Explain significant international and domestic challenges that the United States confronted since World War I.
A. Explain the major causes of the Great Depression:
The Great War, now known as World War I, had a profound impact on the international political and economic system. The fallout from this upheaval left many countries economically and politically devastated. A variety of industries and businesses were effected by the destructive violence that was brought by the war. In order to maintain their resources a variety of nations had bankrupted themselves, turning to borrowing or even printing their own money to continue. Furthermore, the war disrupted the generally stable patterns of international trading routes, leading to the dissolution of the financial and military power that a variety of old-world empires had maintained. Geopolitical instability was another factor that led to the Great Depression. The fallout from the First Great War not only caused a variety of economic and institutional challenges, but also presented a variety of collapses in relation to previous empires and state systems (Devine). Between the wars there were a variety of state-led industrial developments that increased the level of competition among nations, while at the same time increasing their dependency on one another. After the war the level of competition, however, shifted from being driven by state militaries to being economic in nature. The collapse of Gold Standard was another major cause of the Great depression. After the war, it was evident that in order to return to the prewar economic system based on the gold standard it was necessary to deflate the value of their economies. As many nations were reluctant to do so, this led to the collapse of gold as the basic standard by which money could be valued. These events essentially “undermined the foundations of the international monetary system and made the world financial system more vulnerable to a collapse” (Matziorinis 2). All of these events inevitably led to the 1929 Stock Market Crash.
B. Describe three ways that the New Deal sought to address the problems of the Great Depression:
The New Deal consisted of a variety of ways in which the president hoped to pull the country out of the Great Depression. This deal established camps throughout the country that allowed young men to find work that they could do to provide for themselves. This consisted of a variety of public works and construction projects that helped to charge community and social activities. The Civilian Conservation Core (CCC) became the center of a national effort to increase the level of productivity that the nation was able to pursue. This included the creation of a variety of buildings, roads, bridges and dams. “Roosevelt’s jobs programs were massive and ambitious, but the intensity of these efforts varied over time” (Hannsgen & Papadimitriou 15). These projects were considered by many to have at least strengthened opportunities for manufacturing. Furthermore, a variety of legislative actions were taken in order to help spur the development of businesses. Banking and other forms of monetary reforms were enacted which expressly intended to generate the capacity of the country to recover from the economic crisis. In response, the economic stability of the nation was able to stabilize and it saw its GDP rise at historically high rates. Furthermore, a variety of monetary reforms, such as moving away from the gold standard were enacted which promulgated the successful reconditioning of the underlying economic system. “Reducing competition and raising wages and prices were the main goals of New Deal industrial and labor policies” (Cole & O'Hanion 5). This was achieved through both the CCC and the various legislative and economic pursuits that the New Deal established.
C. Explain how the end of World War II contributed to the rise of Cold War tensions:
After the Second World War, the rapid increase in productive capacity and technological ability within both the United States and the Soviet Union led to strong competition in the creation of arms and weapons of war. The mass production of these materials, including nuclear weapons, which could be stockpiled in order to give one over the other led to what was essentially a race between the two to amass stronger and more effective capabilities in case of war. The rapid and competitive increase in both military and naval capabilities led to what has since been called the Cold War, in which hostility, tension, and destructive power were amassed for decades (Etzioni). These increased tensions between the two superpowers were essentially due to the fundamentally different ideologies that the two nations held. While the United States and the western world were primarily capitalist based, the communist countries of Soviet Union and China made up collectivist ideologies, which were in stark contrast. This led to a variety of small-scale proxy wars including the Korean and Vietnamese wars, which were led in order to curb the spread of communism throughout the Pacific. These Cold War tensions had a profound effect on American culture and domestic policies such as security concerns, organizations, and discrimination. In regards to security, the creation of the atomic bomb by the Soviets caused concerns among the U.S. government, which prompted the exploration of more powerful explosives (Intrilligator). This led to a large scale increase of more powerful and destructive weapons. Furthermore, organizations such as NASA were created out of fears stemming from Soviet programs such as Sputnik. There was also a great deal of discrimination during this period of those that had socialist tendencies.
D. Explain two changes that came about as a result of the civil rights movement:
One major change that occurred as a result of the civil rights movement was the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This act essentially banned discrimination from public places based on race, color, or nationality. It essentially ended the institutionalization of segregation and established a source of credibility with which minorities could fight the injustices that they faced within society. It also established the protection of individual voting rights with the creation of the 15th amendment. These developments essentially “toppled the South's system of disfranchisement and de jure or legalized segregation by forcing the hand of federal officials and bringing local governments to their knees” (Hall 1236). This resulted in a profound shift in the political and social landscape of the entire nation. Another major shift that occurred due to the civil rights movement was the . This had a profound influence on the basic structure of society as many African Americans began to enter into new social and cultural roles and expanded throughout the workforce. Increases in equal pay, education, and political representation have all been major effects that this movement has created within society. These shifts had resulted in radical redefinition of how citizens should be empowered. The Voting Rights Act (1965), which established in order to ensure that the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments would be empowered, provided many minorities with the legal authority to vote. The act primarily focused on “removing barriers to actual registration and voting for minorities in the United States” (Conroy 666). In assessing the overall impact of the Civil Rights Movement it seems that a variety of important changes occurred that have fundamentally altered the culture of the modern world.
Works Cited
Cole, Harold L and Ohanian, Lee E. New Deal Policies and the Persistence of the Great Depression: A General Equilibrium Analysis. 2001. Print.
Conroy, Terrye. The Voting Rights Act of 1965: A Selected Annotated Bibliography. Law Library Journal. Vol. 98. No. 4.
Devine, James. The Causes of the 1929-33 Collapse: A Marxian Interpretation. Research in Political Economy. Vol. 14. 119-194. 1994. Print.
Etzioni, Amitai. Beyond the Arms Race. Columbia University Forum. 2011. Print.
Hall, Jaquelyn Dowd. The Long Civil Rights Movement and the Political Uses of the Past. The Journal of American History. 2005. Print.
Hannsgen, Greg and Papadimitriou, Dimitri B. Lessons from the New Deal: Did the New Deal Prolong or Worsen the Great Depression? The Levy Economics Institute. Working Paper 581. 2009. Print.
Intrilligator, Michael D. and Brito, Dagobert L. Arms Races. Defence and Peace Economic. 2000, Vol. 11 (1). Print.
Matziorinis, Kenneth. The Causes of Great Depression: A Retrospective. The Great Depression and Europe. 2006.
