I am doing a research assignment for Modern History where I have to discuss how much of an impact a certain event was to history. I have chosen to do the fall of Communism in the 80s/90s in Eastern Europe.

I'm trying to look for some documentaries to give me some ideas, but I don't know of any. Can anyone give me some names?

pubbanana

United States3063 Posts

June 11 2009 22:01 GMT

Heaven On Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism and The Bloody History of Communism were pretty good, I thought. I'm pretty sure they're on YouTube or Google Video.

alexpnd

Canada1857 Posts

June 11 2009 22:04 GMT

I'll ask my bro tn if he can offer any suggestions. He is a recent history major + masters and he loves this stuff.

gjg.instinct

144 Posts

June 11 2009 22:52 GMT

Don't try to be too linear and thorough when you begin researching. Branch out and try to learn general ideas about the entire time line and theme of your topic. Historical chronology is linear, but historical research doesn't need to be.

I would start with the Cold War as a precursor to the fall of the Berlin Wall, Collapse of the Soviet Union, and then you have a series of revolutions happening in Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia.
Talking about communism as an ideology and how it was implemented in the USSR, and how it was further implemented in eastern bloc countries would take up a lot of space / time.
1989 is pretty important.

KurtistheTurtle

United States1966 Posts

June 11 2009 23:33 GMT

Pay close attention to what the leaders of the countries heading up different ideologies do. From their policies try to go back to the abstract purpose, what the policy is continuing, not continuing, and/or changing. After you've done this with enough policies you'll get a view of the world thats much easier to manipulate data for, imo.

zatic

Zurich15362 Posts

June 12 2009 01:34 GMT

I would strongly suggest you pick another event. This is like the hardest and most complex and broadest topic you could choose, with impact and implications on the entire world up to this very day that are not even understood yet.

Seriously you can maybe write about how the fall of communism impacted a specific, single Western or Eastern country, but even that would be ridiculously hard (well, depending on the country I guess). The impact of the Fall of Communism on history in general is just not doable.

Carnivorous Sheep

Baa?21244 Posts

June 12 2009 01:38 GMT

I agree with zatic; the "fall of communism" is way too broad of a topic. Either narrow it down or choose something else.

Athos

United States2484 Posts

June 12 2009 01:59 GMT

On June 12 2009 10:38 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:
I agree with zatic; the "fall of communism" is way too broad of a topic. Either narrow it down or choose something else.

kefkalives

Australia1272 Posts

June 12 2009 02:25 GMT

why not do something on the creation of the state of israel?
That would be much much easier to write about.

I definetly agree with Zatic.

Carnivorous Sheep

Baa?21244 Posts

June 12 2009 03:31 GMT

#10

If you want to go into the creation of Israel, you have to draw on both Islamic and WWII/colonial Europe background. That might still be too complex.

How in-depth is this assignment meant to be anyways?

GTR

51556 Posts

June 12 2009 07:05 GMT

#11

I'm planning to do around 3 to 4 pages. It's only something small to get us into the 'historical' mode of thinking.
Maybe I should narrow my topic question to something like to how did it affect the US or something?

kefkalives

Australia1272 Posts

June 12 2009 07:28 GMT

#12

Don't forget this is a high school assignment, you could shit on a few pieces of paper, hand them in, and do fine.

Carnivorous Sheep

Baa?21244 Posts

June 12 2009 08:01 GMT

#13

Oh this is high school.

Yeah lol, do whatever the hell you want as long as it's comprehensible you'll do fine lol.

FakeSteve[TPR]

Valhalla18444 Posts

June 12 2009 19:06 GMT

#14

im the buffest in history

gchan

United States654 Posts

June 12 2009 22:11 GMT

#15

Well it depends on what aspect you are looking at. You need to not only cut it down to an area, but also a field of study. Are you looking at the economics of it? Poitics? Arts? There's a lot of things affected by the fall of Communism. I wrote my thesis on the economics and education in Eastern Europe if that can be of any help.

Judicator

United States7270 Posts

June 13 2009 01:24 GMT

#16

On June 12 2009 16:05 GTR wrote:
I'm planning to do around 3 to 4 pages. It's only something small to get us into the 'historical' mode of thinking.
Maybe I should narrow my topic question to something like to how did it affect the US or something?

You will at best, write a well argued incomplete paper that would leave the reader with more questions than answers. I wrote a similar topic to yours (focusing on the fall of Communism in Europe and its subsequent impact on the treatment of Chinese Communism by Western Powers) and that was 15 pages easy.

And to focus on the US is still very much a broad topic considering the US had a multitude of things to consider, relations with the new countries/regimes, relations with allies that no longer have a common enemy, subsequent economic ties stemming from the previous, immigration, culture, public opinion, political theory, etc. So much you can write about. A better topic would be focused on a single particular event and how and/or why it was important.

thopol

Japan4560 Posts

June 14 2009 00:11 GMT

#17

You need to narrow it an awful lot more than that to do 3-4 pages well. If you're doing Eastern Europe, do an individual country over a short time. You could illustrate how the ice broke in the bloc before the fall of the Soviet Union though a short case study of Hungary or Poland or Romania or something (all of these had notable levels of autonomy from the Warsaw Pact at certain points, some successfully in the long run).

http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1409&fuseaction=va2.browse&sort=Collection
This is a great resource for research involving the Cold War. It is a wealth of primary sources that should go a long way towards providing you with useful subject matter and towards impressing your prof/teacher.

Raithed

China7078 Posts

June 14 2009 00:37 GMT

#18

two word: iron curtain.

Slaughter

United States20254 Posts

June 14 2009 01:22 GMT

#19

People have written books on your topic, you defiantly need to have a more focused topic. Its a pretty short paper as well so pick something very specific.