March 31

Blog #61 – Who started the Cold War?

One of the main topics for post-war history has been who’s responsible for the beginning of the Cold War – U.S., Soviet Union, or both?  I’d like to throw a fourth option into the mix: Britain.

The U.S., according to revisionist historians, is said to have started the Cold War because of the following actions:

1. During World War 1, an Allied invasion of Russia during their revolution was aimed at stopping the Bolsheviks and restoring the Tsar to the throne.  We also withheld recognition of the Soviet Union until 1933;

2. At the Potsdam Conference, Harry Truman withheld the information about the atomic bomb from Stalin but not Churchill.  Even though Stalin knew about the bomb from spies, the atomic secrets were withheld from the Soviets and not the British;

3. George Kennan, an American diplomat, stated early in 1946 that the Soviet Union has only one concern: world domination, and that they understand power and strength and don’t respect weakness.  This sets up the Cold War policy of containment – keeping the Communists from taking over other countries.  This also became the Truman Doctrine in 1947;

“One way of life is based upon the will of the majority, and is distinguished by free institutions, representative government, free elections, guarantees of individual liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from political oppression.

The second way of life is based upon the will of a minority forcibly imposed upon the majority. It relies upon terror and oppression, a controlled press and radio; fixed elections, and the suppression of personal freedoms”  – Harry Truman, 1947.

4. When the Soviets blockaded West Berlin in 1948, the British and U.S. violated the blockade by sending in thousands of supply flights to help save the West Berlin people;

5.   In 1949, western European powers and the U.S. and Canada formed NATO in order to defend themselves against Soviet or Eastern European attack;

6. In 1952, we detonated a hydrogen bomb before the Soviets, escalating the arms race.

The Soviets, on the other hand, had started the Cold War, according to consensus historians, because:

1. They violated the Yalta Agreement by not allowing free elections in Eastern Europe after the war.  Many of the Communist parties in those countries got financial support from the Soviet Union;

2. The Eastern European countries were controlled by the Soviets after World War 2;

3. The Soviets put down a democratic revolution in Czechoslovakia in 1948;

4. The Soviets blockaded West Berlin when the British, French, and American parts of West Germany formed to make their own government;

5. Stalin made a speech in 1946 in which he stated that Communism and capitalism are incompatible –

“Our Marxists declare that the capitalist system of world economy conceals elements of crisis and war, that the development of world capitalism does not follow a steady or even course forward, but proceeds through crises and catastrophes…” Joseph Stalin, 1946.

6. The Soviets backed North Korea’s invasion of South Korea in 1950, sparking the Korean War;

7. The Soviets detonated their own atomic bomb in 1949 (with stolen secrets from the American bomb) and their own hydrogen bomb in 1953 furthering the arms race;

But then there’s the British:

1. Churchill knew from the outset of his reign as Prime Minister that the British would be willing to sacrifice its empire and its influence in Europe in order to save Britain, so he molded FDR and American interests in taking over for Britain as a counter balance to the Soviet Union;

2. Churchill gave the Iron Curtain speech in Fulton, Missouri in early 1946, describing how Europe had been divided into two camps: Communism and freedom;

“Mr Churchill has called for a war on the USSR” – Joseph Stalin, 1946.

3. The British had gone broke fighting World War II and could no longer support countries from Communist infiltration, so it got the U.S. to do that for them – example, Greece and Turkey in 1947 and 1948;

4. The British helped America with the Berlin Blockade in flying 275,000 flights to the city in a year’s time, bringing 1.5 million tons of supplies;

5. Because Iran had nationalized its oil producing company (formerly a British company), the British asked America for help in overthrowing the Iranian leader, Mossadegh, who had democratically elected.  In 1953, Mossadegh was out of power and replaced by the Shah.

 

After reading all of these accounts, which do you think is the most convincing argument for starting the Cold War and which is the least convincing?  Explain why in a minimum of 250 words. 

Due Thursday by class, April 3. 

December 12

Blog #44 – Most important turning point

This blog asks you to pick which of the three turning points in the Civil War are the most important and why. 

Turning Point #1 — Battle of Antietam – Sept. 17, 1862 — On this day, America suffered more casualties (23,000) than the total casualties of the Revolution, War of 1812, and Mexican War combined.  At stake was the Confederate invasion of Maryland and General George McClellan’s reputation as the next great American general.  McClellan stopped the invasion and Lee turned back.  Britain and France delayed their vital recognition of the Confederacy (which could have aided the cash-strapped rebels and also provided them with much-needed aid).  In addition, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation four days later which completely changed the scope of the war by making it not just about keeping the Union together but also ending slavery.  With the EP in place on January 1, 1863, freed blacks could now join the Union Army and fight for their own freedom.  And lastly, the momentum swung to the Northern side, if just for a little while. 

http://www.civilwar.org/battlefields/antietam/maps/antietam-animated-map.html  Antietam animated map. 

 

General George Meade

Turning Point #2 – Battle of Gettysburg – July 1-3, 1863 — After two crushing defeats, the Army of the Potomac (led by General George Meade, a.k.a. the snapping turtle) finally got one in the win column by defeating General Lee and the Confederacy on a hot, sweaty battlefield in eastern Pennsylvania.  Over three days, the Union Army was able to defend their positions from ferocious Confederate assaults and turn the tide of the war.  The largest and deadliest battle on the North American continent (53,000 casualties), this Union victory slammed the door shut on any chance of foreign recognition that the Confederacy had left.  Also, Confederate hero Robert E. Lee never went on a major offensive again afterwards, b/c his army was too crippled and further large scale attacks would have been futile.  Coupled with the victory at Vicksburg, Mississippi, Gettysburg dealt a serious blow to the Confederacy’s hopes of winning this war.  They could not continue to lose 1/3 of their best army every time they took on the Union nor lose valuable commanders and field generals.   For many, this July 4 of 1863 had a special meaning as the Union headed towards victory. 

 

Turning Point #3 – The Election of 1864 – this political battle is considered by James McPherson to be the third turning point of the war because it had still not been decided on the battlefield in the summer of 1864.  Ulysses S. Grant had taken command of all of the Union armies and been expected to bring his pounding style of attack to the eastern theatre of the war (Virginia) like he had done out west in Mississippi and Tennessee.  However, the 4-pronged attack on the Confederacy soon got bogged down in the reality of war and many Americans had expressed their war weariness in many ways.  One of those ways was to support silly peace plans with Jeff Davis that would have ended the war w/o ending slavery. Another way Americans showed their war weariness was by picking Democrat George McClellan to be their presidential nominee.  The Peace Democrats wanted to end the war w/o ending slavery, but McClellan publicly contradicted them by saying he would push for peace through victory – read, war!  Lincoln’s party flirted w/ picking another candidate but never really did that, and by putting Tennessean Andrew Johnson on the ticket as his V.P., Lincoln was trying to be the “Union” candidate.  Luckily for Lincoln (and the country), Union general William T. Sherman captured the pivotal Confederate city of Atlanta in September, and the hits just kept coming.  In October, Union General Sheridan defeated the Confederate army in the Shenandoah Valley.  78% of the Union soldiers voted for Lincoln and only 29% of McClellan’s former army, the Army of the Potomac, voted for their old boss.  Lincoln swept up the electoral college 212 to 21 as well.   This was the final turning point of the war b/c the end of slavery and the Confederacy appeared just to be a matter of time.  Lincoln planned on having a forgiving Reconstruction policy as exemplified in his 2nd Inaugural address (http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres32.html).   If McClellan had won this election, who knew what would have happened?  Would there have been peace after four long bitter years with nothing to show for it except the dead and injured? 

Pick what you think is the most important turning point in the Civil War and explain why in your own words. 

200 words minimum (except for Tamia!  You know how much you have to do) due by class on Thursday, Dec. 13. 

Here’s the closing paragraph of Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address:

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

September 26

Blog #40 – Was the American Revolution conservative or radical by its nature?

One of the primary themes that I’ve wanted you to consider over this unit on the American Revolution was the concept of whether or not it was a conservative revolution (people trying to keep powers that they already have been exercising for years) or whether it was truly a radical revolution (people striking out on their own by overthrowing an existing political or social order and creating a new one).   American historical scholars have been debating its very nature of the American Revolution soon after it ended.

As we read over and study chapter 7 in our textbook, many of you are asking questions about the use of my analogy of the American colonies as the spoiled child / teen overeeacting to limits being placed on the adolescent by previously indulgent parent (Britain / Parliament) who now realizes that their child has grown up and needs to take some responsibility.  My attitudes about the Revolution have changed over the past three years since I’ve started teaching APUSH and have become more nuanced.  What I mean by that is that I used to believe what most of you have probably been taught – we were right and the British were tyrants, and it was just a matter of time that we asserted our unalienable rights by breaking away from the British empire to become the greatest nation in the history of the world.

The more I study the Revolution, the more I see numbers like the taxation issue (Brits were taxed 26 shillings to the colonists’ 1 shilling), and I wonder what the big deal was.  Parliament wasn’t asking the colonies to pay the debt of 140 million pounds sterling that the empire had accrued during the French and Indian War – just 1/3 of the 100,000 pounds that it cost for the soldiers to be there to protect the Indians on the other side of the Proclamation Line of 1763.

Bancroft 

The pre-Civil War era (1840-1870) was filled with historians who saw the Revolution as a quest for liberty, and the most important scholar was George Bancroft who wrote a ten-volume History of the United States.  Bancroft felt that the Revolution was a “struggle between liberty and tyranny… represent[ing] one phase of a master plan by God for the march of all mankind toward a golden age of greater human freedom” (Bancroft 13).   Bancroft represented a national historian who told America’s epic story  in an ultra-patriotic way.  After the Civil War, however, historians wanted to reassess the Revolution in light of the country’s amazing industrial growth.

Imperial and Progressive Schools 

The Imperial School believed that political and constitutional issues brought on the Revolution.  Britain’s colonial policies were not as unjust as Bancroft had said.  There were benefits and burdens with the Navigation Acts, and the colonists benefited under Salutary Neglect too.  Also, Imperial School historians felt that the British were justified in taxing the Americans b/c it was British blood and treasure spent during the Great War for Empire 1754-63.  American colonies were moving in the direction of more home rule which, in essence, was revolutionary, by nature.

The Progressive School emphasized that it was the economic split caused by the competition between the colonies and the mother country.  Not only that, but the Progressives placed a great emphasis on class conflict, so this Revolution was actually two – external against Britain and internal between social classes (which class would rule America after the British left).  Historian Arthur Schlesinger noted that usually conservative merchants played a key role in kick starting the Revolution b/c they feared what would happen to their positions if the lower classes won the internal Revolution.

Consensus Movement

Historians in the 1950s, the consensus school of history, feel that there wasn’t class conflict during this time period, but that a “shared commitment to certain fundamental political principles of self-government” was what bound the colonists together (Bailey 140).  It was these ideas – liberty, voting, representative government, trial by jury, habeas corpus – that bound Americans together.  The leading historian of this movement was one of my favorites, Daniel Boorstin.  It was these grand, shared ideas that bound the varied colonial interests together and minimized the social and economic conflicts that could have torn the colonies apart.

After the 1950s, historian Bernard Bailyn focused on ideological and psychological factors that drove the RevolutioFront Covern.  He had read hundreds and hundreds of pamphlets from the Revolutionary era and discovered that not only were the colonists extremely literate, they were very knowledgeable in political theory.  These American writers also grew suspicious (some say too sensitive) of conspiracies, and this hypersensitivity led the colonists to begin armed revolt in 1775 at Lexington and Concord.

New Left (1960s, 70s)

Another one of my favorite historians, Gary Nash, has examined the social and economic forces that moved the Revolution along.  He pointed out the increasing gap between the social classes and lack of social mobility before the Revolution, especially among the people who lived in the countryside.  Attacks by the poor (the Paxton Boys in PA and the Regulators in N.C.) on the wealthy before the Revolution are prime examples of the frustration and resentment that laborers felt at being left out of the rapid economic change.  Unlike the Progressive historians, the New Left historians like Nash don’t pin all of the conflict upon economic conflict but include social changes as well.

Not only have you gotten a lesson in historiography (the history of the history – of the Revolution in this case), you can see that history is not a static thing and changes over time.  The history usually reflects the political and social conditions of the writers / historians living at that time.

Using what you’ve read here and in chapters 7 and 8, provide with me some insight into what you think our American Revolution was – a conservative revolution or truly radical one in nature.  Also, please provide some rationale for your answer. 

Due Monday, October 1 by class time.  Minimum of 250 words.  

Sources:

Bailey, Thomas Andrew, David M. Kennedy, and Lizabeth Cohen. The American Pageant. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998. Print.

Wood, Gordon S. “Rhetoric and Reality in the American Revolution.” The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States. London: Penguin, 2011. 25-55. Print