HIST 2020 M02

Ronald Reagan, the 40th President of the United States, is often regarded as a significant change in the realm of diplomacy. He is known for his confrontational and uncompromising stance towards the Soviet Union, which many believe led to the eventual collapse of the Soviet Empire. His strategic approach, popularly known as the "Reagan Doctrine," was based on the idea of outspending and outmaneuvering the Soviet Union to force them into submission. Reagan's diplomacy was marked by several key initiatives, such as the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), also known as "Star Wars," which aimed to develop a missile defense system to protect the United States from nuclear attack. He also provide d significant financial and military support to anti-communist forces in countries such as Afghanistan, Nicaragua, and Angola, to roll back Soviet influence. Critics of Reagan's diplomacy argue that his policies were reckless and dangerous, and that they could have eas...

Tom Wolfe's essay "The Me Decade" was published in New York Magazine in 1976, describing the cultural trends of the 1970s. In it, Wolfe argued that the decade was characterized by a new focus on individualism and self-expression, which he called the "Me Decade." Wolfe pointed to various cultures as evidence of this shift, including the rise of self-help books, the popularity of Eastern spirituality, and the rapidly increasing amounts of personal branding and self-promotion. He argued that these trends reflected a broader cultural turn away from the collectivism of the 1960s and towards a new emphasis on personal fulfillment and self-realization. While Wolfe's essay has been criticized for oversimplifying the complexities of the decade, it does capture some important cultural shifts that were taking place at the time. For example, the 1970s saw the rise of the feminist movement and the gay rights movement, both of which were focused on individual empowerment ...

  Most people living during this time period expected conformity and feared anything that went against their perception of normality. During the late 1960s, many groups challenged these perceptions. Many like the Hippies, women, and anti-war protesters were the ones under the most scrutiny. With the Hippies, they threw out many norms and expectations that most middle-class Americans held so close. In a time where most individuals were on the straight and narrow, Hippies were notorious for their drug intake and their go with the flow attitudes. Most individuals during this time were working trying to make ends meet. They had to work so hard to pay off their homes, get their kids through school, and be able to retire. Hippies on the other hand were not working to the degree that their parents were. During this time, women were making a larger uproar than before. Women in the 60s were expected to be perfect little housewives. They were expected to cook, clean, take care of the kids,...

     The second wave of feminism was mainly about women's reproductive rights. This movement was started in the 1960's and after the John F. Kennedy's commission. The movement focused on several issues such as gender inequality, reproductive rights, sexism and workplace discrimination. At the time, women were to become housewives and act all the parts to being a more feminine. Betty Friedan wrote a book called The Feminine Mystique which gave others a more perspective view of how women felt about how they are supposed to act and like. Women were often told that they must clean the house, always make their husbands happy, care for the children herself, and if they had a job, they didn't receive the same respect as men did nor the right pay. Women felt unhappy because of how empty they felt doing the things that they did not enjoy. This led to what the doctor called "the housewifes's syndrome" where mainly housewives felt a sort of emptiness inside and not s...

The Vietnam War took place from 1955 to 1975 due to the communist influence present in North Vietnam. The U nited States s trongly felt that the Vietnamese needed saving from this communist influence and if we did not stop communism then it would spread to America resulting in the loss of our own freedom. Upon entering the war, American soldiers fe lt happy to be fighting for freedom and d id not care if it cost their life to achieve this mission. As the war continue d, soldiers were seeing increasingly more horrific scenes, casualties, and fear ed their life even in their sleep but they still f ound a way to make their mission in Vietnam enjoyable . To do this, soldiers ma de bets with their fellow members on who would be the first to kill an opponent with a weapon or which day would they achieve 10,000 deaths in their unit . At this point, the American soldiers still felt sorrow for the Vietnamese and still desired to achieve their mission in North Vietnam ; but,...

  The Cold War was a period of extreme political tension between the Soviet Union and the United States from the end of World War II until the 1990s. During this time, the United States adopted a containment policy, aimed at preventing the spread of communism. The containment policy was based on the belief that if the Soviet Union was allowed to expand its influence, it would eventually dominate the world. To prevent this from happening, the United States used a variety of diplomatic, economic, and military strategies to contain Soviet expansion. One of the key elements of the containment policy was the Truman Doctrine, which was announced in 1947. This would later be known as the early Containment Policy. The doctrine stated that the United States would provide military and economic support to countries that were threatened by communism. This policy was used to provide aid to countries such as Greece and Turkey, which were under a severe threat from communist forces. Another signi...