Foreign Policy History

Learn US Foreign Policy using Online Video

Use these 4 online educational video titles to chart the United States' growing involvement in world affairs from the 1930s to the Kennedy Administration. Explore the nation's retreat into isolationism during the Great Depression, and its return to a world leadership role during and after World War 2. Discover why the U.S. pursued a new goal during the cold war: the containment of communism throughout the world.

Learning Objectives:

• Trace the course of U.S. foreign policy from the nation's isolationism during the depression era to the administration of John F. Kennedy, the first American president to focus entirely on foreign affairs in the Inaugural Address.
• Survey the events leading to U.S. involvement in World War 2.
• Examine the world leadership role exercised by the United States in the aftermath of World War 2, including the implications of atomic power, the motives and impact of the Marshall Plan, and American involvement in NATO and the Korean War.
• Understand the origins and far-reaching implications of the cold war, and the policies by which the United States sought to contain communism and maintain a balance of power with the Soviet Union.

• History > American History > US Foreign Policy 1933 1963
• The Gathering Storm 1933-1941 (Runtime: 16:49)
• World War 2 1941-1945 (Runtime: 12:07)
• The Burden of Responsibility 1945-1953 (Runtime: 13:18)
• Uneasy Coexistence 1953-1963 (Runtime: 14:27)