Trade bloc

At the conclusion of the Second World War, the tension between America and the Soviet Union are still very much prominent. The intense friction has roots in core values each world power pictured the postwar world would look like. America expressed their perception as basically a loss of nationality globally, and ridding of military alliances. They wanted an organization to govern every country and protect everyone’s right of self-determination. On the other hand, the Soviet Union envisioned the…

After the events of World War II America was almost facing another war. This time with a more familiar enemy, Stalin and the Soviet Union. The two world powers clashed almost resulting in nuclear war. Experts have argued that they were bound to clash due to them being the only world powers at the time. However, the Cold War was started because the actions during World War II, the vague agreements postwar, and the almost nationalistic hatred of communists. During World War II America and Great…

The Berlin Wall stood as a symbol of the Cold War between the United States and Soviet Russia for decades. Ronald Reagan addresses the Berlin Wall’s symbolism of war and conflict and seeks to tear down the Berlin Wall and bring the Cold War to an end. Through his speech, Reagan hopes to bring about the fall of Communism and ultimately unify Germany. Reagan strongly desires the people of Berlin to be safe and free and through his speech he desires to see that come about for all of those people.…

Stasiland is the first book of the author Anna Funder. Funder won a prodigious nonfiction writing award for Stasiland. Funder, born in Australia, currently lives in New York. Previously, Anna Funder was an international lawyer. Anna also worked in Berlin for a German communication production service. Anna Funder amalgamated various sources to present a detailed account of the time period she calls “Stasiland.” Funder used personal accounts as sources. She gathered information from face-to-face…

The Soviet-Afghan War began with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan on December 24, 1979, and ended with the withdrawal of Soviet forces on February 15, 1989. It was a war that had a global impact and indirectly led to the fall of the USSR. Afghanistan in the 50s and 60s, was a country that was beginning to modernize and industrialize with the help of both the Soviet Union and the United States. As animosity grew between the two world superpowers, the U.S. quickly created military ties with the…

On October 27, 1961, the world saw images of US tanks and Soviet tanks pointed at each other across the Berlin wall checkpoint known as Checkpoint Charlie. These images had the world holding its breath, wondering if a war was to begin. Unfortunately, the tensions between East Berlin and West Berlin had been building for years until finally it was forced to come to a head. The confrontation at Checkpoint Charlie was unavoidable because the Soviets had been trying to push the Allies out of Germany…

“Ich bin ein Berliner”: I am a Berliner. This sentence pronounced by John Fitzgerald Kennedy: the President of the United States of America on the 26th day of June in 1963 during his speech in Rathaus Schӧneberg the city hall of West Berlin would shape history. Those words that would later name the speech, may have prevented the Soviet Union from becoming stronger and maybe start a war that would have killed millions of people, those words have encouraged the West Berliners to keep fighting for…

After the Second World War ended tension started to rise between powers of the communist eastern and the democratic western side of Europe in which it was known as the cold war, where by in general it was a period of political and military tension that took place in Europe. Each and every leader had his own role during the cold war including those of who were thought to be giving factors for the birth of the cold war and those of who were thought to be aiming to end the tension, those leaders…

“Harrison Bergeron” is a fictitious story written by Kurt Vonnegut in October of 1961. During the time period in which it was published, the Soviet Union (USSR) was still in power. The Soviet Union was a communist society that used force from “secret police”, whose main objective was to censor the people. The story “Harrison Bergeron” has a similar approach set in a dystopian society in the year 2081. In this society “Everybody was finally equal....Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody…

Nothing is Needed for Something Many people judge their success on how much they have and the material possessions around them; Ernest Hemingway, however, believes people must accept they are nothing to achieve true success and happiness. Nothingness is a difficult concept for many to grasp, but it becomes more clear with age what nothingness means. People also often do not want to accept or believe they are nothing in the world. Most believe they have a specific purpose and are in some way…