Documenting United States History

444 ChApTEr 19 | Containment and ConfliCt | period eight 1945 –198 0

Putting it All together

revisiting the Main Point

•   

Analyze the effects of the Second World War and the Cold War on Ameri-

cans’ sense of themselves as an “isolated” nation.

•   

To what extent did the Second World War and the Cold War shape Ameri-

can debates about civil liberties?

Organizing Themes in Historical arguments

Sophisticated historical arguments apply historical thinking skills to your argu-

ment, through a discussion of broader themes.

Consider the following prompt:

To what extent did the Second World War and the Cold War shape

American debates about civil liberties?

steP 1 Understand the prompt, and identify the key words

Answering this question requires you to look at American ideas, beliefs, and

cultures as a product of distinct moments in American history. Unlike Chap-

ter 18, which assessed a relationship between distinct entities (seminal doc-

uments in history), this prompt examines the relationship between distinct

events and “American debates.”

Assessing a debate may take the following approaches:

•   

Examining the pros and cons of civil liberties

•   

Evaluating directions as healthy or harmful (understanding implications, from

Chapter 18)

•   

Determining new defifnitions about civil liberties

Several historical thinking skills are available to you as you develop this

response, including the following:

•   

Causation and historical evidence

•   

Contextualization (noting how the Second World War and Cold War reflected

the mind-set of America)

•   

Comparison (examining how distinct events produce complex results)

buil Ding AP®

writing sKills

putting it all together 445

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