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Unit 8, Period 8 (1945 to 1980): Postwar America, the Cold War, and Civil Rights

8 dot points across 8 inquiry questions. Click any dot point for a focused answer with worked past exam questions where available.

What broad forces shaped the United States in the decades of Cold War, prosperity, and reform after 1945?

Topic 8.1 Contextualizing Period 8: the Cold War, postwar prosperity, the civil rights movement, and the liberal and conservative currents that shaped the United States between 1945 and 1980.
Sets the scene for AP US History Period 8, covering the Cold War with the Soviet Union, postwar economic prosperity and the rise of the suburbs, the African American civil rights movement and the wave of social movements, the liberal Great Society, and how to write contextualization for a DBQ or LEQ on the postwar era.
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What changed and what stayed the same in the United States across the postwar decades, and how do you turn that into an argument?

Topic 8.15 Continuity and Change in Period 8: using the historical reasoning skill of continuity and change over time to analyze the postwar era.
A focused answer to AP US History Topic 8.15, teaching the historical reasoning skill of continuity and change over time through Period 8: what the postwar decades transformed (civil rights, the size of government, America's global role) and what persisted (the Cold War framework, inequality), and how to frame a continuity and change essay.
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How did the African American civil rights movement dismantle legal segregation, and where did it meet its limits?

Topics 8.6 and 8.10 The Civil Rights Movement: the campaigns, leaders, and landmark victories of the African American struggle against segregation, and its limits and later turn toward Black Power.
A focused answer to AP US History Topics 8.6 and 8.10, covering the African American civil rights movement: Brown v. Board of Education, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the sit-ins and marches, Martin Luther King and nonviolence, the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, and the later turn toward Black Power.
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How did the Cold War begin, and how did the policy of containment drive American foreign policy from 1945 to 1980?

Topic 8.2 The Cold War from 1945 to 1980: the origins of the Cold War, the policy of containment, and the major confrontations of the superpower rivalry.
A focused answer to AP US History Topic 8.2, covering the Cold War from 1945 to 1980: the origins of the superpower rivalry, the policy of containment, the Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, and NATO, the Korean War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the shift toward detente.
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How did the Great Society expand the role of the federal government, and why did postwar liberalism come under attack?

Topic 8.9 The Great Society: Lyndon Johnson's liberal reform program, its expansion of the federal government, and the conservative reaction it provoked.
A focused answer to AP US History Topic 8.9, covering the Great Society: Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty and liberal reform program, the creation of Medicare and Medicaid, its achievements and limits, and the conservative backlash against the expansion of federal power.
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Why did fear of communism grip the United States after 1945, and what did the Second Red Scare cost the nation?

Topic 8.3 The Red Scare: the wave of anticommunist fear after World War II, the rise and fall of McCarthyism, and its effects on civil liberties and politics.
A focused answer to AP US History Topic 8.3, covering the Second Red Scare: the sources of postwar anticommunist fear, HUAC and the loyalty programs, the Hiss and Rosenberg cases, the rise and fall of Senator Joseph McCarthy, and the cost to civil liberties.
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How did the civil rights movement inspire a wave of movements for women, minorities, the environment, and youth, and how did the era end?

Topics 8.11 to 8.14 The Social and Cultural Movements: the wave of rights and reform movements of the 1960s and 1970s, the youth counterculture, environmentalism, and the political turn of the 1970s.
A focused answer to AP US History Topics 8.11 to 8.14, covering the social and cultural movements of the 1960s and 1970s: second-wave feminism and the ERA, the Latino and American Indian movements, the youth counterculture, the environmental movement, and the conservative shift of the 1970s.
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Why did the United States fight in Vietnam, and how did the war divide the nation and reshape its politics?

Topic 8.8 The Vietnam War: the reasons for American involvement, the course of the war, the antiwar movement, and the war's effects on American society and foreign policy.
A focused answer to AP US History Topic 8.8, covering the Vietnam War: containment and the domino theory, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and escalation, the Tet Offensive and the credibility gap, the antiwar movement, Nixon's Vietnamization, and the war's lasting effects.
12 min answer →