What were the major factors that helped to set the stage for the realignment in the balance of power between East and West after the end of World War II? What factors led to the sharp divides between the Western Democracies and the Eastern Communist states and how did these factors set in motion a larger series of events?

What ways were used by the United States and the Soviet Union to solidify their alliances and play on the fears created by the possibility of conflict during the Cold War?
In what ways did China’s history drive the shift towards communism and what programs did the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) initiate to respond to the needs of the population?

In what ways did the realignment of power into East and West affect the distribution of resources around the globe? What benefits and challenges arose as a result of this realignment?

Where and in what ways did various peoples around the globe rally nationalist identities into independence movements after 1900?

How and why did political forces cause shifts in boundaries of countries and provide a catalyst that encouraged certain migration patterns between colonized peoples and colonizers?

In what ways did governments of newly founded states adopt similar economic programs from their previous colonial masters and in what ways did they change the economic programs in the development of their respective nations?

What ways did various states or peoples use to resist existing colonial powers and, in the process, secure legitimacy for their ideological movements?
What key factors contributed to the end of the Cold War and a redefining of the relationships between the West and the former Soviet Union/ Russia & China?

Develop an argument that evaluates the extent to which the Cold War similarly affected peoples or states in both the Eastern and Western hemispheres.