Annotated Bibliography

Sarah Trumbo

Central Question- What was the cost of the Marshall Plan?

SOURCE #1-

 Ritschl, Albrecht. "The Marshall Plan, 1948-1951".EH.Net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert Whaples. February 10, 2008.

 URL http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/Ritschl.Marshall.Plan

    This article explains the idea around the Marshall plan and how it was supposed to help the countries in Europe.  The writing is very structural and easy to understand. As you read through the article the dates make sense and the story is told in a very articulate manner. Even though you cannot call this article short and to the point, it clearly informs its reader of the necessary facts about the Marshall plan.

     This article helps answer my central question by giving me dates, costs, and energy given to complete the Marshall plan. It also gave statistics about the amount of money the U.S gave compared to how much it would actually help in the act to “rebuild” Europe. The statistics they gave were relevant and not used to take up space. It gives background info that I can use to make the case for my central question stronger, as well as answering it in detail. 

SOURCE #2-

Adelmann, Bob. "The Marshall Plan: the post-WWII Marshall Plan, long touted as the aid plan that reinvigorated Europe, didn't have as its first priority actually helping the citizens of Europe." The New American 23 July 2012: 34+. General OneFile. Web. 13 Mar. 2013.

Document URL

http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA299062550&v=2.1&u=ttsd&it=r&p=GPS&sw=w

    

     This online document gives a summary of why the Marshall Plan was needed. It goes through the expenses of what European countries needed to fix. Many cities and economy’s needed help. It gave more background information on why the Marshall plan was needed than how much it cost. The document was very well stated and the author obviously knew their facts about World War 2. It was organized by date not by country and theme. It was a good timeline document.

     This document assisted in the answering of my central question by basically giving me a timeline of World War two and the effect of the war on the land and economy’s in Europe. It gave me a lot of background info on why the U.S. felt obligated to help, and how much they were willing to contribute. Based on the story and facts the document gave me, it was easy for me to piece together why the U.S. gave what they did.

 SOURCE #3-

Peter J. Duignan and Lewis H. Gann 2010.

http://www.hoover.org/publications/hoover-digest/article/7689

      This article provides textual and image evidence on what the Marshall plan was. It gave number figures and stats to how the Marshall plan helped the European countries that the money went to and how it affected the U.S. It is somewhat biased saying that the Marshall plan was a great idea; however it was a good source because it gave hard facts. The article makes available the names of the people behind the plan. It articulated the evidence about the Marshall plan in a very organized and neat way, making it easy to find the information I needed.

     “The Marshall Plan” by Peter J. Dunignan, helped me answer my central question by organizing the price and stats in a neat and simple fashion, so that I could understand them. They gave why the planners of the Marshall plan wanted to give over 13 billion and not more or less. The article showed its reader (me) that what the actual cost would have been today, not back in the 50’s.  It addresses the actions of the European countries that benefited by showing how they were going to essentially repay the U.S. in the future.