Top Ten Topics from Chapter 30. “What is Europe now? A rubble heap, a charnel house, a breeding...

Top Ten Topics from Chapter 30

“What is Europe now? A rubble heap, a charnel house, a breeding ground of pestilence and hate.”

-- Winston Churchill

1. Most of the world divides up between the US (tend to be democracies) and the

USSR (dictatorships)

Inner German Border

NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)

1949

Warsaw Pact (Council for Mutual Economic

Assistance – COMECON) 1955

U.S. Philosophy of Containment

“Like apples in a barrel infected by disease, the corruption of Greece would infect Iran and all the east. . . likewise Africa. . . Italy. . . France. . . .Not since Rome and Carthage had there been such a polarization of power on this earth”-- U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson

“I won the Nobel prize for literature, what was your

crime?

Back to Purging in

the USSR and now Eastern Europe too

Forced laborcamps 1948-1954 

Hungary 199 

Czechoslovakia  124 

Bulgaria 99 

Romania 97 

Poland 47 

2. Allies of the US do much better economically, esp. in the 1950s & 1960s

3. Western Europe takes major steps towards economic unity

European Economic Community

1952

6 members

1973

9 members

1981

10 members

1986

12 members

4. Decolonization (politically, but not so much economically and culturally)

5. Domestic policies in the USSR fluctuate . . .

Nikita Khrushchev (1953-64)

Leonid Brezhnev (1964-1982)

6. . . .but the USSR retains tight control over its satellite states

Czechoslovakia, 1948

Hungary, 1956

August 31, 1961

Prague Spring, 1968Brezhnev Doctrine

Detante

Conservative Alliance: Thatcher, Reagan, Kohl

7. Science oriented toward war and space (“Big Science”)

8. Class structure becomes less divided

• Greater accessibility of college gives more people educational opportunities

• Service industry greatly expanded (more white collar than blue collar)

• Government programs redistributed wealth: welfare, pensions

• Most people could afford appliances and cars• Most people could afford vacations

9. Women demand more rights, students demand respect

• More women in the workforce, where they faced discrimination

• Demanding equal pay, maternity leave, day care, right to divorce, legalized abortion, protection from and prosecution of rape

• Students living a very different lifestyle (sex, drugs and rock n’ roll) but demanding respect as adults (there are a lot of people in the generation, it is the baby boom)

10. 1970s bring economic difficulties

• US spent too much (Marshall Plan, welfare programs, Korean and Vietnam wars)

• OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) embargoed oil sales to the US when the US supported Israel in the Yom Kippur war of 1973

• Austerity measures