Cold War Research Topics
Honors
Below you will find a list of topics that you will have to research. No need to worry as I will
assign topics by rows. Once your topic is assigned, begin your research. After researching pick a
side and defend your point of view. Do not cite someone else’s work in your essay body more
than four times. You must also use footnotes at the bottom. Instead of citing this work and using
the author’s last name in parenthesis you will direct the reader to the bottom of the page. 1 At the
end of your stapled packet you will have a bibliography (see below bibliography sample) that will
include all of the information required to locate the source used. The topics will require research
until you are able to develop an opinion.
Approved Sources: Due to budget cuts JSTOR is no longer available. Therefore, you should use
EBSCO and Proquest’s historical newspaper search only. One source could be Internet but
referenced once in essay body. Thus in your bibliography section have at least one source from
EBSCO, Proquest, your website (not wikipedia) and a book. I will even let you cite your textbook
or any source from class. Keep in mind research is a search for that sentence that will support
your thesis.
Footnotes Confusion: Go to Monmouth.edu (Monmouth University website) and search
writing
tips.
The
first
result
should
be
a
PDF
file
www.monmouth.edu/academics/dha/DeptStyleGuide.pdf
Good Luck!
2-Thesis-underlined and developed
2-Opening: Makes indirect connections to content in essay and/or sets tone for essay using historic foundation
1-Closing-follows writing tips format
8-Defends and supports argument, use of quotes, deductions for errors and missed opportunities
4-Convince-Not looking for you to change my opinion but at the end of your essay do you have a well supported structured essay?
5-Footnotes and bibliography accuracy
6-Flow of essay, one thought, drops the ball, clarity
2-Transitions from ending to new paragraphs
TOPICS
Due Date 1
1. US nuclear monopoly
2. Iron Curtain Speech and Truman Doctrine
3. Division of Berlin
4. Communist Manifesto
5. China Falls
Due Date 2
6. NSC 68
7. Wise Men and Containment
8. WWII links to Cold War
9. 911 and Cold War
10. Masaryk assassination
11. COMECON and Warsaw Pact
12. Cold War movies Red Dawn, Dr. Strangelove and Day After
13. Cold War posters
1
Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson, Passchendaele: The Untold Story (New Haven: Yale Nota Bene, 2002),
page 186.
Due Date 3
14. Military Industrial Complex
15. US and Libyan relationship (Pan Am 103 and Labelle)
16. Charlie Wilson
17. Game Theory
18. M.A.D
19. Détente
20. Comparing Afghanistan to Vietnam
21. McCarthyism
Due Date 4
22. Atlantic Charter inspires nationalists in colonized areas to demand ideals mentioned in the
document. How did the Cold War halt or progress these movements? Use Kwame Nkrumah from
Ghana as your nationalist.
23. Defend Ho Chi Minh as a nationalist or communist.
24. RAND Corporation and the Cold War
25. A.Q. Khan, Pakistan, The Soviet-Afghan War and the indirect links to 9/11. The US fight
against communism was more important than helping Pakistan get the bomb. Deception by
Adrian Levy & Catherine Scott Clarke.
26. -The Cold War was fought in the “Third World.” The Global Cold War by Odd Arne
Westad.
27. Korean War
28. Cold War at home
29. Did Reagan end the Cold War?
30. Berlin Wall falls