Overview

The United States entered the post-World War II era as the most powerful country in the world. Among the challenges the country faced were the spread and containment of communism, leadership in the global economy, and maintenance of security both at home and abroad. The containment of communism during these years led to a number of “brushfire” engagements in other parts of the world, including Korea and Vietnam. The United States entered into a period of Cold War, with periodic crises followed by years of quiet coexistence.

The end of colonialism at the close of World War II, opened the way for nationalist movements in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, efforts complicated by the demands of the United States and the Soviet bloc that new countries choose sides in the Cold War. The United States also worked to ensure that friendly governments would emerge from newly created Latin American countries. Diplomatic relations with the Middle East were complicated by that region’s vast oil supplies and the US economy’s dependence on that fuel source.

Fear of spreading communism played a significant role in domestic politics in the United States. While both political parties supported limiting communism’s influence, there were disagreements about how this should be accomplished. The war in Korea resulted in some domestic protest; however, the war in Vietnam led to national, often violent, antiwar protests. Other issues were the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the influence of the military in domestic politics, and the proper role of presidential power in making foreign and military policy.

The 1950s and 1960s saw a rejuvenated civil rights movement challenging Jim Crow and segregation in the courts and in the streets. Landmark decisions resulted in the desegregation of the military, the end of separate but equal with the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas decision, and the sweeping Civil Rights Act of 1964. White segregationists continued to resist government attempts to end segregation, and civil rights activists themselves debated the best strategies to follow in the mid-1960s.

Calls for the end to segregation and Jim Crow led to calls for equal treatment from other minority groups, particularly women and gays and lesbians. Latinos, Native Americans, and Asian Americans soon followed with demands of their own. Others spoke up for the poor, asking how a country known for its affluence could still have communities living in significant poverty.

President Lyndon Johnson’s liberal domestic program, the Great Society, attempted to address many of these issues. His programs were supported by the Supreme Court, yet opponents of his approach began to gather strength as well. A new conservative movement began to question Johnson’s vision of the scope of state and federal authority. Ironically his programs also came under fire from those on the far left who felt the government was not doing enough and who opposed America’s foreign involvement in what they felt were local nationalist struggles.

The decades following World War II were a time of great economic growth and prosperity. Parents of baby boomers flocked to the suburbs in the 1950s and 1960s, demanding better schools, better infrastructure, and more opportunity for the growing middle class. Others saw the nation moving into conformity and spoke out against what they saw as a homogeneous mass culture. Conservatives worried that traditional values would be lost as urban and suburban areas grew further apart.

The United States continued to be the destination of choice for immigrants from around the world, especially after President Johnson liberalized immigration laws in 1965. Others focused on the growing awareness of the need to curb environmental pollution and begin to work more effectively at conserving natural resources.

As this era drew to a close, new issues began to take over national debate. The traditional nuclear family was less in evidence as more women worked outside the home and divorce and single-parent households became more acceptable. The youth counterculture movement of the 1960s led to the rejection of the values of earlier generations, ushering in a sexual revolution and a much more informal culture.

Conservatives and liberals debated these social changes as well as issues about the proper role of the federal government and ways to offer greater protection of individual rights.