racism abroad,
Americans increasingly condemned racism at home.There was a growth of the black middle
class. White labor leaders were generally more equality-minded. The new medium of TV
played a crucial role, they depicted all the acts of violence of white supremacy.
4. How did the political leverage of blacks increase during World War II? (Slideshare
Images 2-23)
After WWII many blacks saw the reward for their show of patriotism, many enlisted hoping
that their bravery would help end racism back home. Many were able to attend college
afterwards this gave the a position in middle-class society that allowed them to make their
statement without any retaliation from white employees.
Truman appointed the Presidential Committee on Civil Rights in 1947 that called for federal
action to ensure black equality. It included the abolition of poll taxes and the restoration of
the Fair Employment Practice Committee to be turned into law.
5. What was significant about the Dixiecrats?
Due to Truman’s boldness white Democrats from the South formed the States’ Rights
Democratic Party. It was significant because it was the first hint of the discord that would
eventually divide the Democratic Party in the 1960s
7. How did Thurgood Marshall and other attorneys hope to force the Supreme Court
to overthrow Plessy v. Ferguson?

They began preparing the legal ground in a series of cases challenging racial discrimination.
They filed suit after suit, deliberately selecting each case from dozens of possibilities. In
1936 they won a state case that forced the University of Maryland Law School to admit
qualified African Americans

10. Describe the series of events, over the course of a year, that led to the passage of
the Civil Rights Act? (SSIs 31-33)

The road began when Martin Luther King Jr. called for demonstrations in the most
segregated city in the U.S: Birmingham. This inspired President Kennedy and on June 11,
1963 Kennedy denounced racism and promised a new civil rights bill. Then the March on
Washington happened on August 28, 1963 were a quarter of a million people marched to
Lincoln Memorial to demand that Congress end Jim Crow racial discrimination and launch a
major jobs program to brind needed employment to black communities. Southern senators
continued to block Kennedy’s legislation until his assassination and Lyndon Johnson made
passing the civil rights bill a priority and it was finally done on 1964.

12. What happened to the New Deal coalition as a result of the successes of the civil
rights movement?

It began to crumble because the liberal wing of the Democratic Party had won its battle with
the conservative, segregationist wing. Democrats had embraced the civil rights movement
and made black equality a cornerstone of a new “rights” liberalism.

15. What is and what was said in the Kerner Commission Report?

It was a searing look at race in America, the most honest and forthright government
document about race since the Presidential Committee on Civil Rights 1957 report “to
secure these rights”.
“Our nation is moving towards two societies”, the Kerner Commision Report concluded, “one
black, one white, separate and unequal”.

11. What did the Voting Rights Act accomplish?

It outlawed the literacy tests and other devices that prevented African Americans from
registering to vote, and authorized the attorney general to send federal examiners to register
voters in any county where registration was less than 50 percent. Alongside the Twenty-
Fourth Amendment they enabled millions of African Americans to vote for the first time since
the reconstruction.

Chapter 27

1. In the Introduction to this chapter, the authors state that liberalism came under
attack from two directions – please discuss this
First, young, left-leaning activists became frustrated with slow progress on civil rights and
rebelled against the Vietnam War. They rejected everything that Cold War liberalism stood
for. A second assault on liberalism came from conservatives, who found their footing after
being marginalized during the 1950s. They opposed the dramatic expansion of the federal
government under President Lyndon B. Johnson disdained the “permissive society” they
believed liberalism had encouraged. Conservatives advocated law and order, belittled
welfare and resisted key civil rights reforms. Their leader was “Barry Goldwater” who warned
that a “government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take
away everything you have”.
2. What was the Great Society? (Slideshare Images 2-10)
It was President Lyndon B. Johnson’s domestic program, which included civil rights
legislation, anti-poverty programs, government subsidy of medical care, federal aid to
education, consumer protection and aid to the arts and humanities.
3. How did President Johnson assist the movements for civil rights?
He pushed the civil rights legislation as a memorial to his slain predecessor.
5. Briefly describe three of the policies/programs of the Great Society, and tell me if
you think that they were good or bad ideas?
The economic opportynity Act of 1964 created a series of programs, including Head Start to
prepare disadvantaged preschoolers for kindergarten and the Job Corps and Upward Bound
to provide young people with training and employment, aimed at alleviating poverty and
spurring economic growth in impoverished areas. I do believe this was a good idea because
it involved different actions that would aid the poor and their struggle to be able to get out of
poverty.

8. What was the significance of the events that took place in the Gulf of Tonkin? (SSI
14)
It gave way to the gulf of Tonkin Resolution that gave the president virtually unlimited
authority in conducting the Vietnam War.
10. What was the “credibility gap”?
It was firsthand knowledge of the war that journalists began to write about the concealing of
bad news about the war’s progress.
12. What factors lay behind Richard Nixon’s winning the presidency in
1968? (SSIs 18-28)
There was weakness in the Democratic Party, two groups of voters that were usually loyal to
the Democrats were wavering: working-class white voters in the North and Southerns whites
of all social classes. Norther blue-collar voters, especially Catholics drifted away from the
Democratic Party.
13. How was the women’s liberation movement different than the feminist movements
of just a few years previous, and what developments came about as a result of
women’s lib?
The women’s liberation was a new brand of feminism in the 1960s that attracted primarily
younger, college-educated women fresh from the New Left, antiwar, and civil rights
movements who sought an end to the denigration and exploitation of women it was different
than the feminist movements a few years prior in the sense that now they came to
understand that womnen required more than equal opportunity and that the culture that
regarded them as nothing more than sexual objects and helpmates to men has to change.
Women's opportunity expanded dramatically in higher education. Title IX was passed in
1972 that broadened the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include educational institutions, prohibiting
colleges and universities that received federal funds from discrimination on the bases of sex.
It made women’s athletics a real presence on college campuses. Women also became
increasingly visible in public life. Congress passed the child-care tax deduction for working
parents in 197 and in 1974 passed the Equal Credit opportunity Act, which allowed married
women to get credit in their own names.
17. For This Question: Do you think that the policy of bussing achieved anything? If
you can, based on where you were born, raised, etc, ask someone in your life, a
parent, grandparent, for their thoughts/memories on this period, and on busing, and
see what they have to say?
After reading the busing part of this chapter i don’t believe that busing managed to achieve
anything because of the way it was implemented, it created more unrest. I don’t believe it
was done correctly in the way that mostly African American kids were moved to an all whites
school and the whites weren’t moved much or perhaps they were but they were more
tolerated by African Americans in an all blacks school. I have no one to ask because I was
raised in a different country however after searching online I found out that it applied to fewer
than 5 percent of the nation’s public school students. “Today many school districts across
the country remain largely segregated.”

Kennedy, L., 2020. How Segregated Schools Led To Busing—And Backlash. [online]
HISTORY. Available at: <https://www.history.com/news/desegregation-busing-
schools> [Accessed 7 November 2020].

7. How was NOW formed, and what were its goals? (SSIs 13)
It was formed to force compliance with the new act it was intended to be a civil rights
organization for women, with the aim of eliminating gender discrimination in public
institutions and the workplace, but by the 1970s it also embraced many of the issues
raised by more radical feminists.