United States in the 20th Century

1945 TO THE PRESENT

SHORT PAPER #2

Due: Thursday, March 25

See General Guidelines for Short Papers

Documents: NSC-68, the Nixon-Khrushchev Kitchen Debate, President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society Speech, and the Port Huron Statement

Assignment: Write a 3-5 page essay comparing a "free society" as imagined in NSC-68, with Nixon's understanding of a free and democratic society in the Kitchen Debate, Johnson's vision of a "Great Society," and the description of a "democratic society" in the Port Huron Statement.

Guidelines for Excellent Essays

These documents offer important visions of America as a democratic society in the years from 1950 to 1964. The essay places a premium on your ability to read historical texts carefully, analyze their content, and place them in their historical contexts. Lectures will be an important source for framing your analysis. Your essay should be well written and free of proofreading errors. In addition, you will be evaluated on how well you do the following:

• Accurately describe and discuss the different envisioned societies as proposed in the four documents.
• Compare the visions to each other.
• Place the documents and their authors in their historical contexts.
• Think across documents to demonstrate change (or lack thereof) over time.
• Think critically about the visions -- what was the agenda? Who was included/excluded? Why was it written (or why did the event happen in the case of the Kitchen Debate)? What impact did it have? What are the pros and cons of the vision? Was it in any way hypocritical, deceptive, idealistic, etc.?
• Reflect on the difference between those documents aimed at foreign relations and those aimed at domestic relations and the significance of this difference.