Historical Investigation Topic; Marshall Plan

[chyeahbear]

I'm doing my historical investigation on the Marshall Plan. My question was initially "To what extent was the Marshall plan effective in rebuilding Europe economically, socially and politically?" (will most likely change this to just economic) but after hunting down loads of sources, it was difficult to find anything on the CONSEQUENCES of the Marshall Plan. I also found that the sources talked about how the Marshall Plan was created for ideological reasons (i.e. to counter communism).

To those of you who have studied the Cold War and the Marshall Plan in detail, which would be better to focus on? The economics of the Marshall Plan or the ideological conflict between US and USSR?

[alefal]

Hey there!

If you decide to remain with your current research question, I'd say DEFINITELY change it to focus on only one of the three aspects you mention (as you pointed out, economics would be one of these). You're probably thinking you have 1500 words to spend on analysing your RQ (I sure did when I started with my own HI), but the sad fact is that you only have about 6-800 words to do so due to the format and structural requirements of the History IA. Most of the other words will go to formalities such as listing your evidence and to conduct source evaluation on two different sources.

Although Wikipedia is not a good source to refer to in your actual HI, I suggest you read the part about 'Effects and legacy' on their page about the Marshall Plan, as it includes a lot of key points you could focus on. Instead of using Wikipedia as a source, use the sources Wikipedia refer to and build on those. That way, you will have an entrance point to the academic literature, and you will hopefully have a clearer frame of what kind of literature you need to find (sources applauding or demonising the Marshall Plan, or sources focusing on particular economic aspects of the Marshall Plan), which will make the whole process much easier. If you struggle finding sources, I suggest you use scholar.google.com and books.google.com, as well as to search for pdf-documents in the ordinary Google search (add 'filetype:pdf' in the end of your search words). If your school or library has access to JSTOR or any other online libraries, use them for what's worth. You could also talk with a librarian, as they would know where to look for sources.

As for your alternative - discussing the ideological causes of the Marshall Plan - it might seem like a good idea, but there are some pitfalls you need to be aware of. You really need to discuss something that's in one way or another contentious. If everyone agrees that the Marshall Plan was created for ideological reasons, then that's a no go, because there's no contentious content in that discussion (this goes for the other approach you've chosen as well). There needs to be an (preferably academic) author claiming that the Marshall Plan was indeed a product of ideology and an author proposing an alternative view. In this particular case, the alternative view could be the polar opposite - that the Marshall Plan was NOT a product of ideology - or a more nuanced view - for instance stating that the Marshall Plan was not created with any ideological intents, but that was its effect.

Good luck!

[chyeahbear]

Awesome. Thank you for the detailed response!