Reference no: EM133202626

Define five of the following terms in three to six sentences each, noting why they matter to American History.

"Black Thursday"

National Recovery Admin. (NRA)

Huey Long

Social Security Act

The Four Freedoms

"American Century"

Henry Wallace

Double V Campaign

Executive Order 9906

Truman Doctrine

Joseph McCarthy

The Lavender Scare

The Great Society

The Gulf of Tonkin Incident

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)

Equal Rights Amendment

Trickle-Down Economics [Reaganomics]

Jerry Falwell

Multiculturalism

Bush Doctrine

1. How did the New Deal change the role of the national government in Americans' lives? How did it transform the relationship between the national government and citizens? Cite specific New Deal reforms and past conceptions of government in your answer.

2. World War II is commonly referred to as the "good war." The United States led the way in the defeat of fascist forces, the war got the country out of the Great Depression, liberated millions, some from concentration camps, and the United States solidified its place as a world power. However, in class we also learned about things in the war that were not so good on the Homefront and abroad with the strong racial implications of wartime and later actions like the dropping of the atomic bomb. Using what we learned in class write whether you thing World War II should or should not be remembered as the "Good War"?

3. The 1950s is normally remembered as a golden decade in American history, where the people enjoyed a new level of prosperity and were able to live in happiness and security with their job and their neighborhoods as shown in popular TV shows like Happy Days. Were the 1950s truly "happy days" for Americans? Why or why not? Consider things happening in the country in the 1950s regarding the economy, consumerism, race, gender, sex, and the anxieties over communism that created the "scares" of the decade.

4. John F. Kennedy is often ranked as one of the greatest presidents in American history, despite having only served for about 3 years. Historians still debate his merits and whether he was just another "Cold Warrior" devoted to the policies of containment and Cold War politics while others say he recognized the pitfalls of such ideology and had begun trying to disengage the Cold War before his untimely assassination? Do you believe Kennedy was a "Cold Warrior" or was a visionary deserving of his rank as one of the country's best presidents? In your answer consider things like his handling of the war in Vietnam, the Cuban Missile Crisis, relations with the Soviets, and the opinion of him amongst the American people at home.

5. The 1990s was an incredible time in world history, a period scholar Francis Fukuyama defined as "the end of history." The period saw the end of the Cold War and the rise of Globalization and international markets around the world. Do you believe the rapid expansion of globalization was a positive development in world affairs for the United States or a negative one? Consider the good and bad qualities of free trade agreements for businesses and American workers, the expansion of international organizations with new manufacturing hubs in foreign countries and their positives and negatives in labor rights and environmentalism, and the effect of having American businesses like Walmart and McDonalds in far away nations like China and Ukraine.