Week 9 October 22-26 - The Emerence of the Cold War
IS THIS TOMORROW?
The first postwar "Imagine if..." dramatizations of the Russians conquering and enslaving America, Is This Tomorrow? was published in 1947 by the Catechetical Guild Educational Society of St. Paul, Minnesota. At ten cents a copy, this fifty-two page, full-color comic book was a smashing success. It enjoyed several reprintings, and was used as a giveaway, presumably distributed to church groups. Some four million copies were printed.
Tuesday: The Emergence of the Cold War
Thursday: The Human Rights Revolution
Class Preparation Exercise: This week we are exploring the emergence of the so-called "Cold War" between the U.S. and Soviet Union in the years following World War II. Many developments in the period can be analyzed through this lens. Many more cannot. The human rights revolution which began with the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 is one development which has roots stretching back into the 18th century but which became a subject of Cold War conflict. It was also a signal moment in world history in which many nations were involved.
For this week's Class Preparation Exercise I would like you to read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the short history above and write 1 page (NYT 12, double spaced) in which you speculate as to how the U.S. (If your last name begins A-G) OR the Soviet Union (Last name H-R) OR the peoples of the colonial/post-ccolonial world (Asia, Africa, Latin America, Middle East) (last name S-Z) viewed the declaration and its implications. Bring your CPE to class, and be prepared to read yours to help get class started.
Readings:
Turbulent Passage, Chapter 9, 10
Sources of Twentieth Century Global History, 256-276
More Resources (not required, but if you are interested):
The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II: A Collection of Primary Sources: a wide-ranging collection of documents that you can use to explore the Presidential Decision to drop the Atomic Bomb
George Kennan, Excerpts from Telegraphic Message from Moscow of February 22, 1946
Vladislav Zubok and Constantine V. Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War (Harvard UP, 1996), 1-7
Joyce and Gabriel Kolko, "American Capitalist Expansion," in Paterson and McMahon, eds., The Origins of the Cold War, 3rd Edition; pp. 14-22.
Documents Related to the Cold War, 1945-1951
The 1956 Hungarian Revolution and Soviet intervention: A History in documents
Uprising in East Germany, 1953 Shedding light on a major Cold War flashpoint