The Modern World (PASS: 17.1-17.4)

I. Major regional military and political struggles

1. The Korean War
   1. Post-WWII division of the peninsula
   2. Causes of war
   3. Map of North and Map of South
   4. Invasion by the North
   5. US/UN response; landing at Inchon; advance to Yalu under MacArthur
   6. Chinese entry into the war
   7. Stalemate and ceasefire, 1953
   
    
2. The Vietnam War
   1. French efforts to retain colonial control
   2. Division of Vietnam
   3. US support for South Vietnam
   4. Johnson commits US troops, 1965
   5. The Tet Offensive, 1968: effects on US civilian support for the war
   6. Nixon's War; Vietnamization, secret wars in Cambodia and Laos
   7. US withdrawal and the fall of South Vietnam
    
3. The struggle against apartheid in South Africa
   1. The Afrikaner Nationalists impose apartheid
   2. Peaceful protest by the African National Congress
   3. The Sharpeville Massacre, 1963: Nelson Mandela assumes leadership from underground and in prison
   4. Government entrenchment and popular protest, 1963-1990
   5. International opposition in the UN and elsewhere
   6. The Nationalists concede; Mandela elected president
      
    
4. Revolutionary struggles in Central and South America
   1. Communism in Central America: Nicaragua and El Salvador
   2. Political struggles in Chile, Argentina and Brazil
    
5. Wars between India and Pakistan
   1. The 1947 partition of India and Pakistan
   2. 1965 and 1971 conflicts
   3. Nuclear proliferation - India and Pakistan
    
6. The 1991 Gulf War
    
7. The process of European integration

 
II. Politics in the Middle East

1. The creation of Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict
   1. Who has rights to the land?
   2. The Six Day War (1967)
   3. The West Bank and Gaza, and Palestinian opponents of Israeli rule
   4. Environmental factors for conflict
   5. The role of the US
    
2. The oil industry in the Persian Gulf
   1. Wealth brings development and armed escalation
   2. OPEC and the oil embargoes
    
3. The Iran-Iraq War
    
4. The modern peace process
   1. Camp David Accords
   2. Clinton, Rabin and Arafat
   3. Difficulties in building peace

 
III. The Cold War to the collapse of the Soviet Union

1. Causes of the Cold War
   1. Division of Europe
   2. The Polish Question - When Germany and Russia go to war, will Poland remain neutral?
   3. The Iron Curtain: Stalinist policy in satellite states
   4. The Truman Doctrine (established for Greece and Turkey)
   5. The rise of NATO and the Warsaw Pact
    
2. Cold War competition
   1. The Space Race
   2. The Arms Race
   3. Over Berlin and the Third World
   4. The Red Queen Effect
    
3. The Cuban Missile Crisis
   1. Castro's Revolution
   2. The Bay of Pigs
   3. Castro's deal with Khrushchev
   4. JFK's quarantine decision
   5. Resolution of the conflict: success of diplomacy
    
4. Conclusion of the Cold War, 1970-1989
   1. Detente between Nixon and Brezhnev
   2. Cold War resurgence
   3. Gorbachev's reforms: Glasnost and Perestroika, 1985-1991
   4. The fall of Communism in Eastern Europe, 1989
   5. The Moscow Coup, 1991, and the Russian Revolution

 
IV. Modern revolutionary movements

1. The ongoing Chinese Revolution under Mao Zedong and his successors
   1. The Great Leap Forward, 1958-1960
   2. The Cultural Revolution, 1965-1975
   3. The Gang of Four and the death of Mao
   4. Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms
   5. China's economic development
    
2. The Iranian Revolution
   1. The Shah's state, 1954-1979
   2. The 1979 Revolution