American History

The Korean conflict had a number of factors that contributed to it. One of the factors although it is not the major one could be the size of Korea as a country which is small in the middle of large countries such as Russia, China and Japan. Because of this fact, each surrounding country wanted to take over Korea to be under their territory, something which Korea had trouble in dealing with. Most of the time, she could find herself under the control of the neighbors like China which controlled her at intervals for over 1000 years.

The major cause of the conflict came into play when Japan took control of Korea just like the other neighboring countries had done. They ruled Korea from 1904 until the end of the World War II when the Soviet Union and the United States of America joined forces to drive Japanese out of the Korean territory. They agreed that after the Soviet Union was to rule in the north with the United States taking the Southern Korean. The 38 parallel was to make the dividing line between the North and the South Korea. The two countries ruled for a period of two years after which they both left Korea. The North which was under the Soviet Union leadership was left with a communist government while the south which was under the leadership of the US, a democratic government was left behind.

Because of the need for unity between the north and the south, problems started. There were two governments in place one formed by the southern people which was a democratic government and the other one was a communist government. The northern government formed the democratic peoples republic of Korea which was headed by Kim II Sung as a prime minister and the southern government was led by Syngman Rhee who was their president. The north wanted Korea unified as a communist state with the south advocating for a democratic state. Elections were held to form a single government between the North and the south and were supposed to be supervised by the UN to ensure that they were fair. Elections were held, of which the South was declared to have been undertaken in a free and fair way but the Northern regions elections could not be accepted because the UN supervisors could not be allowed into the North by the Soviets who were present. As a result, they were declared unacceptable. This led to formation of the separate states. Disputes started to emerge between the two sides with each side becoming more aggressive.

The United States pulled out its soldiers from the south from 40,000 who were there to only 500 soldiers and limited the number of weapons they were sending to the region. This was partly because of the fear of the southern president attacking the North and also because of the policy that had been passed in the US concerning Asia (NSC 482). Because of the power that the Soviet and China had developed through military advancement such that by 1949 they already had a nuclear bomb, the US opted for a different way of resolving the conflict other than war.

In 1950, the troops from North Korea launched a surprise attack on the south. The UN intervened and called an emergency meeting on the same day but the meeting was boycotted by the Russian security delegation because the UN had recognized Chiang Kai-Sheks government as the official government in Taiwan and ignored Maos communist rule in Beijing. At the meeting, it was claimed by the US that North Korea had interfered with world peace by attacking South Korea. America wanted North Korean troops to back off from the 38 parallel, a view that was supported by nine out of the eleven member countries. On 27th of June 1950, the US suggested that the UN should use force to get the North Korean troops out of the south because of them boycotting the Security Council. The UN formulated its plans in which 16 member states were to provide troops under the joint command of the UN which could support the South Korean army. The UN troops were under the command of an American General MacArthur.

The UN troops launched an attack against the North Korean troops in September of 1950 and managed to effectively cut North Korean army into two and managed to push them out of the south. They continued advancing to the North Korean territory despite the warnings from China. This led to an attack on the UN troops by China between 1950 and 1951 managing to push back the UN forces. MacArthur was sucked by President Truman after they had clashed generating the war into a stalemate between the UN and China. They agreed on a ceasefire at Panmunjon in 1953 which still exists to date.
The reasons that brought about conflicts between the North and South Korea were not justified. This was not North Korean verses South Korean war but instead it was a war between the US and the Soviet Union. It was the battle for supremacy between the US and the Soviet Union that fueled the conflicts between the two regions. In the first place, they are the ones who brought differences between the north and the south by first dividing them and instilling in them different forms of governance. Because of the effects that the war could have on the people of both the South and North Korea, the Northern troops could have desisted from entering the southern territory. From the start, it was evident that because of the differences that existed between the two, forming a unity government could do them more harm than good hence they should have continued with the separate governments they had formed.

The cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union was more or less the same as the Korean conflict because it was still the struggle for supremacy between the Soviet Union and the US led to these wars. It was because of President Woodrow Wilsons commitment to liberal internationalism that was aimed at promoting democracy together with free enterprise that conflicted with the Soviet Unions world wide class revolution which was aimed at bringing a socialist future that triggered the cold war. Differing economic interests between the two is also thought to have brought about the conflict. The US was out to create a new currency stabilizing scheme which the Soviet Union was opposed to because it was based on American capitalism. The issue of military superiority also had a hand in the conflict. The Soviet Union was the second most powerful and the US felt threatened by it. Therefore, it was keen on increasing its military capacity. The two came face to face in their fight for supremacy and had to deal with one another.    

Looking at the factors that led to the Korean conflict and those that contributed to the cold war, it is evident that the driving force between the two was the battle for supremacy between the Soviet Union and the US. These battles had significant effects to both states. It led to an expensive arms race which involved development of nuclear weapons, brought about alliances between states for and against each of the two and also had economic implications. They also led to propaganda wars and created a military and bureaucracy complex. It was not healthy for both of them and the world at large because of the tensions that it brought with them. Therefore, it is important for measures to be put in place to ensure that there is sovereignty among countries to avoid conflicts.

For many years after the end of the war of the French and the Indians, the history of the state of Massachusetts which consists of the record of the political conflicts which the involvement of the republican principles was deeply stimulated. These conflicts were arrested when news came in the spring of 1744 that France has pronounced war against Britain. The colonists are informed that the result would be dangerous to the American colonies and as such, they prepared for the conflict which is known today as the King Georges War.

The War of Austrian Succession was called the King Georges War because King George was on the throne of England and he has taken the Empress of Austria as his wife.  After the death of Emperor Charles VI of Austria in the year 1740, the male lineage of the Hapsburg House became extinct. As a result, his eldest daughter Maria Theresa inherited the Austrian throne. However, there were several claimants and this matter caused war of great dimensions affecting almost all nations in Europe.

This war was likewise deemed to be a continuation of the war between Britain and Spain. The hostilities between France and Britain the America started due to the capture of a French of the British fort in Nova Scotia. The combination of their warship and troops caised the capture of the French port which it held successfully against two other French attempts. Even though they were at peace from 1713-1744, these two powers had their differences regarding the boundaries of Nova Scotia and the New England. Their battle was characterized by the border raids on both sides. One of the most important victories won was about the capture of the Louisbourg which happened on June 15, 1745.

On this particular capture, the English troops formed a circle surrounding Louisburg with their cannons and mortars with them while waiting for the command of Captain Gridley. They won by making a combination of the attack of the fleet and army on the fort and the garrison of the City. As a result, Louisbourg surrenedered to the English their Cape Breton Island. The value of this capture amounted to less than five million dollars. This victory was important because the fall of Louisbourg was deemed to be the pride of France.

The hostilities between these two countries continued but the Americans have not been greatly affected except from the incursions made by the French and the Indians. In October of 1748, a treaty made at the Aix-la-Chapelle ended the war when an agreement that all the prisoners that were taken by the opposite sides will be released and all the property of either territories will be restored. The Cape Breton and its fortress which passed to the French by peaceful means as well as the colonies that were paid by the government of Britain for all their expenditures for the capture amounted to more than one million dollars.

Following the Spanish discovery and settlement of parts of the New World, other European nations joined in as they began to develop their own technology and capability to traveling there.  Among them were France and Holland.  The French were among the aggressive explorers and settlers of the New World as they were competing with the Spanish and the English.  Most of the French who settled here were the Hugenots, persecuted in predominantly Catholic France.  They initially settled in what is now Florida and the Carolinas but faced a very hostile Spain there which wiped out these settlements which was all the more better for the settler were Protestants.  Later expeditions were sponsored by the king of France which saw the acquisition of parts of what is now Canada as underscored by the creation of Quebec by Samuel de Champlain and explorations by Robert La Salle saw the French moving southward and occupy what is now Louisiana.  French settlers came to the New World to escape the religious persecution there and the Hugenots were one of those who fled France.

The Dutch also staked their claim on the New World as well but was not great in scale compared to the other leading colonizers.  Unlike the other colonizers which were sponsored by their respective governments, Dutch explorations and colonizers were conducted by trading corporations such as the Dutch East India Company who were granted charters and they mainly settled in areas of what is now New York state (Magnus and Aerssen 1621).  The difference between the French and Dutch was also in terms of immigration.  Where the French settled in droves, very few Dutch settlers came because Holland was practically freer than the rest of the European states hence there was hardly any need for migration as the Dutch were relatively happy.  There was no famine, no poverty and no persecution whatsoever that would drive them away compared to other settlers who came to the New World to escape famine, poverty and persecution (Henry George School of Social Science 2010).  By far, the only Dutch settlers were mainly called patroons who were made up of the landed gentry from Holland such as Van Rensselaer and Van Cortlandt.  They attempted to practice a feudalistic system in the New World which eventually failed and the Dutch were eventually eased out of their lands by the English who supplanted their settlements with their own, hardly leaving any trace of their presence such as New Holland becoming New York to underscore the new ownership.

In conclusion, the Dutch did not leave much of a legacy as they were displaced and replaced by the English yet somehow traces of their influence can be found in New Yorks state flag which bears the color orange, their national color as well as some of the settlements they founded, whose names were retained by the English.  The French controlled the areas along the Mississippi until the newly-created United States bought the area in what became known as the Louisiana Purchase while losing most of Canada to the English in the Seven Years War.

Around 1606, New English made efforts to establish colonies along the American coast and the northern territory in Florida which was held by the Spanish. Over 100 English settlers in three ships sailing in the Chesapeake Bay up the James River attempted to settle on the island of Jamestown. However, attacks from the local Indians, food depravation and disease reduced their numbers to less than forty. By 1633, the English colonist experience massive attacks, and in 1644, 500 colonist were killed.

In the densely populated Eastern Woodland cultures, wars were seen as a means of coping with depopulation and grief. The conflicts which were also referred as mourning wars would see the captured settlers ritually tortured. There was an economic motive in the conflict as Indians hunted for the European goods. In western plains, different tribal groups fought beaver wars to gain access to firearms and iron good. By the end of the century, native wars became entangled with the Europeans war in a bid to control trade and the continent.

When Indians rebelled against the settlers, the war shifted among the Indian groups. During the King Phillips War, Indian groups helped the New England colonies to fight the Wampanoag uprising. Cherokees sought for English goods during the Yamasee War and this helped suppress the local Indians who were opposed to European military encroachment.

Wars in the southwest and in the plains were distinct from those in the eastern Woodland since they usually broke out between nomadic and horticulturalists. The development of horse culture favored the nomads and the pressures reached Arizona and western New Mexico. Although nomads still depended on the agricultural people, raids using horses was often used a means of procuring farm products as the Europeans settled.

The Second World War is believed to have claimed the highest number of lives in the human history. The controversy in it was that in spite of it being the bloodiest war ever for soldiers, more civilians were killed than soldiers. The setting of the Second World War purposefully and intentionally targeted the heavily populated areas with an aim of killing more civilians.

One of the reasons claimed for the attack of civilians was to create fear and demoralize them so that they can rise against their government by not supporting it and probably it this would force it pull out of the war. Maximum damage to a countries population would mean that the country had been beaten up and rendered weak to resist. The civilians were expected to force their respective governments to withdraw from the war than to endure more suffering. In addition to this, it was assumed that the real effect of war could be well felt if the civilians were attacked. This was seen as a good way of keeping up for the fight. Another reason why the civilians were targeted during the Second World War was purely ideological. A good example was the attack of the Jews civilians by the Germans.

The United States bombing campaign that culminated in dropping the atomic bombs in Japan is justifiable. Dropping these bombs, especially the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan prompted the end of the World War II, shortening a war which would otherwise have been prolonged and claim lives of many innocent civilians. Still, based on the fact that preparing and conducting military attacks was costly, then one can judge reasonably that it was far much better for America to use the atomic bomb than to bomb Japan and end the war forthwith. Military attacks would have not only prolonged the war but also be more costly and claim many solders and civilian lives.

The article The  Western Way of War found in the book  The Cambridge History of Warfare  is crafted and written by Geoffrey Parker, a History professor at the Ohio State University who has written over thirty books related to military affairs including warfare. The articles thesis is how the West was won through the superior utilization of economic and intellectual factors and of weaponry.  The focus of the essay is to explicate the exact meaning of the western way of war through the insightful exploration of the history of western war from the antiquity up to the present in a socio-economic and global context.

The essay discusses the triumph of the west through its superiority and dominance in five key aspects. The first of these aspects is the reliance on technological superiority (Parker 2005).  Second aspect is superior discipline and training (Parker 2005). This aspect tells  readers that the victories of the Western armies were largely attributable to their infantry (Parker 2005). This aspect also shows Wests ability to compensate for the numerical inferiority. The third factor  is the remarkable pursuit of the Western armies to continue their military tradition of their military theory  (Parker 2005).  Such tradition and ideals bring to mind the challenge and response of the armies which were deeply rooted from the determined and competitive western way of war (Parker 2005). The fourth and fifth aspects described by Parker are the armies rapid adjustment and transformation, and innovation (Parker 2005).

The author is able to present a decent account of western way of warfare by providing several historical perspectives and the insights on why certain militarycircumstances transpired. However, the author falls short in giving maximum depth on any individual subject and fails to discuss in greater detail the military trends in the western way of war at the contemporary period to give fuller coverage of the earlier periods. The essay can be used as a general starting point in any studiesn or research on military history.

Taylor Branchs book, Parting the Waters is the first of the three-volume books that covers both the life and times of Dr. Martin King Jr. and the civil rights movement.  The titles of the the three books are derived from events from the Bible as told in the book of Exodus when Moses led the Hebrews out of Egypt and into the Promised Land.  These books also tell of this journey the blacks took to the promised freedom and equality guaranteed by the laws of the United States to all its citizens.

The chapter Pawn of History sees how Martin Luther King had taken his first steps into protesting the existing policy of segregation by allowing himself to be put in jail. This act served two purposes   the first was to protest segregation and the second had a deeper political purpose as it helped ensure the win of John F. Kennedy in the presidential election of 1960.  In the following chapter, Kennedy Transition saw Kennedy taking steps in seeing to what can be done to address the plight of the black people but had little support from some people in his administration. He was also preoccupied by the growing tensions with Cubas new Marxist regime. Baptism on Wheels covers the Freedom Ride where blacks and white sypmathizers protested the segregation on buses and bus stations by riding buses together seated side by side and would run all summer, defying segregation laws employing Gandhis passive resistance, bravely enduring attacks from segregtionists and walkouts by bus drivers to expose the evil in them.

In conclusion, Parting the Waters proved to be an excellent start in the 3-volume history of the civil rights movement by Branch who would follow it up with  Pillar of Fire  and  At Canaans Edge  and as mentioned earlier, Branch was able to draw a parallelism between the situauation blacks faced and the Hebrews in their quest for freedom and quality in America.  Parting the Waters is but the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

George Washington was the first president of the United States of America. He reigned for two terms after which he decided to retire. He is considered as one of the greatest leaders that America has ever had in its history. He decided to publish his famous speech, the farewell address in the American daily advertiser of September 19, 1796. In his speech, he addressed a number of issues which he felt were important and that could help lead the nation to be more prosperous even after he had retired from presidency. This paper is going to look into some of the important aspect of his speech and what he considered good for the country.

George Washington began his speech by making it known to the people that he had no intention of running for office for the third time and that he intended to retire because he had become of age and needed to retire from politics. He appreciated the support that he had received from the people that far and indicated to them that he had no any other motive of retiring other than that of a friend. He encouraged unity in the government because unity was the basis of independency. He went ahead to give the common attributes which could bring about unity both at home and internationally which he said were same religion, political principles, manners and habits (Washington, 1970).

He encouraged unity among the states north and south in which he encouraged them to work together as it could bring more strength, security and resources. He suggested that government was indispensable through the constitution. He warned people against using parties as baneful effects because of the consequences it was likely to bring about. The spirit of encroachment was also supposed to be avoided as it could lead to dictatorship and the powers of the government were to be checked to avoid such situations.

According to Washington (1970), for political prosperity, morality and religion should be encouraged. He advised the government to avoid getting into debt through avoiding situations which could encourage it like war. Concerning the foreign policy, he encouraged them to maintain one that could be considered fair and just to them and other nations. The policy he said should be free of any hatred attachments, guard the state against foreign interference although it could allow for temporal alliances with other nations, care was to be taken to ensure there is no interference.

In conclusion, he hoped that the counsel he had given, could be followed by the authorities. He believed that his leadership had been guided by the principles he had stated, advised against taking sides in the European war and prayed to God to correct any unintentional errors his administration might have committed and was optimistic of enjoying good laws under a free government after his retirement which were his closing remarks (Washington, 1970).  

Progressivism, according to Walter Nugent (2010), was a many-sided reform movement that emerged in the final years of the nineteenth century, flourished from about 1900 to 1920, and faded away by the early 1920s. During the period, several reforms were put forward by different areas in the society. Such concerns stemmed from the discontented public regarding the imbalance on the American society. Monopolies destroyed healthy competition, producing conflicts between the employees and the employers. The gap between the rich few and the middle class majority widen. Migrants from Europe and Asia flooded especially the cities. Labor became cheaper while prices of commodities increase. To resolve these problems, different strands of progressives gave their suggestions. In general, progressivism tried to address the problem involving the control of big business, the amelioration of poverty, and the purification of politics to embrace the transformation of gender relations, the regeneration of the home, the disciplining of leisure and pleasure, and the establishment of segregation (McGerr, 2005).

The different strands of progressivism were promoted by the four candidates for presidency in 1912. Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft and Debs, all claimed that they were progressives. However, each candidate has a different platform from the others. The only common ground among the four was their persistence that the capitalist economy must be regulated to promote the interest of the middle class. The Progressive movement favors government intervention in the society and the protection of the rights of workers, consumers, and the minority.

Theodore Roosevelt founded the Progressive Party that aimed to promote New Nationalism. In his speech, Roosevelt (1910) stated that every man holds his property subject t the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare may require it. It denotes that Roosevelt wants economic regulation of big businesses and the promotion of public welfare. Roosevelt further highlighted that he stand for the square deal not merely that I stand for fair play under the present rules of the game, but that I stand for having those rules changed so as to work for a more substantial equality of opportunity and of reward for equally good service.  He also argued that the government must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interest. In addition, Roosevelt argued that the natural resources must be used for the benefit of all our people, and not monopolized for the benefit of the few. Moreover, Roosevelt believes that there is a right to regulate the terms and conditions of labor because it promotes the common good. Roosevelt ran for presidency in 1912 to challenge his former friend, William Howard Taft and promote his progressive policies.

Taft ran for his second term in 1912. He was known to expand the anti-trust suits, conservation programs, and regulation of economy that was initiated by Roosevelt. Nonetheless, he failed to make the public realize his progressive accomplishments. Instead, he was publicly known for failing to lower the tariff and being manipulated by the Conservatives. His speech, On Popular Unrest did not increase his popularity because he sounded pessimistic about the possibility of change. He stated that We are living in an age in which by exaggeration of the defects of our present condition holding up to the feverish imagination of the less fortunate and the discontented. He further argued that his administration had taken real steps to remedy injustice and to aid the weak. Since the people were already dismayed by his failure to lower the tariff, his Progressive campaign called for less intervention from the Administration.

The third contender and the eventual winner in the 1912 election was Woodrow Wilson. He was a Progressive Democrat whose platform aligned side-by-side with Roosevelts New Nationalism. Nonetheless, the difference lies on the naturalness of bigness (Wunder, 2009). Wilson argued that big businesses are unnatural, thus the government should regulate the economy instead of expanding the power of the Federal government as Roosevelt suggest. Wilson claimed the new party legalizes monopolies and, of necessity, subordinates working men to them and to the plans made by the government, both with regard to employment, and with regard to wages. Wilson proposed the regulation of minimum wage and a tougher campaign against monopolies.

The last candidate was Eugen Debb, the representative of the Socialist Party. He argued that The working class will never be emancipated by the grace of the capitalist class, but only by overthrowing that class. This is the most radical progressive platform among the four. He further reiterates that The Socialist partys mission is not only to destroy capitalist despotism but to establish industrial and social democracy.

Among the four candidates, Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt represented the ideals of progressivism. However, Roosevelt tried to expand the power of the government to control businesses. In this regard, Wilson could be right in anticipating a government-monopoly. Thus, between the two, Wilsons programs is closer to the tenets of progressivism that tries to end monopolies and promote the interest of the middle class.

Nature has a unique way of assigning responsibilities and characteristics to every creature that is on earth. This is done purposefully to ensure that each creature is able to survive. Cannibals are among the many creatures that are on earth. They feed on feed on human flesh and therefore cannibalism by definition is the act of feeding on human flesh. This practice was widespread during the pre-historic times and especially before the introduction of Christianity. However, after the introduction of Christianity and other religions, the practice slowly died down. Although cannibalism is still practiced in some parts of the world today, it is not as widespread as it was in the past. America was among the countries that experienced cannibalism during the early times. The societies living in the north and west of this country in particular were known to practice cannibalism without fear of stigmatization. For many years, many people lived in denial and refuted claims of existence of such a practice. However, as time went by, it became clear that indeed there were some societies that were feeding on human flesh.

Reasons for Cannibalism
Scholars have cited a number of reasons that were attributed to this practice. In early American society for example where cannibalism was quite common, this practice was associated with cultural norms of most societies at the time. It was a part and parcel of their rituals to feed on human flesh and the tradition was passed down to all subsequent generations. In some societies, people would feed on some parts of the body of their family members upon death. It was also common during wars where the faction that was defeated would be eaten by the rival faction as a way of emphasizing defeat and also as a way of taking up any strength that the rival camp may have had. In other cases, people fed on human flesh due to hunger. During these times, droughts were very common and people would go for days without food. As a result, some people would turn back and feed on their own. There is actually evidence that they fed on other human beings as a result of starvation. One of the documented instances is that of Donner Party in South America, Sierra Nevada. This was in winter of 1847 when acute shortage of food was experienced. The people feasted on others to save themselves from death.
The Donner Party which is popularly known as the Donner Reed Party was a group of American who set out on a journey in train. Unfortunately, their journey was full of mishaps and the winter of the year 1847 caught up with them. Those who were found to be weak and seemed to succumb to hunger were eaten by the rest of the people. There has been massive opposition regarding the Donner party with many arguing that there was no cannibalism but instead, the people fed on animals. However, research over the years has brought out tangible evidence of cannibalism existence among the Donner family. Another reason that made cannibalism common among the early societies was that they needed to have a regular supply of food and human flesh was the only option that could not easily diminish. This was more of a routine whereby human flesh was classified among the diet that people fed on.

In Mexico, human flesh had been classified as one of the richest sources of protein. The Aztec community was also known for practicing cannibalism. It was also carried out for sadistic purposes whereby psychopaths would kill people and eat them to derive pleasure. In the case of Jeffrey Dahmer, the accused person was found guilty by a court of law for having killed seventeen people whom he later cooked and ate as normal food. Religion has also been said to have played a contributory role in propagating cannibalism. During pre-historic times, human sacrifices were carried out to appease the spirits and the gods. These sacrifices would entice people who would end up eating the human flesh.
Jamestown was one of the cities in America that experienced cannibalism during the early times. George Percy who hailed from Jamestown was among the people who constantly heard about cannibalism in the town but ignored it with the assumption that it was just another common myth. This practice was very common in the west and north of America. George Percy, the then president of the colony argued that in the year 1606, Jamestown was experiencing massive food shortages and that the inhabitants of the town ate whatever came by to ensure that they did not die of starvation. They began by feeding on animals like horses and as the food shortage became severe, they began eating other human beings. George Percy has given a very detailed account of the events that characterized the era of starvation in Jamestown. One of the incidents is that of a man who killed his pregnant wife, salted the body and began enjoying his meal. It was so astonishing. By the year 1609, more than half of the population of the settlers was no more.

The history of Jamestown is quite interesting. England had for a long time wanted to be part and parcel of the New World. However, their desires were not forthcoming. James the leader of the town at the time decided to send some ships to London to conduct a survey and see if there was anything worthwhile. For a period of six weeks there came heavy winds that hindered the ships and their sailors from continuing with the journey. During this period, the food reserves were depleted and almost half of the men died. In the year 1609, England was hit by a serious winter that saw hundreds of thousands of people die. It was this period that came to be known as starvation time as this was the time when all the food reserves in the city were depleted. All the valuable machines and tools were traded in exchange for food. When they had no more tools with which they could trade with, they turned to their pets and then their livestock. After some time, there were no more pets or livestock that they could eat. It was indeed a desperate situation. A whole city was starving. It was during this time that cannibalism crept among the inhabitants of Jamestown.

Although cannibalism was a common practice in olden times, most history books have not detailed these events comprehensively. This is because it is considered embarrassing to one of the worlds superpowers. However, many people argue that this history should not be omitted as it helps Americans understand how their forefathers had to contend with hardships. There is also evidence that during the period of starvation in Jamestown some people dug up corpses and fed on them although these stories have been suppressed by most history books.

Scholars argue that the practice of cannibalism began as a way of finding substitute food during the era of starvation. However, the practice became addictive and some people had to be killed as the population of human beings in Jamestown was threatened. Cannibalism as a practice has disappeared in most cultures. However, some cultures still have some traces of this practice although this is not widely spoken about. The issue of cannibalism has been at the center of controversy since many scholars do not seem to agree on the existence of the practice. Even those who agree that this practice was there in pre-historic times, they argue that there is no evidence to back up these claims.

Even though most people would prefer not to talk about cannibalism and instead suppress it as though it did not exist, there is massive evidence that at one point or the other the society in America especially those in the north and in the west practiced cannibalism. This practice cannot be allowed in the modern world as it is mainly associated with Satanism. Although man is carnivorous in nature, he detests the mere mention of consumption of human flesh and drinking their blood. This only goes to show that cannibalism is a practice that is considered a taboo.

Cannibalism was divided into two main categories namely exocannibalism and endocannibalsim. The first type of cannibalism involved eating people who were strangers, mainly enemies who were defeated in wars. Endocannibalism on the other involved eating people who are close, either relatives or people who were within the same society. It is argued that the eating of human beings from another society or from a rival society was symbolic and represented a radical form of racism. This promoted great rivalry among societies and this made wars during this time a common phenomenon. As mentioned already, feeding on human flesh can be quite addictive. Those who began the practice as a mere way of satisfying themselves ended up being unable of cutting away from the practice.

Feasting on human flesh of people with close relation had various meanings. To some, this was done as a form of reverence to those who dies before. It was also a way of connecting with the spirits of the dead people. There is a famous case of a man who said that upon his death, he would prefer to be eaten by his won children rather than be buried, only to be eaten later by worm. Quite strange indeed
A theory that cannibalism was carried put a way of looking for proteins has not been well received especially now that quite a large group the world over is opposed to cannibalism. This is because the place where cannibalism first started has adequate sources of protein other than human flesh. Although many people have denied the existence of cannibalism in the pre-historic time, it is rather obvious that this practice was quite rife especially during the starvation era. However, this practice has slowly died down and it is no longer in most societies. As already mentioned, those societies that still traces of cannibalism in the modern world are associated with Satanism. Human life is sacred and cannot be compared with the life of other living things like animals. It is therefore inhuman, immoral and indecent to consume human flesh as a human being. Even in the animal kingdom, animals do not eat flesh from their lineage. For example, a lion cannot eat another lion hyena cannot eat another hyena and so on. In the same way, it is quite astonishing when a human being turns to another and devours him.

Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson were great philosophers in the history of United States who had different visions for current state in U.S. They differed in certain issues for instance, the social composition according to Jefferson comprised of artisans, settlers, shopkeepers, owners of small farms and frontiers. On the other hand, Alexander saw a social composure of merchants, manufacturers, bankers, and professionals. In another context, Jefferson admired a form of government that was more democratic than England while Alexander admired English government system. According to Jeffersons philosophy, he favored strict interpretation of the constitution with a view of limiting powers of central government. On the other hand, Hamilton admired broad interpretation of constitution for purpose of strengthening the central government.

Looking at the current state of affairs, Alexander Hamiltons philosophy played a very important role in shaping U.S in all aspects.  Major descriptions by Hamilton are reflected in todays affairs ranging from leadership, economic and political values to professionalism.  U.S being a colony of Britain is one fact that supports the philosophical provisions by Hamilton. A federal government exists which was established by authority of the Constitution.  This is a matter of political organization whereby the views of Hamilton were implemented by Washington and the Congress. The constitution is one of the most powerful tools in running affairs of American government. A big number of Americans are professionals working in the banking sector and other firms. This collectively supports the sentiments of Hamilton and is one critical step that has shaped our country.  In addition, Hamilton devised a Bank of U.S with establishment of branches in different parts of the country. This clearly supports his visions which prompted the Americans to be bankers.

During the 1960s and 1970s, there were two main revolutions witnessed in the United States. The two revolutions were the civil rights movement and the feminist movement.

The civil rights movement was established with an aim of restoring suffrage and banning racial discrimination against African Americans, especially in the southern states. With time the movement widened its aims to include freedom from oppression, political and economic self-sufficiency, and racial dignity.

The feminists movement was a chain of campaigns for change on matters such as sexual violence, sexual harassment, voting rights, maternity leave, equal pay, domestic violence, and reproductive rights. The publication of the feminine mystique in 1963 triggered a new awareness of the inequality experienced by American women. The book explained how a majority of American house wives felt unfulfilled and trapped, and how the culture in America created the view that women were only keepers of homes, mothers and wives. The book proposed that women were able to perform any job as competently as men could do. (Lancaster, Catton  Fleming, 2004).

Both movements were largely successful. The civil rights movement was successful as it gave Asians, Latinos, and African Americans similar rights to the Americans. Every race was entitled to similar and equal rights. The feminist movement was also largely successful in its efforts to achieve equality in society. Women were able to get equal pay with men. During the 1950s and 1960s, women were fighting to get three quarters of the male pay, and in professions that were considered as women only such as nursing and teaching they got only two thirds of what men got. In addition, women were able to get maternity leaves and the introduction of pills enabled them to take control of their fertility. This was crucial as it enabled them to match men in pursuing serious careers.

Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) is one of the United States presidents remembered on account of his contribution towards the recovery of the economy and the nation as well as advancing democracy in governance of the United States. He came up with a policy of 3Rs which were recovery, relief and reform. The relief was for the poor and unemployed the recovery was for the economy since it had gone down after the Second World War whereas the reform was for financial system so as to prevent any repeat of another depression.

Franklin Roosevelt also came up with two deals. The first deal targeted groups beginning with railroads and banking to farming and industry and they all demanded for help to recover the economy. The second deal was to promote workers and labor unions. FDR was a democrat wanted to balance all the people and wanted to ensure they all have equitable opportunities.

FDR in his restructuring and reforming the society of America went too far because, first he called up for unity of all American people irrespective of their ethnicity. In addition the existence of labor unions can be attributed to his effort since he gave them power. The new deal was a representation of a significant change from domestic and political policy in the U.S. The new deal made the economy to recover and shot up.

The people who benefited more in this deal were the American people who were poor and unemployed since the deal created employment opportunities since it financed industries which were at verge of collapse. The new deal is important to the history of the America because it achieved the highest GDP growth in a very short period. Despite the controversy surrounding FDRs administration especially around the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese and the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I think FDR and his regime did a lot for the good of the American society.

Brief Profile of the Authoress
Carol F. Karlsen is a professor of History and Womens Studies at the University of Michigan. Dr Karlsen is the author of three books The Journal of Esther Edwards Burr, 1754-1757, The Devil in the Shape of a Woman Witchcraft in Colonial New England, and The Salem Witchcraft Trials A History in Documents. She is a recipient of the American Council of Learned Societies Award and has won a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation. She is presently continuing with her research on the representation of witches in the U. S. after the turbulent Salem-Witchcraft trials that had occurred in 1692.

The Setting of the Book
The setting of Karlsens book is colonial New England. The time period that is focused on is 1620 to 1725, give or take a few years. The author devotes particular attention to towns where witch trials had predominated. Such towns seemed to accord a marked importance to wealth and social status. The courts in the towns were wont to rely on religion as much as on the law in the conduct of their trials. Colonial New England in the 17th century was in a state of confusion and disarray. The land derived its beliefs about witchcraft and other matters from England, its mother country. The Puritans had initially been unsure about how to convert their sexual beliefs into public laws. Massachusetts passed its first adultery law as early as in 1651. In the years to come, more laws were passed on a variety of topics.

The laws aimed at fairness to all, but their application by the magistrates and clergy was determined in part by the identity of the accused. This sort of bias was common in those days and was to become manifest in the subsequent witchcraft trials as well. The ambiguous approach of the magistrates towards the alleged witches is manifested in the following endorsement made on August 1, 1692 by Increase Mather and seven others The Devil may sometimes have a permission to represent an innocent person as tormenting such as are under diabolical molestations. But  such things are rare and extraordinary, especially when matters come before civil judicatures. (Boyle  Nissenbaum, 1974, p. 10).

Subject and Theme of Book
The author studies the plight of the women who were accused of being witches in colonial New England, graduating into a discussion of larger themes pertaining to the role and position of women in Puritan society. Karlsen introduces her subject thus History offers few subjects as endlessly fascinating or as intellectually frustrating as witchcraft. The word itself evokes images so diverse, ultimately so contradictory, as to defy definition. Especially in its Western incarnation, witchcraft confronts us with ideas about women, with fears about women, with the place of women in society, and with women themselves. It confronts us too with systematic violence against women. (p. xi). Karlsen devotes attention to the women who had been accused of being witches, and perceives them to be mostly placed in precarious socioeconomic positions. Such women often had vulnerable positions with regard to inheritance in property, variously owing to their having arrived into an inheritance, being about to receive an inheritance, or having lost an inheritance. Hence, Karlsen repudiates the notion of the women accused of witchcraft as being animated beggars, and instead, views them to have been inheriting women who were apparently persecuted in a patriarchal setup.
 
Karlsen refers to the events that had led to the witch trials of Salem all through the book. The trials had occurred in modern-day town of Danvers, which was then a parish in Salem Town, and known as Salem Village. The mass hysteria had its origin in the bizarre and apparently inexplicable behavior of two little girls -- daughter, Betty, and niece, Abigail Williams -- of the Salem Village minister, Reverend Samuel Parris. The girls had been experimenting with magic, trying to read the future through a makeshift crystal ball. After a few days, the girls started having fits and displaying other symptoms of possession. Soon, the malaise affected other females in the village. The first three women to be arrested were Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne and Tituba. At the Village meetinghouse, Good and Osborne denied that they were witches, but Osborne confessed, and even volunteered a description of the Devil as a thing all over hairy, all the face hairy, and a long nose. (Boyer  Nissenbaum, 1974, p. 10). The witchcraft hysteria took its unfortunate toll of human lives, with 19 being hanged on Gallows Hill in Salem Town, and five dying in prison. This is a negligible fraction of the total number of women who are believed to have been done to death in America and Europe during the witch-hunting years, whose estimates range from tens of thousands into the millions. (p. xii)

Karlsens work has significance beyond the limited context of the Salem outbreak of 1692. Karlsen studies the witchcraft trials from a feminist perspective, despite the fact that in 1692 one-third of the accused witches had been male, as compared with one-fifth having been males in other years. The story of witchcraft is primarily the story of women, and this I suspect accounts for much of the fascination and the elusiveness attending the subject. (p. xii). Hence, Karlsen attempts to investigate how far the patriarchal society, growing property inheritances among women, and a veiled gender war may have played a role in the witch-hunting. The book attempts to answer the following questions.

Why were certain women accused of being witches, while others were spared this charge Were women accused of witchcraft on rational grounds, or were there other covert factors behind such accusations To what extent were a womans marital status, social standing, affluence and relationships factors in her being accused of being a witch

Karlsens Organization of Her Book
The book appears to be fairly well organized in its sequence and flow of contents. The first chapter of Karlsens book discusses witchcraft in New England, which comes forth as a set of dynamic religious beliefs (xiii). The following three chapters analyze witchcraft more minutely, and focus on the traits of those who had been accused of witchcraft. Karlsen tries assiduously to identify patterns and causes that might explain why certain individuals were more likely to be accused of witchcraft, and convicted and executed over it, than others. She believes that this was instigated by several unspoken assumptions about women and witchcraft (xiii). The final three chapters attempt to interpret the features of witches in the background of the gender system prevalent then in New England. Karlsen notes the similarities between Puritan ideas of women and New Englands notions of witches. Karlsen studies the role that witchcraft played in framing and maintaining the social structure of New England.  
The contents of the book under review are delineated into various sections, on the basis of time and place. The book contains several charts that attempt to illustrate the relationship that the accused have to various factors like gender, age, affluence and location. The charts amply highlight that women tended to be targeted to a greater degree. Moreover, it is generally agreed that those accused of being witches were mostly from the poorer segments of society. Though some men were executed as witches during the period of massive witch hunting, mainly in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, witches were generally thought of as women and most of those who died in the name of witchcraft were women. (p. xii). The case that Karlsen builds is that it was usually a woman who was somehow vulnerable that was accused of witchcraft. This category included even women who had arrived into wealth on the untimely demise of their husbands. A promiscuous woman was prone to invite accusation of and trial for being a witch. Marital disharmony occasionally led to the disgruntled husband shrieking witch. Women who could not conceive invited charges of witchcraft no less.

Karlsen employs voluminous references for her work. There are several documents still in existence that show transfers of property by the accused witches to the villages. Karlsen also draws from entries kept in journals and diaries by people living in those times. The Peabody Museum lent Karlsen substantial relevant references, since it preserves 522 original court documents relating to the witchcraft trials. Moreover, Karlsen studies the general profile of the accusers, and realizes that several of them appear to have been engaged in a fierce negotiation  about the legitimacy of female discontent, resentment, and anger. When such negotiation developed into violence, men chose to accuse their female neighbors of witchcraft, in a bid to retain their suzerainty over the established  if   threatened  social order. The key thesis permeating much of the book is that accusations of witchcraft were frequently leveled against women who threatened a smooth transfer of property from the father to the son. The inheritance of land represented the transfer of scarce and valuable properties from one family to another involving an intermediary woman in the patriarchal system. Any threat to property transfer or male dominance evoked unpredictable and extreme reactions to maintain the status quo, particularly in view of the prevailing misogyny of the period. (xiii).

By Way of a Conclusion
At the end of the day, does Karlsen succeed in proving her thesis There probably cannot be a definitive answer in the affirmative to this. Karlsen does prove that it is women who got to be more accused of witchcraft than men. Gender does seem to have played a key role in the subsequent hysteria that had welled up in the community. Karlsen certainly succeeds in stressing the various other factors that seem to have worked in determining who came to be accused of witchcraft and who was spared it. The reader is enabled an insight into the working of a conglomeration of complex socioeconomic factors that came to the fore at the witch trials. One might not share the authors conviction on all that she writes, but one can nevertheless appreciate the logic and trend of her arguments. It would perhaps be difficult to conclusively depict such a complex and passionate affair as the witchcraft trials had definitely been in a neat explanation that may be accepted as the last word on the subject. What Karlsens book succeeds at is pointing to the existence and relevance of various factors that may have influenced the witch trials. Karlsen effectively integrates the trials into the backdrop of the prevailing social norms and ethos. Hence, the reader is helped to view the witch trials not in utter isolation, but as events that the compulsions of the patriarchal society perhaps precipitated.

The lay reader may not be expected to enjoy reading the book, since it pertains to gory and grim events. The books title might have one suppose the book to inform the readers about the practice of witchcraft, but the book will disappoint one in this regard. The authors explicit purpose was to attempt to explain who, where and why had been accused of witchcraft. As Karlsen asserts, Only by understanding that the history of witchcraft is primarily a history of women, however, can we confront the deeply embedded feelings about women -- and the intricate patterns of interest underlying those feelings -- among our witch-ridden ancestors. (p. xiii). Finally, Karlsen maintains that  we still live with witches in our culture, however much their shape may have changed over time. (p. xiii). Hence, the author employs an investigation of the role that gender issues had led to injustice against women during the witchcraft trials over three centuries ago only as a means to awaken the readers into the same factors probably perpetrating similar injustices against the fairer sex in sundry ways in the modern world. Karlsen seeks an end to refined witch-hunting that the modern times must be a witness to, by pointing to the the continuing power of woman-as-witch in our collective imagination. (xiii). The book can be deemed successful insofar as it does leave the reader wiser on such aspects of the witch trials, and more sensitive to feminine concerns.

Book has Invited Positive Reviews
Karlsen may not have convinced the reader about the validity of her assumptions, findings and conclusions, but her book has won accolades for significantly contributing to studies on the subject of witchcraft, and for widening the canvas of the study. The book proves that there is ample scope for further original research into various facets of witchcraft, gender and property issues in colonial New England.  According to one commentator, Karlsens study is provocative, wide-ranging, accessible, and frank. (Lindholt, 1988). The book has won laurels, and it has been observed that its descriptions and analyses stand on their own as valuable contributions to our knowledge of witch lore and the ambiguous status of women in early New England. (Gildrie, 1989). The authors of the pioneering book on the Salem witchcraft issues  Salem Possessed -- Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum have reviewed Karlsens book very positively. Boyer lauds Karlsens book for its formidable intellectual power (Boyer, 1988) and Nissenbaum regards it as constituting a major contribution to the study of New England witchcraft (Nissenbaum, 1989).  The book subjects the role of women as witches to a microscopic scrutiny over three centuries after the events had transpired. Furthermore, Karlsen employs an investigation of witch-hunting in New England to draw attention to the disguised witch-hunting that the modern times allow. Karlsens book will prove of keen interest to the scholar, student and the lay person, who wish to acquire an insightful understanding of witchcraft, its underlying causes and provocations, and the role of women in the society of colonial New England.

In this time capsule I will attempt to represent as clearly as possible the effects of modern media in America. Currently, as technology has become increasingly advanced the means by which we understand and interact with the world around us has changed. Just twenty years ago, no one could have predicted the effects of websites such as Twitter or Facebook in communication and self-promotion. In the same way, no one could have suspected that printed media would see such a massive decline. Most important, in representing modern American cultures lovehate relationship with the media, is the effectiveness of the media as not only a political but also social tool. Media has always affected Americans opinions and beliefs. However, the effect has grown and become distorted as more and more information is being made readily available for an individual to determine these ideas on their own.

Each item has been listed below, with the intended meaning of each item as well as any misunderstandings they may create when discovered in 200 years.

As the modern news era is quickly turning from print to online resources, the capsule should hold a copy of a major U.S. newspaper. Within 200 hundred years, such periodicals will likely be extinct. There is the chance that the newspapers meaning may be misconstrued to have something to do with a particular headline.

A print-out of the most recent tweets on Twitter of Ashton Kutcher. While the viewer may initially see significance in Kutchers public personality, a review of the tweets and the third item on this list will show the uniqueness of this form of public forum.

A print-out of the most recent status updates of a random individual on Facebook or MySpace. Both sites, like Twitter, represent a modern media forum. However, more so than Twitter they show the propensity of the modern American to sensationalize the mundane.

An iPhone 4 with instruction booklet. The phone itself may be taken as a representative of mobile technology but when combined with the instruction booklet, an explanation of the applications and the other items in the capsule the viewer will be able to see how important being plugged into the world was for Americans in 2010.

A mini-netbook, with USB ports, to be used to view items 6-9. This item is also important when viewed in the context of items 1-3, it can be used to illustrate the dominance of the internet in the American media culture.

A memory card which contains episodes of such news-opinion shows that have become more and more prevalent on networks such as Fox News, CNN and MSNBC. Included will be clips of Glenn Beck, Bill OReilly, Chris Matthews, and Rachel Maddow. Those who open the capsule may at first be led to believe that the topics discussed are the important factor. However, they will help to illustrate how factual news programs have become interspersed with opinion rather than pure fact.

To show the effects of misinformed media in the arena of politics and society, a memory card with the clips of Shirley Sherrod of the USDA that was incorrectly cited and used to tender her resignation on the grounds of racism, the reactions to the video, and the actual story printed a day after her resignation that cleared her. At first, this may be taken as indicative of broader social implications of race in the early 21st century but in the context of the rest of the items, it will help to illustrate the power of non-traditional media to influence those in even the highest office.

A memory card with copies of popular political blogs. In particular, the conservative blog that first broke the incorrect story of Sherrods speech before the NAACP, and an equally popular liberal political blog. These will illustrate the change in American attitudes that has people getting their information from sources other than the traditional journalists.

A memory card with clips from YouTube. The clips should represent a broad range of the sites content. By placing clips of cute kittens beside the threatening image of a gun-wielding militia member or terrorist, this will show how the lines between the serious and unserious sides of modern society have blurred.

A copy of an entertainment magazine such as US weekly, to show the importance of non-news media in the American cultures outlook on the world. It would be especially effective if a magazine was used that had the same date as the newspaper in item one. This will show the divide in media between real news and entertainment news.

Once all the items have been compiled and the time capsule sealed, it should be buried beside the Hollywood sign in California. The placement will help put the capsule at close range of several major colleges and universities in Southern California such as UCLA who currently has a media psychology course of study. More importantly, the placement of the capsule will help to represent the growing sensationalizing of the world through the eyes of the media, whether it is individual social networking, political blogging, or traditional news sources.

Every society is based upon certain principles and foundations. These foundations are the reasons why a society becomes civilized and maintains its civilization. Therefore, it is not in order to try and disregard these important foundations. This will be seen as going back to the days when there was no civilization. There had been a lot of changes following the end of communism and the beginning of an era of civilization. It gave people a chance to accumulate wealth. However, this only happened to the people who were ready and willing to do so. The society has for along time been faced with several challenges such as injustices to people, individualism, unhealthy competition and bad laws and governance. It is a fact that these cannot be totally gotten rid of. However, efforts should be geared towards reducing the extent of the effects of these. Revolution will help in putting an end to individualism and embrace the concept of brotherhood. The society should try to accomplish this if it wants to exist peacefully. These revolutions will therefore be the greatest point of accomplishment for the human race.

Every race has its own interests and needs that should be addressed. However, this is not usually the case since most of the wealth is not distributed to everyone equally. This kind of disparity has been left as it is and is seen as good. However, this is not the foundation on which civilization is based on. It is the direct opposite and there is a need to correct it. It is a fact that the laws of civilization have been ignored in the society and left for certain groups of people. There is a need to establish a feasible way to ensure that the wealth is distributed fairly in the society.

There is need to look after wealth and any surpluses either saved for future generations or given out to others who might not have an access to them. On the other hand, it can be given out to be used by the public. The first and the third methods allow the wealth to reach the few in the society. In the first instance where wealth is left to the descendants, this wealth will eventually diminish away from one generation to the other. This mode was mostly found in countries that practiced monarchy. Most of the wealth was left in the hands of the immediate first descendant (usually the first sons). Most of the successors, however, have found themselves in a state of poverty despite the fact that a lot of wealth was entrusted to them. It has been established that recipients of such wealth usually experience a lot of problems in their lifetime even though they might have great wealth.

On the contrary, it is argued that it is the duty of every parent to ensure that education of their sons is a priority. Failure to do that might make the sons to fall in poverty. A parent, who did not do that, should distribute wealth in moderate amounts to their sons. This, however, is a rare scenario in most cases although most wealthy persons usually strive to leave a good legacy behind.

Secondly, wealth left to the public is like disposal of the wealth. This wealth might or might not benefit the society. It is argued that wealth left in this way may not be appreciated. The reason to this reaction is due to the fact that most of these people only leave this wealth at the time of their death, otherwise they would have carried it away. The opinion of the public is that wealth such as estates should be taxed heavily. This is seen in some of the states around the world, for example Pennsylvania State. Therefore, being wealthy is important only when the individual is alive but it is a blessing at the time of his death to the community. This will be the only way to ensure that wealth is distributed to others in the community.

In summary, wealth should be used in a proper manner for the benefit of everyone. There should be no gap between the rich and the poor in the society. In this way, there would be no conflict between these two classes of people in the society. Harmony will exist since everyone will feel catered for. The poorer will be happy courtesy of the wealth of the rich in the society. At the same time, the wealthy will feel that their efforts and wealth have helped the society in their lifetime rather than wait until their death to give out their wealth5.

This document emphasizes the importance of wealth use in a good manner for the benefit of other people. In a society whereby different classes of people exist, the community should also access the wealth in one way or the other. In doing so, poverty will be history and it will give way for development.

The World War II remains the bloodiest and deadliest crisis in world history. It involved the best ever battle lines, enormous armed forces, along with the most destructive weapons in the history of the world (Martel 245).  The worldwide disagreement that was regarded as or labelled World War II emanated from the 1930s great depression, a turmoil that undermined, destabilized and weakened economies, governments and nations around the world. For instance, in Germany, the rise of Hitler occurred partially because he alleged to be capable of transforming a destabilized Germany by then to an autonomous economic and military power that could control its destiny not only in Europe, but in the entire world as well (Martel 240). This paper therefore explores how this global conflict (WWII) changed America and the entire world.

For the US, World War II constituted the most significant fiscal event of the 20th century (Higgs 53). The wars consequences on the United States were diverse and far-reaching. It indomitably ended the great depression, and the US federal government came out from the war as a possible economic actor, capable of regulating fiscal activity and to partly control the world economy via spending and consumption. Whats more, the wartime economic explosion spurred and promoted a number of social trends. First was the job creation that paralleled the growth of industrial production, in so doing, attained what Roosevelts New Deal programs had been incapable to achieve (Rindfuss, Morgan  Swicegood 86). According to Higgs (58), in 1940, there were more than eight million unemployed Americans. However, by 1941, unemployment became a thing of the past. There were in fact labour shortages in numerous industries. Consequently, federal inspectors did ignore laws deterring employment of women and children (Martel 250). With little or no public outcry, several high school dropouts escalated substantially. Also, several women were absorbed in the workforce to assist make implements and munitions of war. These women were later nicknamed Rosie the Riveter and were pivotal part of the US success in war (Martel 251).

Additionally, the WWII revitalized American industries, and a lot of sectors were by the end of the war (1945) either brusquely oriented to defence production (for instance, electronics and aerospace) or entirely dependent on atomic energy (Rindfuss, Morgan  Swicegood 82). The organised labour unions were as well strengthened far beyond the depression period and became a key counter-balance to both private and government industry.  Given the fact that novel employment took place in unionized workplaces, plus industries funded by the American government, the continuance of membership decision during World War II was a magnificent advantage for organized labour (Rindfuss, Morgan  Swicegood 84). As a result, organized labour increased from ten million in 1941 to approximately fifteen million by 1945. Also, about thirty six percent of the work-force in non-agricultural sector was unionized, recording the highest percentage ever in American history. Similarly, the wars speedy technological and scientific changes continued and deepened trends commenced during the great depression and shaped lasting anticipation of continued novelty on the part of several engineers, citizens and government officials. Besides, the significant increases in individual income as well as quality of life throughout the war resulted in a number of Americans foreseeing permanent improvements to their material needs (Rindfuss, Morgan  Swicegood 85).

That said, the World War II brought to an end the godless Nazi regime plus their murder machine. It as well wrecked Japans control over Pacific, thereby ushering in the atomic age (Martel 255). Europe that had been under authoritarian Nazi boot became under the Communist boot. Besides, the war led to medicine improvements in the world, particularly in the use of antibiotics. New-fangled forms of occupational and physical therapy to assist returning veterans and wounded soldiers were as well invented and used. Whats more, the work of individuals, such as von Braun in the Second World War greatly transformed world technology, especially rocket technology, which became a major focus during Cold War (Neufeld 164).

The dramatic transformations in military technology resulted in changes to operational and tactical skills. Stanovov (1) asserted that all contemporary warfare grew from the concepts which first came from 1939-1945. The actions of pooled units, close relations of dissimilar armed services, the greatly escalated significance of radio-electronic warfare, strategic bombings, psychological and mass information warfare, to mention just some factors. The World War II became in fact total in psychological, technical and informational senses, radically transforming the prerequisites to logistical support. Moreover, it spectacularly changed the balance between small and large economies in the world platform. Whilst previously the disparity between the armed forces of a small and large country was largely quantitative, with WW2 it became qualitative, as a few nations in the world could manage to create fully-fledged nuclear-era armed forces (Stanovov 1).

Finally, every great conflict, especially concerning great allies and axis, brings something unique to the art of warfare. But Second World War was outstanding in that respect. The changes in the hardware, equipment, structure and the way military forces were utilized were unique both in their significance and scope. Even WWI that first witnessed major use of war tanks, submarines and planes had never brought to fore such massive change to the world.

INTRO
Populism is a political principle that supports the interests and rights of the ordinary people in the society as they struggle against the elites who are privileged. Populism is a movement that started in America in the year 1891.It started by the establishment of the Populist Party which aimed at improving the conditions of the laborers and the farmers. The farmers were being charged an interest rate that was very high and the products sold to them were at exaggerated prices (Taggart,   87).

To improve their economic situation the farmers formed a Farmers Alliance that ensured that the economy of the market was well understood. The Farmers Alliance also merged with the Knights of Labor so that their products could be bought at better prices (Taggart    101-2). They also supported the Populist Party because it was also fighting for their rights.

The populist worked towards offsetting the economic depression, preventing poverty among the people who involve in farming activities and also those families that are in the working class. The other thing that they addressed was the issue of curtailing corporate abuses, the issue of slavery and even child labor.

The populist  served  by acting as a representative of the republicans and so when the democrats won, the populist split as some wanted to follow the democrats and others to realize themselves and thus  they did not have enough power to address their agendas. The populist movement was not able to implement their ideas (Ibid    113).

Populist was also perceived as a as trade off with efficiency. Their ideas were however implemented later. Populism has been excised by politicians and we need to ask ourselves what the limits to populism are, because the politicians never seem to stop.

The Jungle by Upton Sinclairs has motivated a number of past and the present generation to fury. This is because the story involves an economic hardship experienced by Jurgis Rudkus and his family. The economy was at its worse since it treated the family as bad as cattles. The book serves as a powerful example since it is used to convey how awful workers were treated in a hundred years ago and how the role of the government regulations were effected during that period (Sinclair, 2010).
This story commences with a family of the Lithuanian who moved into Chicagos parking town with a hope of finding a decent job that will make him and his family to live in decent housing, but all was in vain. This is because everything costed above what it was supposed to cost as the agents to the real estate took advantage of the immigrants as they were ignorant. The book comprises of poor living conditions portrayed by conditions such as of food poisoning, as the food was prepared by sick people in an unhygienic environment. It also explains the life of Jurgis Rudkus after loosing his personal belongings and family and nearly staves in the street due to lack of a job. In addition, this book shows the how Jurgis was exploited by the working class (Sinclair, 2010).  The purpose of this paper is to write a narrative essay based on a life that I might imagine for myself if I lived in the era covered in the book

ESSAY
My name is Abby Foster and I am 36 years of age. I have a spouse whose name is George and is 44 years of age. Our family has four children namely Nicholas Foster who is 21 years old, Olivia Foster  who is age 13, Kaden Foster who is age 3, and lastly,  Isabella Foster who is  2 of age. We all live in Scranton, PA. If I lived in America a hundred years ago, I would have been involved in the area of industrialization so that I can provide my family in responsible manner.

Industrialization is credited with the transformations of agrarian societies to industrial societies. This change is characterized by the shift from use of animal sources for energy to that of machines. The society was characterized by the continuous state of change due to the dynamic technological innovations (Husband  OLoughlin, 2004).In the agrarian society, hunting and gathering were dependent on nuclear and extended family groupings that lived in almost the same lifestyles. Whereas, in an industrial society new changes were evident as the industries were coming up and were dependent on individuals who had industrial skills, who moved to the geographical areas where the industries were set up, thus breaking the involvement of nuclear and extended family participation,  leading to different lifestyle from the other members of the family.

There were various side effects experienced by the low income earners during this era as a result of the introduction of industrialization in the United States. If I lived in this area I would have moved from rural areas to the areas of the United States that were characterized with development of new industries. This would have resulted to disintegration of my family to some extent as industrialization is characterized with reduced levels of family ties.

This period would have given me a view and a perception of obtaining great wealth for my family. This is because, at this time, industrials companies such as steel, oil and cotton arose. But the debate about the wealth creation as a result of these industries to my family would have however has resulted to being controversial. This is because as some continued to gain advantage of the industrial development, others are known to having been disadvantaged (Husband  OLoughlin, 2004).  During this era, there was a drastic change of lifestyle of the people of United States as many people changed their lifestyles in order to work in the developing factories

Unfortunately, the employers took advantage of these workers by paying them low wages and made them work for hours, which were 10 -12 hours in a day, for six days in a week. These workers helped the company owners in acquiring more wealth as they had the capacity to market their products across the country through advertisements. The owners of these industries dwelt on the utilitarian goal of the technology that created the purposes of increasing their wealth without taking due consideration for social issues of the technology (Husband  OLoughlin, 2004). Therefore, despite moving from the agrarian society of cultivating to the industrial society of the steel, and cotton production, I would still be a poor man since the poor were taken advantage off.

During this era the success of the industries was only motivated by making a profit for the owners but was not supported by the social role that the company should play with the society. There was therefore a lack of a harmonious relationship between the owners and the workers. This is because these industries were found to be benefiting only the owners. I would have fought for involvement of the supervision that acquires social control as well as gender domination (Husband  OLoughlin, 2004). If my fight for social consideration would have yielded to unfruitful results, I would have engaged myself in joining a union aimed at protesting against my working conditions as this would have resulted to a declaration of Labor Day as a national holiday with a significance of making human labor important.

I would also have engaged myself with in various strikes since the United States is well known to have undergone a major economist revolution which created one of the most violent management issues (Husband  OLoughlin, 2004).  This was done in an attempt of trying to control and exploit new industrial labor which triggered violent reactions such as the Highway market affair, Homestead strike, Railway strikes, among others. Husband  OLoughlin (2004) state that in 1890, the richest people who were 1 received an income equivalent to the income of the 99.These resulted to a division in class which was mainly the whites against the blacks, thus changing the social settings of the community at large.

CONCLUSION
Activities in the industries at this period were allocated according to race as well as gender. There was a racial discrimination in these industries as the whites were allocated higher paying jobs while the African Americans were allocated to lower paying jobs. Since I am an African American, I would have been allocated a lower paying job. In addition to this inequality, men received a higher income or wage than the women, and thus my income would have been lower than the income of the male gender and therefore, I would have viewed the government as both protectors of freedom as well as potential threat to my freedom.

Having ventured into the vast land that is America, the white settlers, had found themselves at conflict with the Indians they found already in the land. The settlers set out to change the Indians way of life by dedicating themselves to introducing western civilization to the Indians, whom they deemed as uncivilized and who saw their wandering as a result of their uncivilized ways. In 1830, President Andrew Jacksons administration passed the Indian Removal Act, passing through Congress by one vote. The Cherokee Indians were most affected by the act, which came to be because they resisted the white settlers attempts to take over their lands, despite the fact that they were a civilized people and did not threaten the existence of the whites, with whom they were living peacefully. The president believed that only the removal of Indians to the regions beyond the Mississippi would solve the issue. The Cherokees sought the intervention of the Supreme Court and won the case (Historynet, 2010). This paper will look into the debates surrounding the matter and try to establish which sides argument was better.

At the First Annual Address to Congress, President President Andrew Jackson (1829), argued that both Georgia and Alabama, having become parts of the US, they have every right over the Indians as much as any other state. According to him, it is too late to start delving into the past in order to determine whether their inclusion within the boundaries of the given states was justified and it the duty of the Indians to either abide by the laws of the states they find themselves in, or move beyond the Mississippi, where the US will have set apart a district big enough for them and where they will not be bound by any states laws. There, the Indians would then establish their own systems of government.

He proposes that such emigrations be voluntary because forcing them to abandon the graves of their fathers and seek a home in a distant land would be both greatly cruel and unjust, a thought he continuates in the Second Annual Address to Congress (1839). Jackson is of the opinion that if the whole territory between Tennessee on the north and Louisiana on the south is opened to the settlement of the whites, it would help make the bordering states strong enough to repel any future invasions without having to call for remote aid.

But it is the argument presented by the North American Review (pp 62-121, 1830) that is more interesting. According to this particular issue, the Indians could not possibly co-exist with the white settlers because they were as wild, and fierce, and irreclaimable, as the animals, their co-tenants of the forests on which they depended upon for food and clothing. The Indians, according to this particular issue, were the most wretched of all races, exhibiting spectacles as disgusting as they are degrading, even to the extent of the white settlers having to intervene in order to save them from actual starvation.

Similar sentiments are put across by Francis J. Grund (1837), who sees no reason for any European to complain of the barbarous cruelty of the Americans of driving the Indians from their ancestral habitations to the western territories unhospitable woods. To him, the Indians had no right to claim ownership to the land which they trod on, they same way they could not claim the air which they breathed. Like the animals, they only depended on the land for prey. Grund argues that as long as they never cultivated the land, which they accused the Americans of grabbing, the Indians could never claim ownership of the land. When the whites opened up the land to the world to save it from starvation, the Indians died did the deer.

Those against the removal of the Indians, however, present a completely different perspective to this matter. They argue that when the white settlers entered America, they found the Indians strong, albeit ignorant and savage (Niles, nd), yet the Indians welcomed them with kindness. The settlers showed that they were for friendship with the Indians and the Indians willingly provided whatever they asked of them. The Indians were made to feel that they were the lord, and the white man the suppliant, something that had come to change completely. As the white population grew, the power of the Indian decreased, with some tribes becoming extinct. Opposing their removal, the Indians ask if they, as the remnants, should wait for the same fate to befall them. Now that the state of Georgia was pressing hard on them, and them to relinquish their possession and vacate their beloved country, they feel very much aggrieved. They believe they are being forced to give up their possessions and their land which they believe is rightfully theirs, having inherited it from their ancestors from time immemorial. They argue that the rights of Indians as a distinct people are recognized according to the treaties they signed with the US, to which they willingly pledge their allegiance. Their big question is if the Indians were only tenants at will, then what was the need of the white settlers obtaining their consent before legally claiming possession of the land (Niles, nd). Similar view are held by the North American Review (1830), which argues that, by accepting the set limits, the white settlers acknowledged the title of the Indians to all lands not purchased from them.

Also, the United States intercourse laws outlawed any encroachment upon their territory (Niles, nd). Moreover, there is no guarantee that such a removal of the Indians would not occur in future on the same grounds (Duff-Green, 1834). Above all, the Supreme Courts ruling that the Indians should not be subject to the laws of the state of Georgia overrides every other argument (Supreme Court, 1832).

In conclusion, arguments by the side supporting the removal of Indians look convincing, at first, until one gets to see the matter in the perspective of those opposed to the same. This is quite a sensitive issue. By the settlers claiming that because the Indians did not extensively use the land for cultivation they could not claim its ownership, they were disregarding the importance of the Indians way of life. The Indians, having inherited the land from their ancestors, had used the land to obtain the basic needs, no matter how uncivilized they might have looked to the settlers. Moreover, if the settlers had befriended the Indians in order to obtain right to portions of the land and signed treaties stipulating their extent of ownership and use of the land, then how can they then later on have the right to impose laws upon the Indians, laws that the Indians deem unjust The removal of the Indians therefore, does not seem to be justified, and they have every right to fear that they might also be removed from the lands they are being asked to move to in future under similar circumstances.

Cold War was a period after the Second World War which extended for over forty year after the war. The protagonists of the war were the United States and the Soviet Union. As the name suggests, the two superpowers avoided direct confrontations and maintained some balance between them later to be known as dtente but still were engaged in indirect conflicts whereby they participated in conflicts in different parts of the world by sponsoring andor backing opposite sides in the conflicts. Words were also used as weapons whereby threats were issued from each side. Words were also used to make one side look foolish during the conflict. The Cold War era persisted even as the leadership of these great nations of the world changed. The Cold War characterized most part of the second half of the 20th century and was synonymous with various events that happened in the world during this time. Such events include the arms race between the two superpowers and the conflicting foreign policies adopted by the two parties. The Cold War impacted on virtually all aspects of life including politics, social and economics.

This paper shall take a look at how the Cold War influenced the shaping of Americas economic recovery during the 1950s.

The Cold War
During the Second World War, the Soviet Union had been seen as an ally of the Western democracies in the fight against the Axis formed by the Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Japan. As the Second World War was about to conclude, the future of the Eastern Europe became contentious between the Soviet Union and the Western Allies. In the perspective of the Soviet Union, it was seen that since the Soviet Union had been invaded from Eastern Europe with some countries from this region actively participating in the invasion, the Soviet Union was determined to have it as its area of influence.

Through this, the Soviet Union would install friendly regimes in these countries. This strategy was seen as meant for the protection of its European borders from future invasions. The Soviet regime was communist and this meant that communist regimes would be installed in the Eastern European countries. The Red Army was engaged in the liberation of the countries in Eastern Europe and this meant that the Soviet Union was better positioned to influence the type of government that would come in place after the war.

In the mind of the Soviet Union, an agreement was struck between them and the Western powers in regard to the Eastern Europe being an area of influence of the Soviet Union. Thus the Soviet Union would be able to dominate in this region without raising eyebrows amongst the Western democracies.

In the year 1945, the leader of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin, announced that freely elected governments in Poland, Czechoslovakia amongst other Eastern European countries would be seen as being anti-Soviet Union and that this was not going to be allowed. In the year 1946, the British premier, Winston Churchill claimed that an iron curtain had descended across the continent in reference to the rising communist influence in Eastern Europe. The Cold War emerged from the political struggles witnessed in Eastern Europe between the Soviet Union and the Western Allies. By the year 1948, the Soviet Union had managed to install communist regimes in Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Czechoslovakia.

The United States and its allies were determined to stop the activities of the Soviet Union which included the spread of communism and its influence in the world. Though the Western allies and the United States were unable to stop the influence of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, they looked determined to stop the influence of the Soviet Union in the Western part of Europe. During the period of the Second World War, communist parties in Western Europe had made substantial gains in popularity following their resistance to the Nazi occupation. In France and Italy in particular, the communist parties stood a realistic chance of being elected. However, Britain and the United States would not allow the spread of communism to go this far.

Historiography
There have been different and often conflicting explanations describing the causes of the Cold War and its duration. These explanations are in most instances grounded in deep, if unacknowledged ideological and philosophical differences. Those defending the United States policies insist that the Cold War was as a result of the expansion and ideological maneuvers of the Soviet Union whereas the critics attribute the Cold War to the expansionist of the US policies which also played part in the development of the scenario. These policies were responsible for starting and sustaining the war for such a long time.

Revisionists for instance cite the long American economical expansionism history and argue that both the economic interests and ideological beliefs played a pivotal role in shaping the United States policies which precipitated and sustained the War. Others have argued that the Cold War was in part as a result of the United States obsession with national security that incorporated global concerns which had emerged in the period after the Second World War. In this regard, the United States was determined not to allow any country or coalition of countries to dominate the world especially Europe and Asia. This was meant to ensure that the United States enjoyed the dominance monopoly ensuring that it fashioned an international economic environment that was open to the United States foreign trade and investment policies, and also to bring on board the developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America integrating them in the global economy. It is argued that such expansion missions of the United States were in conflict with the Soviet Unions concern for its own security.

The influence of the Soviet Unions foreign policies is contestable owing to the fact that there is little information on the same available for analysis. Many scholars however see the leadership of the communist Soviet Union as of persistent ideologues and expansionists whereas others pose questions regarding the long-assumed relations between the Soviet Unions repressive internal policies and the foreign policy adopted by the Soviet Union. Bureaucratic differences found in the Soviet decision making elite and the security concerns that were a major area of interest for the Soviet Union are instead highlighted. There is an agreement by most scholars that the major objective of the Soviet in the Cold war was to maintain and safeguard against futuristic aggression from Germany which included securing borders and some form of a buffer zone in Eastern Europe. Other objectives included building up Soviet Union industrial base and maintaining a powerful military in the region. These objectives advanced by the Soviet Union clashed with the Western interests in terms of ideals, economy, and security requirements.

Balance of Power
During the Cold War period, the power distribution in the world impacted on the way each of the Cold War parties perceived their national interests which as a consequent shaped their actions. By the year 1939, the great powers in the world included Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan, the United States and the Soviet Union. However, by the year 1945, the United States looked distinct having magnified its power in respect to its mobilization during the Second World War, destruction of the other rivals and the exhaustion of the allies during the War. This follows that by the end of the war the United States emerged as the only nation with a powerful navy and air-force, and also enjoyed monopoly of atomic weapons, and was in control of almost half of the manufacturing capacity of the world. The United States also had extensive oil reserves domestically and also had control of vast oil fields in the Latin Americas and the Middle East.

The balance of power during the Cold War was in favor of the United States as it was not devastated by the war more like the other participating nations. It has been argued that irrespective of a surge in the military power of the Soviet Union in the 1970s and an economic turn down witnessed in the United States economic trend in the 70s, the distribution of power in the world always remained skewed against the Soviet Union in the period of the Cold War. There is an argument that if the definition of power could be factoring elements like popular support, industrial infrastructure, skilled labor, and technological advancement, then bipolarity could only be identified in the post war era in the military senses to be precise. In the wake of reality, the Soviet Union is said to have been an inconclusive superpower during the Cold War era. The imbalance is well defined when the Western alliance is drawn in comparison to the Soviet Bloc.

Cold War an Ideological Conflict
There is no doubt that the Cold War was what can be defined as a political, social, economic, and militaristic strategy phenomenon that characterized the world after the Second World War. The war was often determined by the ideological underpinnings that were defined by the alignments to the contesting regimes in the world. After the Nazi had invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, it marked the end of the Soviet-Nazi alliance and World War II pitted the axis against the Alliance of the United States, Britain and the communist Soviet Union. The Germans were defeated and a fault line in the international relations within the Alliance emerged. The odds were now against the leftist Soviet Union and this reflected on the groundwork for the emergence of the superpower tension that was to grace the post war era

The 1930 Depression and the World War II had built upon the existing social and political differences and had generated popular demands for economical reforms. Of the Western powers, it is only the United States which did not shift towards the leftist tendencies in the years after the Second World War. It should however be noted that though the Republican Party was able to gain control of both houses of the Congress, the New Deal could not be rolled back. Though the Western economies had to endure periods of stagnation and conspicuous inequities, they experienced unprecedented economic growth in the late 1940s all the way to the opening years of the 1970s. After this period, most were able to function efficiently enabling them to sustain the military power, open up an expansion benefit in the welfare state and also legitimize their political and economical institutions.

The success of the Western economies in this period meant that the failures of the pre-war capitalism had been addressed and that anti-capitalistic tendencies had been undercut through the support of the moderate elites who were able to associate their prosperity with that of the United States thereby sustaining the cohesion of the Western Alliance. The defeat of the extreme right that was being advanced by the axis during the Second World War ensured divisions in the non-communist countries. This was responsible for the facilitation at least in Western Europe and Japan of the emergence of a welfare state capitalism and alignment with the United States. The Cold War also justified the repressive treatment directed towards indigenous communists among other radical groups that had emerged in the name of national security.

It has to be noted that the Soviet Union had entered the post war era having won massive esteem following the part it had played in defeating the Nazi German. To the Soviet Union, triumph in the war had meant that the Communist Party was consolidated and this was reflected in the way communist parties in Europe and around the world gained popularity. In France, Italy, Greece, China, and Vietnam among other countries, communist parties together with their allies were destined to take power. In the Third World, the Soviet Unions model for rapid economical transition from agrarian society to an industrialized society looked more appealing. However, the appeal for communism begun to decline as the Cold War progressed.

The World Economy
The Cold Wars effects boiled down to the economic status of the world. The transnational ideological conflict was intimately linked to the national economical development and the evolving global economy. Economic transformation reorganized power relations amongst and also within nations. The reconstruction, reform, and relative resilience of the capitalistic system were in sharp contrast with the communist approach to economy. Capitalism which found itself on the defensive due to its association with the Great Depression of the 1930s and the fascism made a come back in the period after the Second World War. The economic packages developed by the United States including the Marshall Plan did support the reconstruction of the Western Europe economy and Japan, and also aided in the promotion of the European economical integration. Renewed capitalism was also responsible for the forging of a stable global financial order during the Bretton Woods Conference in the year 1944 and also through the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) which encouraged the lowering of and the scraping of other obstructions to the free-flow of goods and capital. These aspects coupled by the increasing military spending levels helped in the sustenance of the period of economic growth.

Though the domination of the United States in the world with respect to technology and finance was to reduce over time, the vigor of West German and Japanese economies coupled by the emergence of new economies with a western orientation like Taiwan and the South Korea were vital for the supremacy of the western economy. There were difficulties faced by the Western economies especially the energy crisis of the 1970s but the communist Soviet Union failed to gain a lasting advantage from it. The Soviet Union also had its share of misfortunes in the economy. The roots of the misfortunes in the Soviet Union economy can be traced back to the 1920s with the Stalinist system, militaristic competition with the United States and China which forced the Soviet Union to devote most of the gross national product to the defense leaving economic development in shambles.

American Economy
In the United States, the Second World War and the Great Depression are the most recognizable economic events of the 20th century. The impacts of the war were definitely adverse and far reaching. The Second World War was in itself a decisive end to the Great Depression. It is argued that the federal government emerged from the war as a potential economic actor with the capability of regulating economic activities and at the same time able to partly have control of the economy via expenditure and consumption. The American industrial capability was revitalized during the war period and most sectors of the industries were oriented war activities. Thus, some were sharply oriented towards the production of defense gadgets whereas others were depended on the war. There was organization of the labor movements which gained strength from the war and offered a counterbalance to both the government and the private sector.

The war period had been characterized by a growth in scientific and technological innovations leaving a lasting expectation of innovativeness among many scientists, engineers, citizens and government officials. Also it can be argued that the significant rise in income amongst Americans and the subsequent rise in the quality of life in the War period left many citizens expecting permanent upgrading in regard to their material circumstances even at the time when fear of the return of the depression engulfed many people across the world. The Second World War had caused devastating damages to all leading world economies with the exception of the United States. This meant that the United States was destined to enjoy unmatched economic and political prowess after the war.

The Great Depression and World War II
During the 1930s, the world economies were faced with recession and the period came to be known as the Great Depression. In this decade, individuals were forced to live in abject poverty characterized with desperation for the basic human wants including food, shelter and clothing. The depression affected the American economy greatly and by 1933, one out four Americans was unemployed. By 1941, the unemployment rate had fallen to just below 10 percent. This was before the food stamp program and the unemployment insurance were put in place. The government had few policies that were designed to aid the less fortunate members of the society. It has to be observed that during this period, most women were not in employment and therefore in case the men husbands lost their jobs, the household was destined to suffer a great deal. America was not the only country to bear the consequences of the Great Depression as many other major economies of the world at the time also felt the bite of the depression. The Second World War initiated by the Nazi Germany found most economies still struggling with the impacts of the Depression.

The World War II can be said to have got its roots from the Great Depression which was an economical upheaval that caused destabilization in most governments, economics, and the  across the world. In Germany which was the epicenter for the Second World War, Hitler with his Nazi Party gained fame because Hitler promised to have the capability of reforming and transforming the weaker Germany economy to make it a stronger militaristic and efficient economic power able to control its own destiny both in Europe and the world at large. In the United States, President Franklin Roosevelt delivered promises on how he would enact the New Deal meant for the reconstruction of the American capitalistic society and governance on a new basis. As the years went by, the New Deal advanced by Roosevelt was only able to mitigate some of the impacts of the Great Depression but not to end the economic crisis that had been caused. In the year 1939, the Second World War begun in Europe with the Germany invasion of Poland, a time when indicators continued to point to the fact that the United States was still suffering from the impacts of the depression. For instance, it is argued that in the years after 1929, the gross domestic product of the United States was on a decline for four consecutive years before steadily and haltingly climbing back to the 1929 level which only came to be exceeded in 1936.

The Government Role in 1950s
The 1950s is considered as the socially most exciting decade in American history. This period was characterized by baby boom in the United States as the population surge was witnessed during this time. In the previous decade, most men had been busy participating in the War and women had moved to take up jobs in the industries. During the 1950s, unemployment rate and inflation was relatively low.

At this time, women still kept their careers despite the fact that the war had ended. This is well reflected in the Economic Report of the President covering the 1950s decade. The report revealed that women employment had risen close to 20 . The living standard was also on a steady rise during this time. The United States was on the move and the people were moving from the countryside to the cities then to suburbs. This was attributed partly to the ease of owning a home through the Veteran Administration and Federal Housing Administration mortgages provided by the government. Since most individuals had begun raising a family, it meant that households would prefer moving from a single bedroom apartment to owning a home of their own. There was an upsurge in the population during the 1950s which was attributed to most young couples settling down to start family life.

Politically, the United States political views were centered on communist threat, corruption, and the Koreas. Though there was some influence from the social and economic aspects, the United States was driven by the urge to continue dominating the world. The American public was more concerned with the national security concerns and the governance of Presidents Truman and Eisenhower based their policy framework on taking the required steps to bring an assurance to the populace that the United States would hold onto its dominance and democratic tenets. President Harry S. Truman was behind the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, and the NATO formation in an effort to stimulate economic recovery in the war-torn Western Europe at the same time ensuring the protection of the Western Allies. The three actions by the Truman administration was meant to stop the spread of communism.

In the 1950s, the Korean War broke where the South Koreans were attacked by the Communist North. The Truman administration committed the United States forces in June of 1950 and a long battle for the control of the Korean Peninsula ensued. Truman however was able to control the War to avoid a major conflict with China and possibly the Soviet Union. Domestically, President Truman introduced the loyalty program which greatly changed national priorities whereby emphasis was put on the security issues. In this program, the political beliefs and associations of any federal employee was to be reviewed by the established Loyalty Review Board. This lent legitimacy to the future McCarthyism observations through the induction of paranoia without foundation.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower assumed office in the year 1953 and managed to negotiate a truce with North Korea which culminated in the ending of the War by the establishment of the 38th Parallel. During this time, the fear of communist subversion inside the United States came to be known as McCarthyism. Ever since the onset of the Cold War, there had been widespread fear of emissaries, saboteurs, and security risks as presented in the various reports by the House Un-American Activities Committee and also by the arrests made by the FBI. The Republican Senator by the name Joseph R. McCarthy enhanced the public suspicions and fears by arguing that the Department of State was knowingly involved in the harboring of the communists disguised as federal employees. McCarthyism was an unfounded theory as it failed to provide any evidence of the alleged claims but still was able to dent President Eisenhowers credibility. Nevertheless, the Cold War was a top priority of the Eisenhower administration during this time. The President commented on the world of turmoil that was created by the calculated pressures of communism when addressing the state of the Union for the first time.  This statement provided an insight in what would be the Presidents foreign policy framework and also the strategy to be adopted during this period.

He was cautious not to endanger the American economy but still determined to address the threat presented by the Soviet Union. He therefore relied heavily on the building of the nuclear weapons in the hope that the thought of a possible nuclear devastation would be enough to slow down the communism from spreading. In the year 1955, he revealed the Open Sky policy which demanded that both the Soviet Union and the United States open up their skies to enable aerial inspection, exchanging of charts on military facilities, and have an agreement on regulations to conduct surveillance flights. The Soviet Union was however not ready to embrace this policy as it regarded it as a form of espionage. The launch of the Sputnik satellite by the Soviet Union in the year 1957 was regarded as a major concern for the United States security. The anxiety that followed led to an increase in space research amongst the Americans resulting in the launch of the Exploration in the year 1958. During the same year, President Eisenhower signed a bill that established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) though he appeared reluctant to relinquish the Pentagons control on matters to do with the space research and instruction.

Before he left office, President Eisenhower issued a warning regarding the future trends and the dangers associated with the garrison state. He observed that the incident of a strong military establishment and an enormous arms industry was a relatively new concept to the American people. He was of the view that the government was to ensure that acquiring of the unnecessary influence irrespective of whether it was sought after or not was to be guarded by what he referred to as the military-industrial complex. Eisenhower was afraid that the military-industrial complex was threatening to extremely develop and consume the national resources. He warned that the American government and people were supposed to avoid plundering the available resources impulsively with little regard for the future.

The economy during the 1950s was rather stable when compared to the previous years which were characterized by instability of the economy. The economic success of the 1950s can be attributed to the lack of major events which could have caused major problems and breakthroughs for the economy. The steady growth of the economy saw the United States achieve the peak of economic development during the 1960s. There were two major inflations which characterized the American economy during the 1950s. The first one was after the Second World War followed by another on the onset of the Korean War. After the World War II, there was an expectation of collapse in the American economy only for the recession to hit during 1948 and lasted up to mid of 1950s. The Federal Reserve Board is claimed to have played a crucial part in the inflationary conditions experienced during the 1950s. Its policies were reliant on the general quantitative devices of credit control which included open market operations, discount rates, and alterations in the reserve quotients. The quantitative devices were used vigorously by the board to respond to the various recessions and economic meltdowns with the hope curb the resultant inflations.

The two Presidents of this era, Truman and Eisenhower, shared a common view in regard to political economy. Though Truman advocated for the use of federal funding in rejuvenation of the sluggish economy, they were both opposed to budget deficits due to the dangers associated by inflation.

Eisenhowers administration believed in taking a financial responsibility in the sense that the government was to be responsible for the stimulation of the economic growth aimed at raising production without singling out one interest group for benefits. Eisenhower viewed unbalanced budget as promoting inflation which was responsible for increasing domestic problems. In 1953, when Eisenhower assumed office, there was a mild recession in the United States prompted by the Korean armistices sharp military cutback. Eisenhower was determined to bring down the federal spending which resulted in substantial reductions in proposals that had been advanced by the Trumans administration. Apart from the political developments, other developments in the business sector occurred during the 1950s. There was an increase in the housing supply with improved quality. The movement of individuals from the cities to suburbs was the main feature of the new constructions and the rise in the health and living standards. During the 1950s, there was unprecedented growth in the economy leading to the prosperity of other financial intermediaries including the Insurance companies and private firms which emerged to absorb the extra personal savings. Towards the end of the 1950s decade, the economy recorded a sharp downfall. This begun in the summer of 1957 reaching its lowest ebb in the spring of 1958 as various sectors of the economy recorded plummeting growth. The industrial production recorded close to 15 fall, corporate profits fell by 25, whereas the unemployment rate recorded an increase to slightly above 7.

The rise of the concept of rights
During the 1950s, Americans became conscious of their rights as elaborated by the activities that took place during this period in time. The creation of the GI Bill of Rights meant that the United States was on the verge of civil rights movement during this period. It must be noted that the Supreme Court ruling on the Brown v. Topeka Board of Education aimed at desegregating the American school system. This resulted in an upsurge in the number of school enrollment of the African American children. It is no doubt that the 1950s saw the number of college students more than doubling as accessibility to education was no longer a preserve of the few. During the 1950s, it must also be noted that Martin Luther King Junior was emerging as the front bearer of the civil rights movement when he led the 1955 boycott of city buses in Montgomery, Alabama for a period exceeding fifty weeks. Despite the ruling by the Supreme Court on the Brown v. Board of Education, in the year 1957, federal troops were deployed to oversee the integration of students at Little Rock High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.
The American President Dwight Eisenhower emphasized on the importance of integration where both the whites and the blacks would be seen as equal citizens with equal access to opportunities. Though he reiterated his commitment to the attainment of equality among Americans, his actions were in reverse of what he proclaimed. In a speech delivered to the leadership of the black people in the United States, Eisenhower was categorical that though he was more anxious like no other individual to foresee the Blacks being treated as equal citizens they had to be patient.

The evolution of the democratic and capitalistic nation
A capitalist society is that in which there is an economic system which is free of influence from the government. In a capitalistic society, the means of production are privately owned and market forces are the major determinants of the market trends. The Western societies believed that the free market idea in a capitalistic society would lead to absolute individual freedom. In democratic capitalism, it is usually held that the commercial sector should engage in the creation of wealth and rising of the living standards whereas the role of the government should be restricted to regulation and reinforcement of a level playing ground. The evolution of a democratic and capitalistic nation can be traced back to the Cold War era where it was feared that the communist spread was gaining momentum after the completion of the Second World War.

The expansion of the Communist meant that the areas affected adopted the socialist policies which looked a threat to the capitalism form of economy advanced by the United States and its Western allies. In the period of the Cold War, the Soviet Union created a socialist economy in East Germany and other satellite states found in Eastern Europe including Poland, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia among others. According to the Soviet Union, the causes of the Cold War were blamed on the United States with its monopolistic capitalist tendencies. It was argued that the West was out to frustrate the unstoppable humanity movement towards ultimate socialism with their capitalistic nature. According to Allan H. Meltzer, capitalism is said to have spread over the years to cover most of the world economies today. He claims that the spread of capitalism had to endure threats and hostilities from the communist regimes. Communism was criticized capitalism basing on the inequality in the income distribution as generated by the market system.

In a democratic capitalism, people do not and are not required to limit the collective action in the provision of public goods such as security matters. It therefore does not make a clear distinction between private and public responsibility and authority. The people however may be allowed to democratically participate in increasing or reducing the governments involvement in the particular matters. The people can therefore vote a government which emphasizes on the income redistribution which may be achieved in two ways. One is the format which allows for economic growth being achieved through lowering of tax rates and little government regulation whereas the other carries out the redistribution of the incomes with an expanded government role.

The state and the democracy
As much as the two concepts looks related, they are very distinct in nature. In political terms, a State can be defined as a sovereign political entity responsible for running the governance issues within its jurisdiction independently. The term is often used to refer to a country. The state therefore does not provide for a particular form of government for it generally refers to a self-governing entity. Thus a State can be democratic, dictatorial, and theocratic or governed by any other form of government. A democracy on the other hand is a political model of governance which allows for the peoples participation. A democratic government therefore rules with the mandate of the majority having been put in office through an electoral system. Democracy is thus a form of government in which the constitution is established to guarantee the fundamental individual and political rights, fair and free elections, and independence of the judiciary.

Conclusion
The Cold War was a period that was characterized by many events in the world as the two superpowers struggled for the dominance and recognition in the globe. During this period, there was great tension that gripped the world especially with the threat of nuclear war precipitated by the atomic bomb technologies advanced by these great nations. In the 1950s however, the United States having been fresh from a major war embarked on economic vibrancy while at the same time enhancing the containment of the Soviet Union in its mission to spread Communism. The United States having emerged from the War as the only stronger economy compared to its competitors was determined to use its influence to curb the spread of the Communism across the globe. Europe became the epicenter for the competition between the capitalist and democratic West and the Communist Soviet Union.