American Internationalism circa 1945?

Question

I'm just trying to understand how we made the jump between the Great Depression and the New American Internationalism of the 1940s. Can anyone help me make connections? Was it to do with a rush of optimism brought on by the New Deal? Or, maybe as a whole America's sentiment changed after going through such hard times. Just trying to get a grasp on that bit of history. Thanks everyone :o).

Answer 1

It had more to do with World War 2 than anything else; it really had nothing to do with the New Deal. Even with the New Deal, the country was still mired in the Great Depression. It took World War 2 to bring the country out of the Depression. The New American Internationalism came about because of the Soviet threat after the war. When the war ended, Stalin had his ideas of what Europe was going to look like. Normally, the U.S. would have gone back to be isolationist as they did after W.W. I, but because of the Soviets, the U.S. couldn't do that anymore. That is why the U.S. had to stay on the international scene.