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What is History?
Democratic Vista TAH projectDecember 2009
• History is what we do to the past in the present.
• History is the stories we tell about the past.
• History is the imaginative recreation of the past in the present.
• History is argument, argument comes from evidence, evidence comes from the “text.”
Today . . .
• Where history of American foreign relations is moving
• Some thoughts on teaching the Cold War
• Vietnam Wars• End of the Cold War• US and the Middle East• History and memory of America’s
interactions with the world
Diplomatic History v. History of American Foreign Relations
• “diplomatic” = state to state• “International History” is too broad• American Foreign Relations: just
right– Governments, peoples, NGO’s,
economies, cultures, international groups
Three strands of the Cold War
• Ideological• Economic• Strategic
– Cold War Lenses
Just as important . . .
• The Cold War was fought at home– Leffler’s book
• And domestic politics influenced how it was fought abroad
Our Five Questions1. Why did the Cold War start?
- Could it have been prevented? Can we assign “blame” for the Cold War?
2. Why did it last so long?- Were the times when leaders could have lessened tensions or ended it
earlier? 3. Why did it influence so many aspects of America’s culture and politics?
- What made the Cold War resonate with Americans? 4. Why did it end when and how it did?
- How do we explain the end of the Cold War? 5. What lessons and meanings can and should we take from the Cold War?
- Is it possible to learn and apply these lessons to today’s world?
McCarthyism• Sen. Joseph McCarthy
– Republican from Wisconsin
• Manifestation of public feeling
• Big Lie• Blacklists• Army-McCarthy
Hearings (1954)
Influence of Cold War on Culture
Movies
Cold War resources
• Movie• Cartoon• Duck and Cover• Music
Shaping the Cold War narrative
• Civil Rights reform was in part a product of the Cold War
• Problems created by the lack of rights
• Perception of problems what motivated policymakers
• NARRATIVE: democracy made the achievement of justice possible
Sputnik
• October 1957• NASA (1958)• Crisis of
confidence
Key Areas of Early Conflict
• Berlin• NATO & Warsaw
Pact• China• Korea
Mobilization for the Postwar World
• National Security Act of 1947
• Atomic Weapons• NSC 68• The importance of
1949
“Fall” of China
• China complicating US policy in Asia
• Consequences of Chinese Civil War– No recognition– Fueled domestic hard-liners– Renewed interest in Asia
The Korean War, 1950-1953
MacArthur (far right) visits the front in the Korean War.
2 Questions
• What were the Soviet and Chinese roles in the decision to invade?
• Why did the US defend Korea?
Cold War Policy and Nationalism
• Independence in a bi-polar world• Iran• Guatemala• Cuba
The Vietnam War
2-minute writing
• What do you know about the Vietnam War and how did you “learn” it?– (gets to issues of history v. memory)
Vietnam Historiography
• Extraordinary passions and influence of war
• Several key issues:– Origins: necessary or a terrible
mistake?– Outcome: why unable to preserve
South Vietnam? Unwinnable?– Meaning and lessons: what are they?
Two main camps
• Critical - Vietnam a bad war - the “Standard Interpretation”
• Legitimate endeavor that could have been won
The “Standard Interpretation”
• Critics dominated the early literature– Reversal of other war histories
• Journalists and former officials start– The Bitter Heritage 1967 - Arthur
Schlesinger Jr. - “quagmire”
• “Quagmire” challenged by Pentagon Papers revelations– Presidents knew their actions might fail
Revisionist Challenge
• (Argue vehemently against anyone who says “trying to rewrite history”)
• Started to appear at end of 1970s• Part of growing conservative rise
and fueled by postwar conditions in Vietnam
• Revisionists seek to justify war on either or both of these grounds:– Vietnamese Communists a part of a
larger threat of Communism that was a real threat to U.S.
– Moral reasons: to save the South from the ravages of Communism
• Revisionists also seek to argue that war was winnable– U.S. Grant Sharp Strategy for Defeat:
Vietnam in Retrospect 1978
• But, two opposing views of how it could have been won– More conventional – More counter-insurgency– (each position claims the actual war was
fought in the opposite manner)
Recent Scholarship
• Standard interpretation still holds for most historians
• What is being written now:– Broader in scope: Congress, other
nations’ views– Archives from China and former USSR– Vietnamese side
LBJ and the War
• LBJ’s Doubts • Gulf of Tonkin
Resolution – August 1964
• Pleiku– February 1965
• U.S. Combat Troops– 1965
Phone Conversation with Sen. Russell, May 1964
Strategies and Attitudes
• LBJ’s View• U.S. Strategy
– Attrition– Pacification– Relocation– Technology
Strategies and Attitudes
• North Vietnam and Vietcong Strategy– Guerilla warfare– Ho Chi Minh Trail– Social Revolution– Nationalism– Survival
End of Cold War: Reagan as ultimate hero
• Argument of John Lewis Gaddis– Strong rhetoric, but practical– R. saw opportunity and seized it– R. pursued policy of strength
Flaws in Gaddis argument
• Fails to see full picture of 1980s U.S., USSR, Eastern Europe, and World
• Fails to see power of containment over the long haul
1980s
• US• USSR• Gorbache
v• Eastern
Europe• World
U.S. in the Middle Eastsince 1945
War and Cold War bring the U.S. to the Middle East• Overall Goal:
– Stability that allows U.S. access to oil
Suggested Gameplan:
• Stability, Nationalism, Revolution
• Arab-Israeli Conflict & U.S.
• The Persian Gulf since 1980
History and Memory
• HISTORY:
• History is what we do to the past in the present
• History is argument, arguments come from evidence, evidence comes from the “text”
• MEMORY:
• Individual v. Collective memory (“body of beliefs about the past”)
• Collective memory provides “lessons”