Cult of Personality

Apparently the term “cult of personality” was the title of a song and music video by Living Colour in 1988. Their definition of the term is much more expansive than what I am using it for when talking about totalitarian leaders, but maybe you’ll have fun with the song, which one of your classmates brought to my attention. Joseph Stalin puts in a brief guest appearance too. You can see the video on YouTube, but Sony won’t let me embed it here.

Maps of Europe Today

If you need help finding capitals of European countries today, try one of the following two maps:

• Europe’s political boundaries and major cities [jpeg]
• The same thing with Europe’s topography [pdf]

Keep in mind that they also show Macedonia and Kosovo, which I am not worrying about for our purposes. (Both were in the former Yugoslavia.)

Slides from Today

The slides from today’s class are up on Blackboard now.

Cold War: Online Assignment for Dec. 11

There are two parts to this required assignment, international politics and culture. The second part includes music and video.

Part I: International Politics

The first famous rhetorical salvo in the Cold came from Winston Churchhill on March 5, 1946 in Fulton, Missouri. Read these excerpts from his “Iron Curtain Speech.”

Read also the rebuttal from Stalin published in the New York Times on March 14, 1946.

The main reading for today is a classic article published anonymously by George Kennan in Foreign Affairs in July 1947: “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” by X. It was anonymous because Kennan was a diplomat in the USSR and the article couldn’t be seen as official policy. In fact, this was an official telegram he sent to Washington in 1946, and his thinking informed what soon became known as “containment” or the Truman Doctrine.

Questions for consideration:

1. What do Churchill’s and Stalin’s words suggest about the origins of the Cold War? Why was there so much mutual mistrust?
2. What was Kennan’s understanding of the Soviet Union? What were his recommendations? Why?

Part II: Culture

One aspect of the Cold War that grabbed the popular imagination was the Space Race, which the Soviet Union’s launching of the first satellite fifty-two years ago initiated. Check out NPR’s coverage of the fiftieth anniversary of Sputnik. It includes not only reporting, but also popular music’s reception of Sputnik, for the “Space Race permeated popular culture.”

The darkest aspect of the Cold War was the threat of mutually assured destruction in a nuclear war. Indeed, this threat was elevated to a concrete strategic doctrine by the same name under the acronym MAD. A classic cultural response to this threat was Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 film, “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.” If you have not seen this film yet, you owe it to yourself to do so. Meanwhile, for this class please view the following original trailer:

Pearl Harbor Bombed 68 Years Ago

Pearl Harbor was bombed on December 7, 2009. For me this was just history, but my grandmother, who otherwise didn’t talk much about history, always reminded me of what day it was on December 7th. She also saved a newspaper from V-J day, the day the Allies defeated Japan.

Hist 100 in Spring 2010

Right now I am only teaching Hist 100-09 in the spring, though this might still change. There is still room in the course, if you know anyone who might be interested. The books will be different, and I often handle assignments somewhat differently too each semester, but my basic approach to history and teaching will be recognizable.

Final Exam Study Guide

Here is the Final Exam Study Guide. In addition to reading this PDF file, please see the recent blog post called Timelines.

I also urge you to go over your midterm exams to see the kinds of things that you lost points for. Some of you might find it helpful to meet with me about the last exam too.

Maps

The maps you need to study are in the Historical Maps folder on Blackboard. The subfolder is called Part III. Today I added three outline (blank) maps to help you memorize what you need to know.

• For the 1914 map you should know which countries belonged to which alliance before the Great War. You should also know which side these countries fought on during the war.
• For the 1945 map you should know which countries were communist after 1945. We will cover this in our last class, but you can also look this information up on your own beforehand.
• For the 2003 map you should know countries and capitals. (I am not going to worry about two countries that became independent after this map was made, Montenegro and Kosovo.) You should also know where the Soviet Union used to be as well as which other countries were communist.

Timelines

To help you account for when things happened and in what order, I have created a simple timeline, which I have divided into five parts.

• Selected Events in Modern Europen History, Part 1
• Selected Events in Modern Europen History, Part 2
• Selected Events in Modern Europen History, Part 3
• Selected Events in Modern Europen History, Part 4
• Selected Events in Modern Europen History, Part 5

Class on Friday: Nazi Propaganda Film

Barring any unforeseen incidents, we will see almost fifty full minutes of “Triumph of the Will,” directed by Leni Riefenstahl, 1935. Because of this, we will postpone any discussion of the film to Monday, although I will be commenting at various points during the film.

My plan is to skip the first 2 minutes of credits (ch. 1 on my DVD) and go straight to the opening story line, “On the 5th of September . . .” We will then watch uninterrupted until the evening SA rally, which we will skip, despite the fireworks. (This is ch. 10 on my DVD, minutes 41 to 45, approximately.) Then we will watch uninterrupted until the end of Hitler’s speech to the Hitler Youth (ch. 11, ending 55 minutes into the film). If we encounter any technical difficulties at the beginning of the class, I will cut the speech excerpts in the big tent short (ch. 8, approximately minutes 24 to 34).

If you miss class due to illness, this film is available in the Johnson Center library. You can only borrow it for a couple hours, though, so it is probably best to view it right there.