AP World History: Accelerating Global Change and Realignments

AP World History: Accelerating Global Change and Realignments 1900 to the Present

CHAPTER 29 1. Compare the Mexican, Russian, and Chinese revolutions. The social, economic, and political backgrounds of these countries made each revolution unique, yet they shared many commonalities: corruption and inefficient governments, landless peasantries, and revolutionary leaders who caught their attention. Pay special attention to the results of these revolutions. Which succeeded at fulfilling their promises more thoroughly? At what cost? For example, the Mexican Revolution promised and only slowly delivered on land reform; 1.5 million lost their lives in the revolution. In Russia, upwards of 20 million died in its civil war. Stalin’s collectivization program led to the death of millions more, but land was redistributed. In China, the revolution overthrowing the Qing was only a precursor to a more radical one that ended in 1949. It can be argued that occurred because the “winners” in the first revolution did not fulfill the promises they had made, and so another was perhaps inevitable.

2. Discuss evidence of political and social change for women in the West in the 1920s. Women, who lost their economic gains in the war’s factories, attained voting rights and social freedoms in several countries. Declining birth rates and overall prosperity allowed women to engage in more leisure activities. Women openly dated, smoked, and drank.

3. Identify some political and social changes among the settler societies in this era. Settler societies, such as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, became more autonomous during this era. Canada saw an increasingly strong economy and rapid immigration during the 1920s. Australia emphasized socialist programs like nationalization of railways, banks, and power plants, and experienced rapid immigration as well.

4. Describe the factors that led to Japan’s shift from a liberal democracy to a military controlled government. After World War I, Japan became Asia’s leading industrial power. The industrial combines rapidly expanded in areas like shipbuilding. Like Western countries, Japan saw its political institutions challenged by war and depression. In response, the nation developed an aggressive foreign policy pushed by a government controlled by the military.

5. Compare totalitarianism in the U.S.S.R. and Germany. Both the U.S.S.R. and Germany exercised massive and direct control over all the activities of their subjects. Both governments purged opposition, censored news, controlled movement of citizens, and distributed commodities. Whereas Germany tried to expand its ideals by conquering neighbors, the U.S.S.R. remained highly introverted.

CHAPTER 30 6. Compare the Germans’ policy toward Jews and the Japanese policy toward the Chinese. Both displayed a callousness toward their subjugated societies. The difference appears to be the planned depravity of the German Holocaust. The Japanese forces took out their frustrations on retreating combatants and innocent civilians. The German plan was a systematic process to purify its society.

7. Describe how the changing roles of women affected Western society. A key facet of postwar change involved women and the family. From the early 1950s onward, the number of married working women rose steadily in the West. Where women had lacked the vote, they now got it. Gains in higher education were dramatic. Access to divorce and birth control, the latter coming through legal abortion and the Pill, were other major developments. Marriage and children came at later ages. Maternal care was widely replaced by day-care centers, as both parents worked. A new wave of feminist political agitation occurred in the 1960s and 1970s. Overall, the family goals established in the Industrial Revolution were less important.

CHAPTER 31 8. Compare Soviet and Western responses during the cold war. Both sides blamed the other for starting the cold war. Both were at various times responsible for its continuation. Great suspicions between the foes, often well-grounded (the Cuban Missile Crisis) kept the world watching—and often participating in—the ultimate game of Stratego. In the same era, moves toward cooperation, like the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, sometimes separated rhetoric from action.

9. Trace the changing views about the roles of women during this era. One of the biggest changes at this time was the shift in work roles for women. The Industrial Revolution ideal of a homemaker was rethought and a high percentage of women in both Western and Soviet societies began to work outside the home. Women gained much independence but questions about the price paid for such victories arose.

10. Generalize the positive and negative outcomes of the implementation of the welfare state. The welfare state was state-run “cradle-to-the-grave” care that developed in western Europe and spread in varying forms to the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The consolidation of democracy also included a general movement of war decades. Conservatives did not dismantle the welfare state and socialist parties moderated their tone. Power passed from one side to the other without major disruption. Student protests, especially in the United States and France in the 1960s, had impact on governmental policies. By the late 1970s, politics began to swing back toward the right as economic growth slowed.

Chapter 32 11. Describe the political and economic reasons for the United States’ interventions in Latin America. After World War I, the U.S. was clearly the dominant power in the Western Hemisphere. In South America, private investments by U.S. companies and loans from the government were the chief means of influence. Military intervention became a common means of protecting U.S. interests. The grounds for these interventions were economic, political, strategic, and ideological. The U.S. Good Neighbor Policy of the 1930s and the Alliance for Progress of the 1960s sought to ameliorate tensions.

CHAPTER 33 12. Compare the political, social, and economic development of Asian and African countries after independence with the countries of Latin America. Each region demonstrated a variety of responses to independence: failure of nationalist governments, establishment of one-party government, military regimes, and charismatic populist governments. Latin America did not have a successful fundamentalist revolt similar to that of Iran. Continuing revolutions were common in all regions. Latin America has a different social hierarchy than elsewhere based on color and ethnic background. South Africa had a system where a white minority ruled and discriminated against a black African majority. Many of the regions had a significant underclass. In economics, all regions had difficulties in overcoming the disadvantages of an absence of industrialization, an inability to shake off economic dependency within the global trade network, the creation of huge cities full of the unemployed, and population growth swallowing any economic gains.

13. Appraise the reasons for the high population growth rates in new Asian and African nations. Population growth proved to be one of the most important barriers to economic advance after independence. Importation of New World food crops had fueled growth, and colonial rule reinforced the trends by combating local war and disease. Modern transportation systems helped to check famine. Population growth continued after independence, especially in Africa. The policies of the colonizers that limited industrial development resulted in few employment opportunities and an inability to produce necessities for rising populations. Most African and Asian nations have been slow to develop birth control programs in their male-dominated societies. Procreation demonstrates male virility, while the wish for male children is critical to female social standing. In Africa, some societies regard children as vital additions to lineage networks. High mortality rates formerly had encouraged families to have many children, a factor persisting when rates declined. Many African and Asian nations have recognized the dangers to their societies and now are running family planning programs.

14. Compare the cities in Asia, Africa, and Latin America with those of the West. Most cities in Asia, Africa, and Latin America lacked expanding industrial sectors able to utilize the people who were arriving, thus forming the urban underclass. This forced governments to expend valuable resources to keep food and other staples available and cheap. The cities spread without planning and developed vast slums. The result is the creation of parasitic, not productive, cities that diminish national resources by drawing supplies from already impoverished rural regions. The demands upon the latter have caused soil depletion and deforestation that upset fragile tropical ecosystems.

15. Compare Nasser’s military government with other military regimes. Gamal Abdul Nasser took power in the usual manner by building a coalition. Once in power, Nasser eliminated the rivals. This is where he is similar to the other military regimes. Where he differs is in his approach to economic and social reforms. Nasser used his power to force through programs that he believed would uplift the long-suffering Egyptian masses. Nasser believed that only the state could carry out such reforms.

16. Compare post-independence policies in India and Egypt. Indian leaders favored socialism and state intervention for reforming their society, but differed from the Egyptians in important ways. Both nations were overcrowded. Indians have preserved civilian rule since independence. Despite the burden of overpopulation, India differed by possessing at independence a large industrial and scientific sector, a developed communications system, and an important middle class. The early leaders of the Indian National Congress were committed to social reform, economic development, and preservation of democracy and civil rights. Despite a host of problems, India has remained the world’s largest working democracy. Further, India came to independence with better communication networks, bureaucratic systems, and a large skilled and semi-skilled workforce.

CHAPTER 34 17. Compare the experience in China and Vietnam with the process of decolonization elsewhere in Asia and Africa. The similarities include an exposure to Western imperialism during the 19th century, and to that of Japan during the 20th century. By that century, they had been reduced to economic dependency in the global trade network. They had failed to industrialize, and shared overpopulation problems and poverty. Their differences from other African and Asian colonial territories included the failure to develop a Western-educated middle class and to undertake a lengthy period of nationalist, democratic government. They accepted a peasant-oriented form of Marxism, achieved greater success in raising the status of women, and were able to maintain independence from the diplomatic systems of the United States and the Soviet Union. Both had a secular orientation; they lacked the Catholicism of Latin America or the religious focus provided by Islam and Hinduism. They emphasized the peasantry rather than an urban working class.

18. Compare China and Vietnam culturally before and after the revolutions. Both China and Vietnam have undergone revolutionary transformations during the 20th century. Communism has replaced Monarchies and colonial regimes. Entire social classes have disappeared. New educational systems have been created. Women have gained new legal and social status. Confucianism fell before Marxist-Leninism and later Western capitalist influences. But much remains unchanged. Suspicion of commercial and entrepreneurial classes persists, and the belief remains that rulers are obliged to promote the welfare of their subjects. Ideological systems stress secular and social harmony rather than religious concerns.