NOTE-TAKING GUIDE: of the People: a History of the United States CHAPTER 26 the Cold War

NOTE-TAKING GUIDE: Of the People: A History of the United States CHAPTER 26 “The Cold War: 1945 – 1952”

COMMON THREADS
·  Why did friction over Germany, Poland, and the Mediterranean turn into a “cold war” affecting the entire world?
·  How did the need for constant vigilance interfere with democratic values?
·  The specter of the Depression hung over postwar economic planners. How did they try to avoid another decline as they reconverted the war economy?
OUTLINE
Origins of the Cold War
Ideological Competition
Uneasy Allies
From Allies to Enemies
National Security
The Truman Doctrine
Containment
American Landscape: Dhahran
Taking Risks
Global Revolutions
America and the World: Underdevelopment
Korea
NSC-68
The Reconversion of American Society
The Postwar Economy
The Challenge of Organized Labor
Opportunities for Women
Civil Rights for African Americans
The Frustrations of Liberalism
The Democrats’ Troubles
Truman’s Comeback
Fighting the Cold War at Home
Doubts and Fears in the Atomic Age
The Anti-Communist Crusade
The Hunt for Spies
The Rise of McCarthyism
Conclusion
WHO?
Douglas MacArthur
Jackie Robinson
Alger Hiss
Walter Reuther / WHAT?
Taft-Hartley
NSC-68
Central Intelligence Agency
38th parallel
National independence movements
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1.  How did the National Security Act change the executive branch?
2.  Why did Truman see Korea as important enough to defend?
3.  Why were struggles in the workplace more intense in the late 1940s than during the Depression or World War II?
4.  McCarthyism attacked government, science, education, theater, and Hollywood. Does this pattern reveal anything about the nature of American anxiety in the 1950s?
5.  Two-thirds of the world’s peoples gained their independence between 1945 and 1961. How did the Cold War affect this movement toward nationhood?
6.  In the 1950s and 1960s, historians debated the question of who started the Cold War. In the 1990s, it became more interesting to ask when it started. Why the change, and what questions might historians today ask?
NOTES: TO FOLLOW UP / QUESTIONS TO ASK IN CLASS