Well done.

So, that was it!

Well done for your hard word across the year, and fingers crossed for the results. I'll see you for the history social.

I've had a lovely year working with you and I wish you all the best of luck in the future.

Ed.

Homework!

Here's a link to the factors in the thaw that we discussed today. Your homework is to use the Phillips textbook page 148-152 to note down some facts that back up the points made in your earlier notes, or in the notes that I made today.

Here's a link about writing Essay Question Answers

Take a look at this for help with your essay.

Here's a link about writing document answers for the A2 course

Best Comment!

leanne said...

"It was no coincidence that Marxism, which had smoldered ineffectively for half a century in Western Europe, caught hold and blazed for first time in Russia."

In his Long Telegram, I think that Kennan was striving to make the Soviets look as unstable as he possibly could in order to evoke fear and mistrust of them in the US. By likening Marxism to fire, how it 'smouldered ineffectively' in the West and 'blazed' in the USSR, he is highlighting the danger of the idealism and how it may easily become uncontrollable (like fire) and spread to the West. Kennan has utilised this metaphor as a warning of communist influences for the American govt.

Lesson 4 and 5 - Why did Kennan's interpretation take hold in Washington?

In these lessons we read a lot!

Firstly we looked at an extract from Kennan's long telegram. We discussed and made s notes on the tricks or techniques that Kennan used in order to make his interpretation more convincing. We did this by looking at the language that Kennan used. We also considered other factors why this interpretation took hold:

• Domestic Pressures on Truman
• Truman's lack of foreign policy experience
• Truman's own opinion of communism
• The atomic bomb.

Look carefully at this excerpt from the telegram you've been given for today's lesson and post a comment that illustrates a linguistic technique you've found in Kennan's interpretation that makes this view a more convincing one.

You'll find more information at the following sites:

John D Clare's Website on the Long Telegram;
Wikipedia Article on the Mr X article and the Long Telegram
Guardian Obituary about George Kennan; and
Google Websearch about "Long Telegram".

Have fun, and a good holiday.

Mr P.

Lesson 2 and 3 - Domestic Pressures on American Policy makers

We've looked very carefully at the attitudes of Truman and the shift in policy after the death of Roosevelt. Truman's changes didn't come about in a vacuum though. We therefore need to understand the social factors that affected this change of views.

To this end we've been making notes and discussing the following factors:

• House Un-American Activites Committee (HUAC)
• McCarthyism
• Loyalt Oaths
• The Red Scare; and
• Right wing pressure groups

And you've made some links between these factors and some of the other things we've already discussed.