everything.study
21H.211

The United States in the Cold War Era

3-0-9 units. HASS-H · Undergraduate

Examines the history of the Cold War era (1947-1991), with a focus on the impacts of that conflict on American social and political life. Topics under consideration include: the United States as a global actor and the repercussions of decolonization in a Cold War context; the formation of the military-industrial-academic complex and its role in the development of computing and other technologies; disaster planning, civil defense, and apocalyptic imaginaries that arose in response to the threat of nuclear warfare; McCarthyism, propaganda, and political repression; the emergence of student, environmental, civil rights, and anti-nuclear protest movements; and the legacies of the Cold War at home and abroad.

Spring 2016 · The United States in the Nuclear Age

Topics

  • Introductions
  • Key Questions, Debates, and Approaches to the Nuclear Age
  • The Dawn of the Nuclear Age
  • Duck and Cover: Civil Defense
  • Domestic Containment and the Nuclear Family
  • McCarthyism and the Red Scare
  • Sex, Gender, and the Lavender Scare
  • Psychology in an Age of Anxiety
  • The Emergence of Computing Technology
  • Humans, Machines, and the Reorganization of Work
  • Organization Men and Their Critics
  • Suburbanization, White Flight, and Urban Crisis
  • The Malling of America
  • Race and the Space Race
  • The Global Cold War and the Making of Three Worlds
  • Cold War Civil Rights
  • Delinquents and Rebels: The 1950s as Prelude to the 1960s
  • The End of Consensus: The Student Movement and the New Left
  • Rethinking Nature in a Nuclear Age
  • The Return of Fear and the Anti-Nuclear Movement
  • Legacies of the Cold War and the Unfolding Nuclear Age
  • Closing Thoughts and Paper Presentations

Prerequisites & course information

Prereq: None U (Spring) Not offered regularly; consult department 3-0-9 units. HASS-H

Sources