The US Since 1945

On Monday 1/30 we talked about the Korean War, as a case study in American postwar foreign policy and geopolitical strategy.

On Wednesday 2/1 we’ll have our second Congress Day, and take up some of the legislative and foreign policy concerns of the late 1940s and early 1950s. Remember to bring your laptops!

Links for Wed:
Truman’s Inauguration, including transcript of his speech
Short clip of Truman’s Inaugural speech

For Friday 2/3, please read MO 72-74 and this PDF of an article by Georganne Scheiner, “Would You Like to be Queen for a Day?” We’ll be talking about television and broadcast media in the 1950s.

If you’re curious about the show, we’ll screen some clips in class – Youtube has a few posted to it.

I think we’ll stick to our original reading schedule, despite having given McCarthy short shrift on Friday (I really enjoyed our productive discussion on the term limits amendment, and I’ve updated the “Day1” link on the Congress Wiki to show what we did).

So, Monday we’ll talk about American foreign policy in Asia in the late 1940s/early 1950s, including the Korean War and the glimmerings of the start of the conflict in Vietnam. Reading is MO 34-40 and 86-89. You may also want to explore some of these online resources – some are better than others, so depending on your level of knowledge and interest, take a look.

The official Korean War Memorial on the Mall in Washington DC frames the “Forgotten War” this way – is this a fair assessment, in your view?

Online Resources for the Korean War:
BBC-History Korean War Overview
US Navy History site on the Korean War
History.com Topics: Korean War
Korean War Sources from the Truman Presidential Library
Korean War Sources from the Eisenhower Presidential Library
“Between the Eternities” – a blog post about visiting the DMZ in October 2011

Reading: HOT 18-37 (HUAC, McCarthy and Haynes/Klehr) + MO 40-44, 50-56, 79-82

*Don’t forget: Bring the HOT book with you to class*

Resources:
Political Cartoons about McCarthy by Herblock
“The Cold War Turns Hot” – documents from the Truman Presidential Library
McCarthyism and the Red Scare – documents from the Eisenhower Presidential Library
McCarthyism, Korea and the Cold War – Wisconsin Historical Society

Wed 1/25 will be our first of the Congress Days and you’ll receive your committee assignment. Please bring your laptop so you can begin researching the committee.

Thanks, Prof. Hangen

(laptop illustration, used under Creative Commons license from ichibod)

Churchill, “Sinews of Peace” – the Iron Curtain Speech
Westminster College, Fulton MO, 5 March 1946

Truman Doctrine
Speech to Congress, 12 March 1947

“Duck and Cover” 1951 Civil Defense film

See also “Atomic Alert” (1951) and “About Fallout” (1963)

Reading: Moss 19-34  and HOT 13-18, 38-45 (Kennan, Good Housekeeping and Eisenhower)

Additional Resources:

Interactive map of Europe in the 20th century (BBC)
George Kennan’s “Long Telegram” from Moscow in 1946 (full text online)
Winston Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech, delivered March 1946
Economic Recovery Act of 1948, aka “The Marshall Plan”
The Truman Doctrine speech, 1947
NSC-68, 1950 top-secret policy report, declassified in 1975 (see the full page-by-page scan at the Truman Library)
Cold War Museum
Nuclear toys and Atomic Brand Names (Retronaut)
“Atomic Energy as a Force for Good” (1955) Part I (13:09)

We used to think the early 2000s would look like this:

But apparently, we were wrong.

In addition to the statistical list in the back of the Chafe book, we might also explore other ways to look at change over time.

Maybe language and word frequency:
Popular Science Archive Explorer

or the Popularity of Names:
Name Voyager

or the top Google searches for each year (since 2001):
Google Zeitgeist

or how the future looked from the past:
French Retro-Futurism, 1940s-1970s

What to do by Friday:

• Read the syllabus
• Read HOT pp. 1-12 (McMahon, “World War II and the Destruction of the Old Order”) & Moss, 1-18 “Postwar America”
• Bring a discussion question on these readings to Friday’s class
• Explore one thing on Billy Joel’s list (video is here) that you didn’t know before (please try not to use Wikipedia), and be prepared to talk intelligently about it
• Find a reliable news source & start paying attention

This course covers the period of US history since 1945. It also uncovers how historians think about and approach the history of the recent past, and is designed to help you navigate the road from “back then” to “right now.” It combines lecture, seminar-style discussion, historical simulation, and hands-on research to introduce you to some key sources, themes and problems from the past six decades of American history. For the complete list of what you’ll be expected to know and do by the end of the course, see the “SLOs” tab above.

This website serves as our online hub for the course, which for Spring 2012 is being listed as a “Special Topics” course in History, HI 450-03. It will be taught MWF at 9:30 (Room Sullivan 122). From this site, you can download the syllabus or access it online, stay up to date with course news and any changes, see the guidelines for the course papers and projects, and follow links to my recommended history and writing resources on the web. The two required books are listed under the “Readings” tab above.

This site is a blog, meaning it updates frequently and you should bookmark it or subscribe to it using an RSS feed reader (such as Google Reader). Please check it often or make sure that you subscribe to its updates to stay on top of our coursework.

If you have questions about the course before we meet in person on Wednesday, January 18th, please feel free to email me, at thangen (at) worcester.edu