Brett Dillahunt
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476
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About
I have lived in Washington State for the last 36 years and have taught high school there for 18 of those years. I teach AP US History, American Government, Ethnic Studies, and Military History.
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Recent Activity
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Answered a Question in Eye of the Needle
In Follett's thriller about a German spy in World War II England, he introduces complex characters and a good vs. evil struggle on several levels within and between Lucy, David and Faber. Lucy and... -
Answered a Question in China
I would argue that it is impossible, in the modern era, for a country as large and populous as China to be isolated. China has the world's second largest economy, which is only made possible... -
Answered a Question in Gender Relations and Roles
While the sentiment in the question reflects our long history of male chauvinism and gender bias, it does not reflect the democratic ideals we have pursued in the modern era. First, let's... -
Answered a Question in Literature
Yes I most certainly do. There don't seem to be many who still write consistently in this genre anymore, but Stephen King is exceptional at it, as was Raymond Carver. Plus, I don't... -
Answered a Question in The League of Nations
You're referring to one of the four main points accepted into the Treaty of Versailles after World War I. Self Determination as an idea was advanced by US President Woodrow Wilson in his... -
Answered a Question in Western Expansion, Manifest Destiny, and the Mexican-American War
One thing that was pretty common throughout the towns, villages, mining camps and cities of the West was gambling. How about some research into some of the more colorful gamblers, casino... -
Answered a Question in The Great Depression
President Franklin Roosevelt's "Fireside Chats" (term was coined by a CBS reporter) were not an isolated event. He gave a radio address every single week, back in a time when radio was still... -
Answered a Question in History
It's difficult to look through any historical lens and see World War II as a solution to anything. It was a resolution, as in the issue of imperial competition, rivalry and violence that... -
Answered a Question in The Road
I think he may be saying that in a more general sense, in that there is no world left to be God of, nor any reason to believe in one. This lack of hope permeates the story almost until the... -
Answered a Question in History
Nationalism motivated the populations towards war, but mass naivete in each country (except perhaps Russia) about any sort of quick or bloodless victory was the more important factor in my... -
Answered a Question in History
They were not invincible to the pressures that affected the Weimar Republic either, there was a significant fascist movement in Britain and France before the war and a German-American Bund in the... -
Answered a Question in The Cold War
While it was true that the US and the Soviet Union were allies during World War II, this was only because they had a common enemy: Nazi Germany. Their systems of government, their economies... -
Answered a Question in History
First, remember that communism in Eastern Europe was put in place by the occupying Soviet Army at the end of World War II, so it was never an organic or popular movement in these countries to begin... -
Answered a Question in Sylvia Plath
I agree completely with your statement. Besides the piece by piece analysis of her work that supports that assessment, remember that Plath's life writings are essentially a journal of mental... -
Answered a Question in Theodore Roosevelt's Presidency
I find Teddy Roosevelt to be one of our most interesting presidents, both personally and politically. There is a standard straightforward answer to your question about Teddy Roosevelt being... -
Answered a Question in History
There were three main reasons, I would say. First, the "international community" was only represented in the League of Nations, of which Germany was not a member. It was toothless... -
Answered a Question in History
There were a number of ways settlers could have made life easier for themselves in the early 1600s when they established Jamestown. First, they could have settled somewhere other than... -
Answered a Question in Reconstruction
I would argue that Reconstruction contained some revolutionary ideas, but put very little of that revolution into place or practice. The idea of land reform, for example, whereby freed slaves... -
Answered a Question in The Cold War
Harry Truman's successful policy of military aid to Greece and Turkey following World War II was key in his decision to make that the cornerstone of US Cold War foreign policy. From then on,... -
Answered a Question in Ronald Reagan's Presidency
Mainstream America, who had just emerged from the tumultuous 1970s. Economic recession, high inflation, failure in Southeast Asia, Watergate, it was a long decade of depressing news, one year... -
Answered a Question in The Crucible
It was quite easy, in the real witch trial era, in the play, and in the 1950s McCarthy era the play was mocking, to get rid of rivals or benefit personally from publicly accusing someone of... -
Answered a Question in Darkness at Noon
The author of Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler, actually was a communist who sympathized with the Soviet revolution and went to live and work there for years, saw firsthand the brutality of... -
Answered a Question in The Aftermath of World War II
World War II, in the short term, reduced the number of effective empires in the world to two: the US and the Soviet Union. The war bankrupted the British and occupied the French, with of... -
Answered a Question in Secession and Civil War
In general, southerners didn't like Lincoln long before the 1860 election. As a member of the Free Soil Party (before it later became the Republican Party) Lincoln argued against expanding... -
Answered a Question in Bless Me, Ultima
The setting of the story is in the 1940s American Southwest, a sparsely populated countryside of red rock and desert, scrub brush, mesas and rivers. Throughout the story we get the sense of... -
Answered a Question in Bless Me, Ultima
Antonio has a number of people interested in his educational future in Rudolfo Anaya's Bless Me, Ultima. There are his teachers in school, who are trying their best to keep him on the... -
Answered a Question in Winter's Bone
The plot of Winter's Bone begins to take off when Ree Dolly, a young girl with a mentally ill mother, two young siblings and a missing meth making father finds out that unless her dad shows up to... -
Answered a Question in Winter's Bone
Teardrop is the fearsome bad guy you want to like. He is the meth addict, meth "cooker", intimidating to everyone in the story from the other meth cookers to the police to Ree and her... -
Answered a Question in Immigration and Urbanization
The first major waves of immigration came to the United States in the 1830s and 40s, and involved hundreds of thousands of people from Ireland and Germany. They came mostly to northern cities... -
Answered a Question in History
When studying historical documents, primary sources are always better. This is the exact text for two small parts of the Treaty of Versailles. The value of the information provided is... -
Answered a Question in History
Eastern Europe had been a source of unrest and resistance to communist rule and Soviet domination more or less since the Red Army occupied those countries and installed communist governments at the... -
Answered a Question in Reconstruction
I think it's safe to say they openly and bitterly resented it. To them, Reconstruction meant being readmitted to a Union they had fought so hard to leave. It meant being humiliated... -
Answered a Question in History
Back in the times where scientific explanations were neither advanced nor widely accepted, people used spirituality and religion to explain the natural world, and attributed those things that were... -
Answered a Question in Seabiscuit: An American Legend
The famous race between Seabiscuit and War Admiral takes place in the 1930s during the Great Depression. War Admiral was purchased by Sam Riddle, a wealthy businessman from the east... -
Answered a Question in Immigration and Urbanization
One of the main reasons why anti-immigrant feelings rose sharply during this time period is because from 1880 to about 1920, the US experienced a gigantic wave of immigrants. More than ten... -
Answered a Question in History
The pre-Civil War South had turned itself, over nearly two and a half centuries of plantation agriculture and slavery, into the supplier for the world's textile industries and brought serious... -
Answered a Question in History
Korea, and Vietnam too to some degree, have very clear cultural identities that they have built social constructs around to protect it. Koreans are a very exclusive society and so are... -
Answered a Question in History
After a long line of party bureaucrats including the almost colorless Leonid Brezhnev, the KGB geriatric Yuri Andropov, Konstantin Chernenko and others that seemed to be almost xerox copies of each... -
Answered a Question in History
The Cold War ended primarily because the Soviet Union, America's adversary in the communist vs. democracy struggle, had a revolution in 1991 and broke into 15 separate countries. But that... -
Answered a Question in History
The Native Americans faced numerous problems in trying to preserve their hold on tribal lands and, for that matter, their very existence as humans. Diseases such as Small... -
Answered a Question in History
We might get to try this idea out soon, as the traditional form of print media that has been around for centuries is quickly being outflanked by cheaper, leaner online publications and cable news... -
Answered a Question in Darkness at Noon
Most people don't know this about Arthur Koestler, the author of the book, but he was at one time, himself a communist. He was in the German Communist Party, and also lived in the Soviet... -
Answered a Question in Lamb to the Slaughter
Who would want to believe that a pregnant woman could carry out a brutal murder by bludgeoning her own husband, the father of her unborn child? In addition, the police in the story have... -
Answered a Question in Lamb to the Slaughter
At first, the reader thinks that perhaps Mary continues with the dinner plan out of shock at the murder she has just committed. Or perhaps she does so because she simply doesn't know what... -
Answered a Question in History
Western Pennsylvania was more or less where the junction of these three populations and settlements was located in the 1750s. French fur traders and trappers had settled along the Great... -
Answered a Question in Edgar Allan Poe
Similar to "can't see the forest through the trees"? And in terms of a police investigation, it is common for investigators to focus in on details and circumstances immediate to the crime,... -
Answered a Question in Civil War Battles and Strategy
Side by side and in person, these men weren't much alike. Lee was a more stately and well spoken man, while Grant was rougher around the edges and more direct. Grant was short and... -
Answered a Question in The Emancipation Proclamation
Because it wasn’t politically, strategically, personally or practically possible. In fact, the Emancipation Proclamation freed no slaves at all, as in September of 1862 no seceded state was... -
Answered a Question in History
The pressures were many and they were intense. The war was well underway by the summer of 1862, and Lincoln was under political pressure from the abolitionist lobby, which had been... -
Answered a Question in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
In the five hundred years between Columbus and Wounded Knee, tens of millions of native peoples died from disease and conflict with European explorers and settlers. There can be no doubt that...
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