To understand context, you should examine:

• • • Change from and/or continuity with preceding historical developments.

    • Similarities and/or differences with contemporaneous historical developments in different regions or geographic areas.

Draw upon your relevant prior knowledge and information provided during this module.

Key Concepts

KC 8.1 The United Sates responded to an uncertain and unstable postwar world by asserting and working to maintain a position of global leadership, with far-reaching domestic and international consequences.

KC 8.1 1 United States policymakers engaged in a Cold War with the authoritarian Soviet Union, seeking to limit the growth of Communist military power and ideological influence, create a free-market global economy, and build an international security system.

KC 8.1.2 Cold War policies led to public debates over the power of the federal government and acceptable means for pursuing international and domestic goals while protecting civil liberties.

KC 8.2 New movements for civil rights and liberal efforts to expand the role of government generated a range of political and cultural responses.

KC 8.2.1 Seeking to fulfill Reconstructions-era promises, civil rights activists and political leaders achieved some legal and political successes in ending segregation, although progress toward equality was slow.

KC 8.2.2 Responding to social conditions and the African American civil rights movement, a variety of movements emerged that focused on issues of identity, social justice, and the environment.

KC 8.2.3 Liberalism influenced postwar politics and court decisions, but it came under increasing attack from the left as well as from a resurgent conservative movement.

KC 8.3 Postwar economic and demographic changes had far-reaching consequences for American society, politics, and culture.

KC 8.3.1 Rapid economic and social changes in American society fostered a sense of optimism in the postwar years.

KC 8.3.2 New demographic and social developments, along with anxieties over the Cold War, changed US culture and led to significant political and moral debates that sharply divided the nation.