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Playlist U.S. History: 1945 – 1980 10 videos

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AP U.S. History 1.1 Period 8: 1945-1980
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In this AP U.S. History question read the excerpt and determine how it reflects on conceptual shifts in American Foreign Policy.  AP U.S. His...

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AP U.S. History 1.2 Period 8: 1945-1980
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AP U.S. History 1.3 Period 8: 1945-1980
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AP U.S. History: Urban Society in 19th Century Drill 1, Problem 1. In this AP U.S. History question figure out how the cutoff of oil in Americ...

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AP U.S. History 1.1 Period 8: 1945-1980 252 Views


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Description:

In this AP U.S. History question read the excerpt and determine how it reflects on conceptual shifts in American Foreign Policy. 


Transcript

00:00

[ musical flourish ]

00:04

And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by a healthy democracy,

00:08

government with a balanced diet.

00:10

First up, the excerpt.

00:12

I want you! I want you!

00:16

Okay, and the question.

00:18

The excerpt reflects which of the following conceptual shifts

00:22

in American foreign policy?

00:24

And here are your potential answers.

00:25

[ mumbles ]

00:29

All right.

00:30

What kind of "conceptual shift"

00:33

does the excerpt describe?

00:35

Well, we see that Truman says the U.S. must

00:37

"supervise the use of funds made available to Greece"

00:42

and make sure that foreign aid will

00:43

"help to build an economy in which a healthy democracy

00:48

can flourish." Got it?

00:50

So, basically, Truman wanted to make sure we got the right

00:52

ideological bang for our buck.

00:55

So let's see which answer best describes

00:57

Truman's new POV, or point of view.

01:00

Was the conceptual shift in American foreign policy

01:03

A - assuming a greater role in providing aid to all countries

01:06

involved in World War II?

01:08

Well, all the countries in World War II? Are you kidding?

01:10

Americans are generous but not that generous.

01:12

The aid Truman describes was only made available to Greece and Turkey,

01:16

so either American diplomats had a thing for Mediterranean food -

01:20

it's actually awesome - or something else was going on.

01:23

That knocks out A. Was the change in foreign policy

01:26

C - insisting that aid recipients be self-supporting?

01:30

Hmm? Well, Truman and his advisors certainly hoped

01:33

these countries would eventually be self-supporting,

01:36

but that condition was never a motivating force for the aid.

01:39

More like a nice-to-have situation. Cross out C.

01:43

All right. Could the shift in foreign policy have been D -

01:46

focusing almost exclusively on Western European nations? Huh.

01:51

Well, take a look at Europe right here. See Greece? Yeah.

01:54

It's always been on the edge here.

01:56

We're in Southern, maybe even Eastern Europe,

01:59

not Western Europe. Definitely off that map. So cross out D.

02:03

That means the conceptual shift in American foreign policy was

02:06

B - adopting a strategy of containment

02:08

for countries susceptible to that evil disease, communism.

02:12

Well, that's right. It was the spread of communism,

02:15

not Mediterranean food, unfortunately,

02:17

that had diplomats all aflutter.

02:19

At the end of World War II, American politicians were worried

02:22

that the Soviet Union (Russia)

02:24

would persuade other countries to align with the Soviet Bloc

02:27

so the U.S. offered carrots in the form of cash money to keep people on our side.

02:32

So B is the correct answer.

02:34

This foreign aid, though, came with lots of restrictions, including

02:37

how the economy and governments could conduct their business.

02:41

So much for those gifts that have no strings attached. Yeah.

02:45

[ scissors snip ]

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