Marshall Plan In the spring of 1947, the atmosphere in Europe was unstable and tense. World War II left behind misery, unemployment and a housing crisis. The cold weather intensified the severe economic and social dislocation that plagued the continent following the long and destructive war. At t...

The Semiotics of Utopianism National Lampoon's European Vacation(1985),though almost certainly produced as "pure entertainment" in Richard Dyer's sense of the term, presents to the careful reader much more than simply ninety-five minutes of farce. Underlying nearly every scene and every...

During the Cold War, the United States of America was determined to act as the superior nation in the world. They believed that every country was inferior to them in regards to military power, economic stability and moral beliefs. After the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy, the Vice...

In an era of sound bytes, television attack ads, political blogs, and twenty-four hour national news cycles, it can be difficult to imagine that politics once was different. For one, it was more local. In the Nineteenth Century, and through a good part of the Twentieth Century, Democrats and Repub...