The Marshall Plan
First and foremost, a great deal of Europe’s success would not have happened without its initial aid from the United States. After helping destroy so much of the continent, the U.S. pumped billions and billions of dollars back into the European economy through The Marshall Plan. It was named after Secretary of State George C. Marshall, who said “The world of suffering people looks to us for leadership. Their thoughts, however, are not concentrated alone on this problem. They have more immediate and terribly pressing concerns where the mouthful of food will come from, where they will find shelter tonight, and where they will find warmth. Along with the great problem of maintaining the peace we must solve the problem of the pittance of food, of clothing and coal and homes. Neither of these problems can be solved alone. (DeLong)”
In the first two post-World War II years the U.S. contributed through this plan, about four billion dollars a year to relief and reconstruction. The Marshall Plan continued these flows at comparable rates and was a multi-year commitment. From 1948 to 1951, the U.S. contributed $13.2 billion to European recovery. $3.2 billion went to the United Kingdom, $2.7 billion to France, $1.5 billion to Italy, and $1.4 billion to the Western-occupied zones of Germany (DeLong). An astounding $15.5 billion had been provided to Europe before the Marshall plan was enacted (Wegs, 66). The availability of Marshall Plan aid gave European countries a pool of resources that could be used to cushion the wealth losses sustained in restructuring. Countries that received large amounts of money from the Marshall Plan invested more. Countries could buy the amounts of coal, cotton and petroleum needed (all of these were in short supply) when needed because of Marshall Plan aid. Great Britain used the Marshall Plan aid to retire public debt (DeLong).
The Marshall Plan did have strings attached however. Countries had to agree to balance government budgets, restore internal financial stability, and stabilize exchange rates at realistic levels. Marshall plan aid was available only if Europe was committed to the "mixed economy" with the market playing a large part in the mix (DeLong).
On their own, some countries were able to rebuild or repair slightly damaged factories and warehouses. Contrary to popular belief, factories...
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...re slow to get into the automobile production game. They refused to merge with other companies, instead vying to produce many kinds of automobiles, none of which got a great deal of market share. None until the Mini came along, breaking from old traditional large British cars, creating a new craze (Wegs, 77-78).
Not all was utopian forever in Europe though. All good things generally come to an end, and in the 1970s, the economy began to flounder. But for nearly twenty years, the western portion of Europe rebounded from nothingness, surged in no time, flourished for many years, became a major player in the economic world once again, and truly rose like a phoenix from the ashes of war.
Works Cited
DeLong, J. Bradford, The Economic History of the Twentieth Century: Slouching Towards Utopia? (University of California at Berkely and NBER: http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/TCEH/Slouch_Present19.html , 1997) .
Kindleberger, Charles P., “The One and Only Marshall Plan,” National Interest, Vol. 11, 113-115.
Wegs, J. Robert and Ladrech, Robert, Europe Since 1945: A Concise History, 4th ed. (Boston: St. Martin’s Press, Inc., 1996) 3, 12, 45-47, 65-79.
Stephen Ambrose speaks much on wars that America was directly or indirectly involved in. In one chapter, The Legacy of World War Two, he saw war, for the US and the Allies, in World War Two, as “not to conquer, not to enslave, not to destroy, but to liberate” (Ambrose 120) He goes on to say that “the Marshall Plan was the most generous act in human history.” (Ambrose 121) The Marshall Plan created NATO, the Berlin Air Lift and Ambrose swimming in patriotism claimed it was “the American spirit, more than American productive power, that made it so.” (Ambrose 121) He continues h...
2 Charles S. Maier, ed., The Cold War in Europe: Era of a divided Continent (New York: Markus Wiener Publishing, Inc., 1991) 27.
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It is an attempt to solve the reparation issue of Germany after the World War I. The new German government stopped the resistance and tended to approach a new way to settle the reparations question under the Treaty of Versailles. Spielvogel noted that the Dawes Plans established by international commission “reduced reparations and stabilized Germany’ s payments on the basis of its ability to pay” (799). In order to reduce its burden and promote its recovery, this plan also provided a two hundred million dollars loan for Germany. It should be studied today because this plan allows the Germany to pay for the reparations. The loans offered by the United States starting the heavy American investment in the Europe, which brought about the flourish of Europe in the 1920s.
Separate sphere ideology can very much be connected to this; what separate spheres are is that they are the domestic spheres that separate men and women. Men inhabit the public sphere, whereas women inhabit the private sphere, or sometimes referred to as the “proper sphere.” Hannah falls under a third sphere, I will refer to it as “Hannah’s Sphere.” Hannah’s Sphere, is different, whereas like the public sphere it is masculine, has conflict, and physical work; but like the “proper sphere” it is also feminine, consists of housework, and compassion. It is to say that in a binary society, such as Victorian England and even today, everyone placed themselves in one of the two, but Hannah did not care for that, she did as she pleased for her own self and was viewed as
Karl, Kenneth. Cracking the AP European History Exam New York: Princeton Review Publishing, 2004: 118-120
Oceans cover 71% of the earth’s surface. The talk of climate change can often seem to focus on what is happening in our atmosphere, but there is a lot of change going on in our oceans. The oceans have absorbed 90% of the excess heat and 28% of the carbon pollution generated by human consumption of fossil fuels (Nuccitelli 2015). The purpose of this paper is to show how the effects of climate change effect the coral reefs in our oceans, with a focus on the coral reef systems in the Caribbean and of the Great Barrier Reef. The Caribbean coral reefs are well known to have suffered more damage between the two reef systems. That’s not to say that the Great Barrier Reef has not suffered its own damage. It has and will continue to suffer in the future.
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Concerns about coral reefs have only been raised within the last few years, going back to 2004. In the Home movie (which came out in 2009), they dressed that coral reefs were dying from all of the heating of our planet and the deadly pollutants in the air going into the water. The movie and many articles wrote by scientists have said that this damage made to the coral reefs might not be averted. Almost 20% of the world’s coral reefs have been destroyed and no immediate signs of recovery. On Earth’s surface, coral reefs take up 1% of the surface. In 1998, 16% of coral reefs were damaged by pollutants in the air. But in 2009, 40% of the 16% that were damaged in 1998 recovered fully or is recovering slowly. Those numbers were great at first,
Located in tropical ocean waters, coral reefs provide priceless resources to both human and marine life. The leading natural cause of destruction among the coral reefs is global warming. Other natural causes are earthquakes, hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons. The destruction to the coral reefs from these natural disasters is minimal compared to the dangers caused by man. Man-made destruction has a much wider impact on the health of the coral reefs. This destruction includes over-fishing, damage from anchors, aquarium industry, overgrowth of seaweed, and being smothered by sediments.