HIS 135
Unit 2: The Cold War
This modest looking house in Reykjavik, Iceland was the site of the summit meeting between Ronald Reagan, the US president, and Mikhail Gorbachev, the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, on 11-12 October 1986. Nothing was fundamentally agreed upon at the meeting, although many scholars continue to identify a "spirit of Reykjavik" that enabled future negotiations between Reagan and Gorbachev to be successful; photo courtesy Joey Romeo.
What you must do in this unit
- Read chapters 1, 2, 3 and 4 in the Keylor
textbook. Please note that the reading in this course is heavily front-loaded to the first two short paragraph assignments (units 2 and 4). But you will also use that reading on the midterm and final exams. Or, read chapters 2 and 7 in the Brower etext.
- Read my short notes on America's Understanding of Communism and also the notes on the Cold War.
- Post (or respond) your thoughts/ideas about this unit's reading and assignment in the Blackboard online discussion forum. Do not post your assignment there.
- Submit the Paragraph One assignment.
What you can do in this unit
-
Also take a moment and check any of my
remarks from my History of Russia II course:
- Please read about the "tankman" from the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in China. This website was created by Susanna Schuch, a student in the course in 2012.
- 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.
- We also have a list of some useful websites on the web that deal with world communism.
- You may choose to listen to some short remarks about the two
short paragraph assignments (The
specific chapter reading assignments have changed since I first
recorded these remarks so many years ago, but the remarks are still
valid.) as a mp3 file. You can also read the instructions as
a txt file.
Some videos that you can watch for this unit
Extra Credit Options
- For extra credit, please suggest a
relevant website for this unit of the course. Send the title of the site, the url and a
brief explanation why you find the information interesting and applicable to
the material being studied this unit.
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