Western Society and Eastern Europe in the Decades of the Cold War
Chapter 32 Reading Guide
1. What happened to Europe’s colonies in the years following World War II? Give some examples
from the text.
2. How did the world get divided in the Cold War? How did Germany get split? Which side, East or
West, was more responsible for the start of the Cold War? Why?
3. What were the purposes and outcomes of the Marshall Plan?
4. What was NATO and the Warsaw Pact?
5. How did Western Europe rebuild after the war? What implications did the Cold war have for
Western Europe? What is a welfare state and why did it become popular?
6. How did the Cold War affect the U.S.? What was the Truman Doctrine? The McCarthy Era?
7. Why was the U.S. involved in war in Korea? Vietnam?
8. What was the Cuban missile crisis?
9. In what ways were the opposing sides in the Cold War similar? Different?
10. In what ways did the U.S.S.R. take advantage of its Eastern European neighbors?
11. What were the characteristics of the Communist system?
12. In what ways was the Communist system unable to compete with its capitalist rivals?
13. In what ways did the Communist system have successes?
14. Describe the popular revolts in Eastern Europe and the response of the superpowers to those
revolts
15. How did the U.S.S.R. change after the death of Stalin? Who were the main Soviet leaders and
how did their relationship with the West change?