HIS 135
Unit 5: The Cold War

What you must do in this unit

• Read my short notes on America's Understanding of Communism and also the notes on the Cold War. There are a lot of links in those notes, and you should investigate those links because that material will be helpful for you in studying for the exam.
• Watch my short video on the Cold War.
• Take a moment and check any of my remarks that deal with the Cold War from my History of Russia II course:
  • World War II
  • Cold War
  • The Thaw
  • Gorbachev
  • The End of the Soviet Union

Submit

• Post (or respond) with your thoughts/ideas/comments about this unit's reading in the discussion board in Canvas: How did the Cold War affect countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America? (5 points)

What you can do in this unit

• Please read about the "tankman" from the 1989 Tienanmen Square protests in China. This website was created by Susanna Schuch, a student in the course in 2012. Students have also written about Lech Wałęsa and Václav Havel, two important figures in the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, and the dissolution of Czechoslovakia after the fall of communism.
• There are also quite a few HIS 135 course modules that have information related to communism and the Cold War. Please see the list of those modules if you wish to consult any of them.
• Korea was one of the most important events of the early Cold War. See the excellent timeline, Significant Events of the Korean War, created by Kelton Adams-Elkins, Alex English, and Christopher Belcher, former students.
• Check out the timeline by Aron Bauder, former student, on the History of Chinese Communism.
• Katherine Schroeder, former student in HIS 112, compiled this excellent, and very interesting, timeline of Airline Hijackings of the Cold War.

Some videos that you can watch for this unit

• Pattern of US Cold War Interventions
• Grzegorz Ekiert - Democratization and Civil Society in Post-communist Europe
• 1968 Invasion of Prague
• Thirteen Days in October
• Defcon 2 - Cuban Missile Crisis Part 1 of 6
• See the videos dealing with the Cold War in the HIS 242 course.
• The 1998 CNN documentary series on the Cold War is sometimes available online.
• The Cold War for Dummies (World History Style) is a bit simple but still an OK overview.
• There are several videos in the Crash Course World History series, including USA vs USSR Fight! and others.
• Doping for Gold: The Cold War Sporting Front (PBS website with videos)
• Here is a pretty good video, The Fallen of World War II, that examines the heavy casualties of the Second World War and the possible postwar impact.
• For extra credit please suggest to your instructor a relevant video for this unit of the course. Send the title of the video, the URL and a brief explanation of why you find the video interesting and applicable to the material that is being studied in this unit.

Extra Credit Options

• Visit the U.S. Navy Museum, Cold War Gallery at the Washington Navy Yard in Washington DC. Check with your instructor about possible point value for this. You can also visit the Cold War Museum in Warrenton, VA or the Greenbrier Bunker in White Sulpher Springs, WV. The National Museum of the Marine Corps has exhibits on the Korean War and the Vietnam War.

Unit Learning Objectives

• Upon successful completion of this unit, you will be able to (1) Explain some of the causes of the Cold War and (2) assess the significance of some of the key events of the Cold War from 1945 to the present.