Modern Times

Essay questions:

  1. Why was there such a strong popular support for McCarthy’s anticommunist crusade in the early 1950s?  Would you have supported his goals?  His tactics?  Why or why not?

  2. Assess the diplomatic and military policies of John Foster Dulles.  Do you think that they were realistic?  Why or why not?

  3. Evaluate President Eisenhower’s response to
      1. the fall of Dienbienphu;
      2. the Hungarian revolt;
      3. the Suez Crisis;
      4. Castro’s revolution in Cuba.

 

  1. Explain why the civil rights movement became more radical and violent as the 1960s progressed.  What changes occurred in the motives, assumptions, and leadership of the movement?

  2. Assess America’s role in Vietnam in the 1960s.  Consider, for example,              

 

      1. Diem’s assassination;
    1. the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution;
      1. the policy of gradual escalation;
      2. the bombing campaign.

 

  1. Compare and contrast John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson as presidential leaders.  In what ways were they similar, and in what ways were they different?  Which do you consider the better president?  Why?  Should either of them be ranked among America’s “ten best” presidents?  Why or why not?
  1. Why was Richard M. Nixon, with his “loser’s image,” able to win the presidential election of 1968?  What issues and events worked to his advantage?
  1. What do you think lay at the root of the Watergate scandal?  Who was responsible?  Explain why it ballooned into a national crisis.
  1. How did the Vietnam War end?  Why did it end this way?  In what way had the United States “in the technical sense…not lost the war” but “lost more than a war”?
  1. Explain why Jimmy Carter began his presidency with such great popularity and why, by the end of his term, he was widely unpopular.  To what degree was the loss of popularity his fault, and to what degree was it the result of forces beyond his control?
  1. What were Ronald Reagan’s goals as he entered the presidency in 1981?  How successful was he in implementing them?  In what ways did he fail to achieve his goals?  Why?

Internet-based assignment:

Reflections of Vietnam

Vietnam

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