Description
The Cold War powerfully shaped American foreign policy and our views of our overseas adversaries but less known is how it shaped our domestic, everyday attitudes, values, and worldviews. In this course, we will delve into how the Cold War molded the minds of many Americans on issues such as how we viewed nuclear weapons after the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan, homosexuality, masculinity, the Civil Rights movement, the birth of the military industrial complex and its effect on American culture, the traditional American family, and the workplace. We will also take a close look at specific events like the 1968 Democratic Convention, the Kent State shootings, Watergate, the social malaise of the 1970s, and the revolution of the Republican Party and the New Right as it rose to prominence in American politics into the 1980s. We will end with a discussion about how the Cold War affects our lives today and what lasting cultural legacies it left behind.
Andrew Chatfield received his Ph.D. in US diplomatic history 2018 from American University in Washington, DC. He wrote his dissertation about the Americans who supported India’s national self-determination from 1915-1920. During his time in Washington, Andrew worked for organizations such as the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), the Foreign Policy Research Insittute, Humanitites DC, and the Streit Council. At Lexington, he hopes to create a history class from which everyone will learn new material and gain new perspectives on American history.
