Cold War, Civil Rights Movement, and Counterculture movement

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1. Explain the causes of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, and discuss some of the more serious incidents between the two superpowers.

The causes of the Cold War were the different ideological perspectives that the Soviet Union and America had toward how the world should operate. Communists were following the ideals of Lenin, which sought for a system of communism across the globe wherein workers would live in a utopian paradise and oligarchs and corporations that were seen as evil would cease to exist. This is in direct contrast with Capitalism, which is what America promoted across the globe. Communists wanted to destroy capitalism or quintessentially conquer and destroy the West as the West was built upon capitalism. Therefore, the Cold War was basically two superpowers attempting to gain influence and control across the globe in different countries. Communists used proxy wars as well as America to further their ideologies of Communism and Capitalism. The worst incident was the Cuban missile crisis, which was the closest the world ever came to nuclear warfare. Communists in Cuba and the Russian president decided to store up nuclear warheads on the island, which was in response to the nuclear warheads America had in an area near Russia. The crisis was averted when secret negotiations between Kennedy and the Russian president convinced the Russians that America would remove their alleged obsolete warheads if Russia would remove their warheads in Cuba.

2. Describe American life as it developed during the 1950s, including social, economic, and political issues, and evaluate the significance of the Cold War in these changes.

America developed into the greatest superpower in the world after WW2 because all the former European colonial powers were decimated after WW2. This is what symbolized development in America in the 1950s as WW2 soldiers returned back to an America that was more prosperous than any other time in its history. The government set up programs such as those for encouraging college education through GI grants and other measures that created even more affluence. White war veterans were given the ability to move to newly created suburbs and America's economy continued to grow. The political issues that were most present were the Cold War and the still widely practiced use of racism against Blacks. The Cold war was only in its infancy but situations ...