1.) In what ways did global politics in the years 1945-1960 shape the scientific and technological developments of the period?
2.) Why was the launching of Sputnik in 1957 such a transformative experience in American history? What changes followed and what were the significance of these changes?
3.) How did the emergence of a conflict between two superpowers
with diametrically opposed ideologies after 1945 shape culture outside
the narrow world of international and domestic politics? In other words,
in what ways was the bi-polar logic of the Cold War a driving force throughout
all of American life during these years? In answering this question, think
especially about how the struggle between capitalism and communism shaped
the development of bourgeois capitalist society in America, including its
institutional anchors: the family, the corporation, and the democratic
state.