Download Period 6 Study Questions – World War I, World War II, Cold War

Period 6 Study Questions – World War I, World War II, Cold War
Strayer, Chapters 21 and 22
Bentley, Chapters 34, 35, 36, 37, 38
Wednesday, 4/9: DBQ
Thursday, 4/10: Objective Test
STUDY QUESTIONS:
1. What aspects of Europe's nineteenth-century history contributed to the First World
War?
2. In what ways did World War I mark new departures in the history of the twentieth
century?
3. In what ways was the Great Depression a global phenomenon?
4. In what ways did fascism challenge the ideas and practices of European liberalism
and democracy?
5. What was distinctive about the German expression of fascism? What was the basis
of popular support for the Nazis?
6. How did Japan's experience during the 1920s and 1930s resemble that of Germany,
and how did it differ?
7. In what way were the origins of World War II in Asia and in Europe similar to each
other? How were they different?
8. How did World War II differ from World War I? (Hint: Study the chart we did in
class)
9. How was Europe able to recover from the devastation of war?
10. When and where did communism exercise influence during the twentieth century?
11. Identify the major differences between the Russian and Chinese revolutions.
12. Why were the Bolsheviks able to ride the Russian Revolution to power?
13. What was the appeal of communism in China before 1949? How did the public
perception of communism in China change after Mao Zedong took control of
China?
14. What changes did communist regimes bring to the lives of women?
15. How did the collectivization of agriculture differ between the USSR and China?
16. What were the achievements of communist efforts at industrialization? What
problems did these achievements generate?
17. Why did communist regimes generate terror and violence on such a massive scale?
18. In what different ways was the Cold War expressed?
19. In what ways did the United States play a global role after World War II?
20. Describe the strengths and weaknesses of the communist world by the 1970s.
21. What proxy wars were fought in the name of the Cold War? What changes and
continuities can you examine from these conflicts?
22. What explains the rapid end of the communist era?
23. How did the end of communism in the Soviet Union differ from communism's
demise in China?
BIG PICTURE QUESTIONS:
1. What changes and continuities existed in nationalism movements in Europe, Africa,
and Asia in the first half of the 20th century?
2. To what extent
3. What explains the disasters that befell Europe in the first half of the twentieth
century?
4. In what ways were the world wars a motor for change in the history of the twentieth
century?
5. To what extent were the two world wars distinct and different conflicts, and in what
ways were they related to each other? In particular, how did the First World War and
its aftermath lay the foundations for World War II?
6. In what ways did Europe's internal conflicts between 1914 and 1945 have global
implications?
7. What was the appeal of communism, in terms of both its promise and its
achievements? To what extent did it fulfill that promise?
8. Why did the communist experiment, which was committed to equality and a humane
socialism, generate such oppressive, brutal, and totalitarian regimes?
9. What is distinctive about twentieth-century communist industrialization and
modernization compared to the same processes in the West a century earlier?
10. What was the global significance of the Cold War?
11. "The end of communism was as revolutionary as its beginning." Do you agree with
this statement?
12. In what different ways did the Soviet Union and China experience communism
during the twentieth century?