Unit 9 · Cold War and Contemporary Europe

Consumerism ● (core concept) — The growing economic and cultural importance of consumer goods, stimulated by Marshall Plan–financed postwar growth.

Economic miracle ● (core concept) — The extended period of growth in Western and Central Europe financed by Marshall Plan funds, which increased the economic and cultural importance of consumerism.

Marshall Plan ● (core concept) — The U.S. program funding Western Europe's postwar economic recovery.

Korean War ○ — The U.S.-involved proxy war in Korea; an illustrative example of Cold War conflict.

Arms race ● (core concept) — The U.S.-Soviet competition to build superior nuclear arsenals.

Cold War ● (core concept) — The post-1945 political and ideological standoff between the U.S.-led West and Soviet-led East.

Iron Curtain ● (core concept) — The metaphorical division between communist Eastern and democratic Western Europe.

Nuclear weapons ● (core concept) — Atomic arsenals whose destructive power defined Cold War deterrence.

United Nations ● (core concept) — The international organization founded after World War II to promote peace and cooperation.

Containment ○ — The U.S. policy of preventing the spread of communism; famous but not named in the CED.

Truman Doctrine ○ — The U.S. pledge to aid nations resisting communism; an illustrative example of containment.

COMECON ● (core concept) — The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, the Soviet bloc's economic organization through which the USSR dominated Eastern Europe.

De-Stalinization ● (core concept) — Khrushchev's post-1956 policies moving away from Stalin's rule; their economic failure combined with limits on rights to prompt Eastern European revolts.

NATO ● (core concept) — The Western military alliance formed to deter Soviet aggression.

Nikita Khrushchev ● (core concept) — Soviet leader after 1956 whose de-Stalinization policies failed to meet economic goals, prompting revolts in Eastern Europe that ended with reimposed Soviet rule.

Superpowers ● (core concept) — The United States and Soviet Union, whose rivalry dominated global politics after World War II.

Warsaw Pact ● (core concept) — The Soviet-led military alliance countering NATO.

Cuban Missile Crisis ○ — The U.S.-Soviet confrontation over missiles in Cuba; an illustrative example of Cold War crises.

Space race ○ — The U.S.-Soviet competition in space exploration; an illustrative example of superpower rivalry.

Ethnic cleansing ● (core concept) — The forced removal or murder of ethnic groups, as in the Balkan conflicts following the Cold War.

Welfare state ● (core concept) — Postwar European governments' expansion of social services such as health care and education.

Collapse of the Soviet Union (1991) ● (core concept) — The 1991 dissolution of the USSR, ending the Cold War and its control over Eastern European satellites.

Fall of communism ● (core concept) — The collapse of communist regimes across Eastern Europe at the Cold War's end.

Mikhail Gorbachev ● (core concept) — Soviet leader whose reforms of perestroika and glasnost failed to save the USSR.

Perestroika and glasnost ● (core concept) — Gorbachev's policies of economic restructuring and political openness.

Reunification of Germany ● (core concept) — East and West Germany's reunification following communism's collapse.

Breakup of Czechoslovakia ○ — The peaceful split of Czechs and Slovaks after communism's fall; an illustrative example.

Breakup of Yugoslavia ○ — Yugoslavia's violent dissolution into ethnic states; an illustrative example of post-Cold War ethnic conflict.

Fall of the Berlin Wall ○ — The 1989 opening of the Berlin Wall, symbolizing the collapse of communist control in Eastern Europe; a CED illustrative example.

Feminism ● (core concept) — The movement for women's political, economic, and social equality.

Women's suffrage ● (core concept) — Women's achievement of voting rights — in Western Europe through feminist efforts, in the East through government policy.

Birth control pill ○ — The contraceptive giving women new control over reproduction; an illustrative example.

Margaret Thatcher ○ — Britain's first woman prime minister; an illustrative example of women attaining high office.

Second-wave feminism ○ — The later-20th-century feminist movement; an illustrative example.

Simone de Beauvoir ○ — Influential feminist writer; an illustrative example.

Decolonization ● (core concept) — The process by which Asian and African colonies won independence, often delayed by imperial reluctance and Cold War alignments.

National self-determination ● (core concept) — Wilson's principle that raised colonial expectations of independence after World War I.

Woodrow Wilson ● (core concept) — U.S. president whose Fourteen Points shaped the peace settlement; an illustrative example.

Algeria's National Liberation Front (FLN) ○ — An illustrative example of an anti-colonial nationalist movement.

Ho Chi Minh's Viet Minh ○ — An illustrative example of an anti-colonial nationalist movement.

Indian National Congress ○ — An illustrative example of an indigenous nationalist movement.

European Coal and Steel Community ● (core concept) — The postwar economic alliance pooling French and German coal and steel; the first step toward European integration.

European Economic Community (Common Market) ● (core concept) — The expanded economic union that preceded the European Union.

European identity ● (core concept) — The sense of shared European belonging promoted by integration, coexisting uneasily with national identities.

European integration ● (core concept) — The postwar process of European states pooling sovereignty in transnational economic and political unions.

European Union ● (core concept) — The transnational union of European states pursuing economic and political integration.

National sovereignty and EU membership ● (core concept) — EU members' ongoing balancing of national sovereignty against the responsibilities of union membership.

Brexit ○ — Britain's exit from the EU; an illustrative example of sovereignty debates.

Euro ○ — The EU's common currency; an illustrative example of challenges to national sovereignty.

European Parliament ○ — The EU's elected legislative body; an illustrative example of EU institutions.

Treaty of Maastricht ○ — The treaty formally establishing the European Union; an illustrative example.

Migrant workers ● (core concept) — Workers from southern Europe, Asia, and Africa recruited during the 1950s and 1960s boom, later targets of anti-immigrant agitation after the 1970s downturn.

Postwar immigration to Europe ● (core concept) — Increased immigration into Europe, altering its religious makeup and sparking debate over religion's social role.

Anti-immigration parties ○ — Extreme nationalist parties opposing immigration; illustrative examples include the French National Front.

New medical technologies ○ — Advances such as birth control, fertility treatments, and genetic engineering that extended life but raised moral questions; illustrative examples.

Americanization ● (core concept) — Increased imports of U.S. technology and popular culture after World War II, which generated both enthusiasm and criticism in Europe.

Globalization ● (core concept) — The increasing interconnection of economies and cultures through communication and transportation technologies.

Green parties ● (core concept) — Parties challenging consumerism and urging sustainable development; illustrative examples.

New communication technologies ○ — Telephone, radio, television, computers, and the internet, which multiplied connections and drove globalization; illustrative examples.

Baby boom ● (core concept) — The postwar surge in birth rates, often promoted by government policies.

Civil rights movements (women's, gay and lesbian) ● (core concept) — Movements working for expanded civil rights; illustrative examples.

Consumer culture ● (core concept) — The postwar culture of mass consumption enabled by rising disposable incomes and new technologies.

Existentialism ● (core concept) — The philosophy emphasizing individual freedom and meaning-making in an indifferent world.

Postmodernism ● (core concept) — The post-1945 cultural movement questioning objective truth and traditional standards.

Revolts of 1968 ● (core concept) — Youth uprisings against bourgeois materialism; an illustrative example.

Second Vatican Council ● (core concept) — The Catholic Church council redefining doctrine and relations with other faiths.

Aging populations ○ — Europe's trend toward older populations, straining welfare systems; an illustrative example of demographic trends.

Bauhaus ○ — An illustrative example of new architectural movements.

Cubism ○ — An illustrative example of new 20th-century visual-art movements.

Solidarity ○ — The Polish labor movement illustrating Christian responses to communism.

Surrealism ○ — An illustrative example of new 20th-century visual-art movements.