AP U.S. History · Summary

Unit 8 summary

1. Containment meant stopping the spread of communism, not rolling it back; it explains the Marshall Plan, NATO, Korea and the road into Vietnam.
2. The Cold War changed life at home: loyalty checks and McCarthyism, new federal spending on defense and science, and pressure to end segregation.
3. Civil rights gains came from courts, protest and Congress together; Brown ended separate but equal in schools, and the 1964 and 1965 acts enforced equal rights.
4. The Great Society used federal power against poverty, created Medicare and Medicaid, and ended the national-origins immigration quotas.
5. Vietnam, Watergate and stagflation weakened trust in government, and Congress moved to check presidential war power.
6. Backlash against busing, taxes and court rulings fed a new conservative movement, centered in the growing Sunbelt.