The US History Since 1877 - Essay Example

The U.S. History since 1877 Qus The 1920s was a decade of tremendous growth and prosperity for the United s. It was also a period of contradiction and conflict as the forces of modernity confronted the forces of tradition. Discuss the factors that gave rise to these conflicts and where they were most pronounced. In your opinion, did either tradition or modernity "win" over the other? Ans. Once the First World War was over, the entire socio-economic and socio-political scenario of the globe witnessed emergence of a new nation to power. The United States of America, since the early down of her origination, was maintaining a safe distance from being involved into any European political affair. In terms of financial prosperity and social integration, the United States was so diverse that the nation had no other option that to isolate herself from all forms of political controversies and construct her own ground gradually so that the United States receive a stronger grip over the international system from political, economic, and cultural perspectives. Since the late 19th and early 20th century the United States was showing the glimpses of power that as a nation it has acquired. However, her participation in the First World War provided to be benefitting from various perspectives. In the World War I, while Europe suffered to the greatest extent both socio-culturally and economically, damage inflicted over the United States was considerably lesser. Moreover, detachment of the United States during first three years of the war also contributed in the situation in a way that compared to the European nations her wastage of national capital was much less. Once the War was over, the traditional supremacy of the European empires over the global political situation weakened and the United States received huge opportunity to take hold of the situation: “Europeans experienced the destruction of ideals, confidence, and goodwill. Economically, too, the damage was immense. The Great War toppled four empires of the Old World – the German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and Ottoman Turkish – and left two others, the British and French, drastically weakened …. American involvement tipped the scales in favor of the Allies by contributing troops, supplies, and loans. The war years also witnessed a massive international transfer of wealth from Europe across the Atlantic, as the United States went from the world’s largest debtor nation to its largest creditor. The conflict marked the United States as a world power” (Norton et al 601). During the War years, while on one hand, a great deal of wealth was accumulated in the hands of the United States, on the other, the nation had all the available resources to channelize the capital for the sake of national prosperity. During inception of the second decade of the 1900s, the consequent impact of the World War I definitely did sloth the pace of industrial progress in the United States but this situation did not last long as from 1922 onwards the manufacturing industries started operating in full fledge and consequently developed a fertile market for the consumer goods: “After the end of World War I, industrial productivity declined, unemployment rose, and consumer spending dwindled. But the sluggish economy rebounded in 1922, due in part to the manufacturing industries that produced automobiles, radios, and other consumer goods. Throughout rest of the decade, industrial production nearly doubled. Meanwhile, the gross national product rose 43 percent, and in 1929 it stood at $103 billion” (Drowne, and Huber 5). The year 1920 while is considered as commencement of modernist social trends in different domains of socio-cultural existence, also proved to be immense productive for the American business as in this year the traditional notion for advertising consumer goods was rejected – the birth of modern advertising was witnessed and consequently the unexplored potential of the American purchasing behavior was capitalized upon: “Modern advertising, a nearly $3 billion-a-year business by 1929, encouraged shoppers to purchase newly invented products or ones that previously seemed unnecessary, including vacuum cleaners, electric razors, canned soup, silk stockings, mouthwash, and deodorants. Rising rates of mass production and consumer sales propelled the American economy into one of the most spectacular periods of prosperity in the nation’s history” (Drowne, and Huber 5-6). The sudden increase in general purchasing capacity of people on one hand showed the tendency of American people that they are ready to breach the limits of traditional social constraints and enjoy their lives in utter hedonist way. Historically, the United States of America has been considered as the land of the free and constitutionally also these ideals of freedom of action and liberty to make choices have been protected. The monetary flexibility to common people provided them with the scope to enjoy their respective lives according to the best possible extent, even breaching the norms of traditional values that dominated the US society for a long time. The conflict between modernist approaches and traditional social setting occurred mainly due to the reason that America was inhabited by increasing number of immigrants from different cultural traditions across the world and they were becoming a part of the United States society, affecting the traditional cultural setting of the United States in their own ways. However, such cosmopolitan social existence was not encouraged by the conservative US ethnic population. The African American population of the United States also became a part of the economically prosperous society and their resistance against oppression of their white counterparts took the strongest form since liberation of the United States. Since inception of the United States as an independent nation, though constitutionally slavery was prohibited and civil rights was conferred to the African Americans by the 14th and 15th Constitutional Amendments, however, they never received the adequate scope to claim their rights or such scopes were desperately denied to them. The ethnic Americans never really opened themselves to accept the benefits of the modernity but the socio-economic transformation could not be resisted finally (Willoughby, and Willoughby 55-65). Irrespective of all atrocities, protests and defiance of traditionalist approaches against modernity, the influences of various cultural forces intruded the American traditional and conservative social construction but modernity and traditionalism, which of these two did finally receive upper hand over the other: there is no definite conclusion for the debate. Qus. 2. Trace the changing role of the United States in Vietnam, from the early 1960s to the defeat of South Vietnam in 1975. Characterize the growth and nature of the antiwar movements in the U.S. Ans. The international political scenario during the Post World War II era was dominated by the United States. At the same time, imperialist mentality of the nation, under the masquerade of maintaining world peace and national security, was also observed quite explicitly. The American politics has never been very appreciative of the socialist political approaches. While practicing of this political discipline was largely discouraged in the national political context of the United States, flourish of the Communism in different parts of the world, especially in the Eastern world was also considered a major threat against political harmony and national security of the United States in the long run. The Presidential Campaign of the 1960 was characterized by the conflict between the Republicans and the Democrats towards treatment of the Communism in the international scenario between the Republicans and the Democrats. Leader of the Republican community, Richard Nixon was regarded as a uncompromising ant-communist and during the Presidential tenure of Eisenhower, while Nixon visited Vietnam, he clearly supported “the policy of containment of communism” in the country (Addington 57). After coming to power, the Democrats were expected to fulfill all the promises that the Republicans asserted and among those treatment of the Communist threat was also a major one. Thus, President Kennedy formed his foreign policies not very different from that of the Truman and Eisenhower administration (Addington 58). Kennedy “accepted the obligation of helping to protect the Republic of Vietnam (ROV) and, if necessary, the kingdoms of Laos and Cambodia, as pledges carried over from the Eisenhower administration” (Addington 58). While the freedom seeking individuals of Vietnam were standing up to the oppression of the United States with the help of Communist ideals and in order to counter the military supremacy of the United States, they were adopting the strategy of guerilla warfare, President Kennedy after realizing urgency of the situation in the “spring of 1961”, “dispatched several hundred of these troops to South Vietnam in order to organize militia self-defense forces among the presents of for CI warfare. The idea was to defeat the guerillas with their own techniques of “little war”” (Addington 58). The lack of manpower, technological advancement and monetary crisis were three main factors that plagued the Vietnamese People’s Liberation Army (VPLA) and National Liberation Front (NLF) but they never stopped defending the American forces with their limited power. Consequently, despite certain initial military success in Vietnam, by 1965, the Kennedy administration clearly realized that huge amount of resources in terms of financial and human were wasted in Vietnam. Thus, Kennedy took initiatives to detach the United States from interfering into Vietnamese political affair, especially, in the southern Vietnam (Addington 60-68). The war mongering attitude of the American politics was not supported by the common people, especially by the young generation, as they realized that apart from sheer wastage of nation’s resources, impression of the United States is also suffering in the global political context. The violation of humanitarian approaches also remained a strong foundation in support of their arguments. Thus, in both national and international context war against Vietnam received tremendous amount of negative feedback and consequent antiwar movements also started to take place. Adam Garfinkle in this context has observed that American antiwar movements actually served three different propositions: “One concerns its impact on American decision making during the war, a second is about the sources of the era’s youthful radicalism, and a third focuses on the movement’s longer-term impact on American political culture” (Garfinkle 1). While on one hand, the war of Vietnam was criticized highly because of an anti humanitarian institution as well as a consequent process, on the other hand, argument of the antiwar activists received a greater deal of appreciation to common people because the supremely powerful American military failed to receive success. Howard Zinn, one of the eminent antiwar activists, in his writing clearly questioned the myth of American military supremacy and stated that: “From 1964 to 1972, the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the history of the world made a maximum military effort, with everything short of atomic bombs to defeat a nationalist revolutionary movement in a tiny peasant country – and failed. When the United States fought in Vietnam, it was organized modern technology versus organized human beings, and the human beings won …. In the course of that war, there developed in the United States the greatest antiwar movement the nation had ever experienced, a movement that played a critical part in bringing the war to an end” (Zinn 4). The United States politics as an institution has always been criticized and disobeyed by the common people, especially by the American youth since inception of the 20th century. The antiwar movement became a clear and strongest defiance against politics as an institution in the United States. The freedom seeking approach of the peasants of Vietnam clearly inspired the American population to fight for their rights against the arbitrary actions that American political situation forced the American population into. Thus the antiwar movement in the United States was characterized by the “proto-religious, festive, anti-ascetic, anti-intellectual” elements (Garfinkle 117). Works Cited Addington, Larry H. Americas war in Vietnam: a short narrative history. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 2000. Garfinkle, Adam. Telltale hearts: the origins and impact of the Vietnam antiwar movement. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 1997. Huber, Patrick and Drowne, Kathleen Morgan. The 1920s. California: Greenwood Publishing Group. 2004. Norton, Mary Beth. Sheriff, Carol. Blight, David W. Katzman, David M. A people and a nation: a history of the United States. Since 1865, Volume 2. 8th Ed. Connecticut: Cengage Learning. 2009. Willoughby, Susan and Willoughby, Douglas. The USA 1917-45. New Hampshire: Heinemann, 2000. Zinn, Howard. “The Impossible Victory: Vietnam”. Against the Vietnam War: writings by activists. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. 2007. Read More