Homework: Don’t Know Much About History by Kenneth C Davis, Chapter 7, “Commies, Containment, and Cold War: America in the Fifties” – pgs 408-418

Homework:  Don’t Know Much About History by Kenneth C Davis, Chapter 7, “Commies, Containment, and Cold War: America in the Fifties” – pgs 408-418 

Read pages 408-418 of chapter 7, “Commies, Containment, and Cold War” from Kenneth C. Davis’s Don’t Know Much About History and answer the following questions: 

1. How did Senator Joseph McCarthy rise in the ranks of the Republican Party and become hugely well-known in Washington D.C.? 
2. What did “McCarthyism” mean in 1950? 
3. What does McCarthyism mean today? 
4. What do you believe led to this distinction in its meaning? 
5. How important were things like “laws of evidence” and “constitutional guarantees” in the era of McCarthyism? 
6. Why do you believe our system was allowed to function in this way? 
7. Why did it prove to be ill-advised for McCarthy to begin questioning the loyalties of army officers? 
8. In what ways were his opponents able to hit him back for such criticisms of military personnel? 
9. How did the Korean War represent something different from World War II in the minds of Americans (In other words why wasn’t Korea perceived as the “good war” that World War II was)? 
10. In what ways would America’s involvement in the Korean War be very similar to its later involvement in Vietnam? 
11. What were some of the major distinctions between the two conflicts? 
12. What was the objective of MacArthur and his fellow “hawks” in relation to fighting Korea and, later on in the Korean War, China, as well? 
13. What were some of the most surprising milestones that occurred during the Korean War, in your opinion? Why? 
14. Was America’s decision to fight and “contain” the communist threat in Korea worth it? Why or why not?