The purpose of this unit will be to evaluate the factors that led to the end of the cold war including détente, policies of the U.S. and U.S.S.R. and their leaders (President Reagan and Premier Gorbachev), the political breakup of the Soviet Union, and the Warsaw Pact.  This unit will also attempt to explore the role of the United States as a super-power in the post-Cold War world, including advantages, disadvantages, and new challenges (e.g., military missions in Lebanon, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, and the Gulf War).

 We will look at the politics of the 1980s under President Reagan’s administration.  Since the U.S. politics of the late 20^th and early 21^st Centuries reflected a global trend toward conservatism, these policies were both economic and social. Conservative policies were viewed by many as an antidote to the “liberal excesses of the 1960s and 1970s” and a reaction against the policies of both Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. Intense partisanship, regional differences, and conservative and evangelical movements were part of that trend.

This will provide a venue for a project wherein we exam the domestic tensions and conflict of the late half of the 20^th century.  Using core democratic values, we will analyze and evaluate the different perspectives and controversies among Americans concerning the following: