ISSUES TO UNDERSTAND

After reading the chapter, you should be able to discuss the following:

1. President Eisenhower's style of leadership and domestic policies; why they suited the national mood and why they pleased neither conservatives nor liberals

2. What brought about the downfall of Joseph McCarthy and whether his eclipse ended excessive fears of communist subversion

3. The decisions of the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren; why conservatives attacked them and how President Eisenhower reacted to them

4. President Eisenhower's foreign policy; attempts at easing tensions with the Soviet Union, spread of the Cold War to the Third World, growing power of the military- industrial complex, and Eisenhower's warning

5. The roles in U.S. foreign policy of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and of Allen Dulles and the CIA

6. Reasons for the United States' economic growth and prosperity in the 1950s

7. Trends toward economic consolidation in industry and agriculture

8. Reasons for decline in union membership and influence

9. The causes and social and political impact of the move to the suburbs and other demographic changes

10. Attitudes about women, the family, religion, and education; trends in American literature at mid century

11. The impact of television on American life and values

12. Which Americans continued to live in poverty and why

13. The reasons for growing urban blight

14. Developments in the civil-rights movement in the 1950s

15. Signs of discontent with American society; who was showing them and why

VOCABULARY

The following terms are used in Chapter 29. To understand the chapter fully, it is important that you know what each of them means.

pragmatic concerned with or guided by the practical consequences of a given action sovereignty independence; self-government or authority of a nation or state junta a small, governing councilor committee (often of military leaders) demur to take exception to; to object

autocratic acting like a dictator; exercising absolute, unchecked power

automation operating or controlling a mechanical process by highly automatic means, such as electronic devices

oligopoly situation in which a few large companies dominate a whole industry conglomerates huge business corporations created by the merger or takeover of many

companies in unrelated fields of industry

wetbacks or mojadas Mexican aliens who enter the United States illegally

mores customs of central importance accepted without question and embodying the fun- damental moral views of a group, people, or social class
 

IDENTIFICATIONS

After reading Chapter 29, you should be able to identify and explain the historical significance of each of the following:

"dynamic conservatism" or "modern Republicanism"

Interstate Highway Act, 1956

Adlai Stevenson

"new conservatives" or radical right

Earl Warren

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

Orval E. Faubus and the Little Rock desegregation fight

Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960

John Foster Dulles and "brinksmanship"

"peaceful coexistence" and the "spirit of Geneva"

Third World

Allen Dulles, the Central Intelligence Agency, and covert action

Ho Chi Minh, the Vietminh, and the National Liberation Front

the "domino theory" in Asia

Ngo Dinh Diem

Gamal Abdel Nasser

Eisenhower Doctrine

military-industrial complex

Rachel Carson, The Silent Spring

George Meany, Walter Reuther, and the AFL-CIO

Sun Belt

baby boom

Rosa Parks,

Martin Luther King, ]r.

the Montgomery bus boycott

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

House Concurrent Resolution 108, termination, and relocation

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Elvis Presley and rock and roll

the Beats

SKILL BUILDING: MAPS

1. On the map of Asia, locate and explain the historical significance of each of the following in U.S. foreign policy at mid century:

North Korea

South Korea

thirty-eighth parallel

Philippines

North Vietnam South Vietnam

seventeenth parallel

Thailand

Burma

Indonesia
 
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