Assignment #1
 

Sources:
 

Questions:
  1. What were some of the major ethnic, social, and religious conflicts that dominated the newly independent countries of Eastern Europe and the Balkans?
  2. Which Eastern European country became a model of democracy in the 1920s and 1930s?  Why?
  3. Why did the German government resort to military force in early 1919 that badly damaged its new democracy?
  4. Why was inflation such a huge problem facing the newly created Weimar Republic [see doc. on pg. 853]?
  5. Why were the the political extremes in Germany growing at the expense of the political center in the 1920s?
  6. What was the major governmental focus in both France and Britain during the "Roaring
    20s?"  Why wasn't this decade so "roaring" in Europe?
  7. How did most of Ireland finally gain its independence from Britain?  What areas still remain united to Britain today?
  8. In regard to international relations, how did the period 1924-1930 reflect some of the idealism of the Paris Peace Conference?
  9. What was the Dawes Plan?  How successful was it in resolving the debt crises of the mid-1920s?
  10. Identify the various methods [treaties, negotiations, agreements, etc.] used by the European powers and the United States to established and maintain peace and military disarmament during the 1920s.  Why might some of those methods be considered politically naive?
  11. Why can it be said that World War I "ushered in a new era?"  What "new" political, economic, social, military, conditions dominated Europe by the end of the 1920s? 
 
  Assignment #2
 

Sources:
  • textbook:  mid-pg. 873 to top of pg. 879.   
 

Questions:
  1. What were the basic principles of Freudian psychology?  What were some of the implications of his thinking?
  2. Why were Freud's ideas so offensive to so many people?  How did his theories clash with Christianity?
  3. Identify some of the literary themes of the European writers of the 1920s and 1930s.  How did they reflect the ideologies, tensions, and conflicts of their age?
  4. What was a major goal of many of the art movements of the early 20c?
  5. According to Marinetti's "Futurist Manifesto," what were the objectives of futurism?
  6. How did Oswald Spengler view history and civilizations?
  7. What was the foundation of Einstein's Theory of Relativity?
  8. What were the implications of the Quantum Theory of Max Planck?  How did Einstein and Planck challenge the basic premises of Newtonian physics?
  9. What was the "uncertainty principle" proposed by the German physicist, Werner Hersenberg?
  10. What were some of the other scientific discoveries of the period that improved the standard of living and recreation during the "Jazz Age?"
 
  Assignment #3
 

Sources:
 

Questions:
  1. Identify some of the problems faced by the Italian government after World War I.  What was its greatest fear?
  2. What are the origins of the world 'fascism?'  What are its basic principles [see doc. on pg. 1018]?
  3. How did the fascists come to power in Italy in the 1920s?
  4. Why was Mussolini so popular?  What was his personal appeal?
  5. What was the goal of the "corporate state?"  How did it set the relationship between government, business, and labor in fascist Italy?
  6. Identify the major components of fascist economic policy.  How efficient did Italy's economy become under Mussolini?  What inherent problems were created?
  7. What were some of Mussolini's 'notable' achievements?"
  8. Why did Mussolini's government feel it was necessary to make an accommodation with the Vatican?  What did each side receive from their signing of the Lateran Treaty in 1929?
  9. Why was the Catholic Church more accommodating to the fascists than it had been toward the preceding liberal government in Italy?
 
  Assignment #4
 

Sources:
 

Questions:
  1. What were the major characteristics of modern dictatorship or totalitarianism?   the limitations of totalitarian rule?
  2. Who were Hitler's political and cultural targets?
  3. What were Hitler's basic racist and political views?  How were these views a reflection of some 19c and early 20c political and scientific thinkers [see doc. on pg. 888]?
  4. Which groups in Germany society were the biggest supports of the Nazis?  Why?
  5. Why did the Weimar Republic collapse in the early 1930s?
  6. How did Hitler and the Nazis actually come to power?
  7. What were some of the impressive economic successes of the early Nazi years?  How was Hitler able to accomplish this in the midst of the global depression?
  8. What Nazi policies were focused on women and children?  How did Nazi propaganda make all Germans feel that they were part of a great cultural struggle?
  9. How did the Nazis deal with the Christian churches in Germany?
  10. Why were Jews primary targets of Nazi hatred?  How was Nazi ideology reflected in the Nuremberg Laws?
   
 
  Assignment #5
 

Sources:
  • textbook:  pg. 879 - 881; mid-pg. 895 - pg. 896.
 

Questions:
  1. What was the political pattern followed by many of the governments in Eastern Europe in the 1930s?  How supportive were they of fascism?
  2. How did Austria move closer to a fascist regime by the mid-1930s?
  3. What were the causes of the Spanish Civil War?  Identify the different sides in the conflict.
  4. What were some of the things that the various fascist movements in Europe had in common?  What were the real fears that many Europeans of all classes had in the inter-war years that fascism seemed to address?
  5. How did Britain and France and the other Western democracies respond to the Spanish Civil War?
  6. Why did Franco and his Nationalist forces ultimately win?
  7. What were the political, economic, and military effects for Spain and the rest of Europe of the Spanish Civil War?
 
  Assignment #6
 

Sources:
  • textbook:  bottom of pg. 881 to mid-pg. 883; pg. 892 to mid-pg. 895; pg. 902 - 905.
 

Questions:
  1. Identify the major causes of the Great Depression.
  2. How did the Depression expose more deep-seated global problems?  What were they?
  3. What were the financial and political repercussions of this world economic collapse?
  4. How did the nations of Europe and the United States respond to the Depression?
  5. What was the Marxist interpretation of the Great Depression?
  6. Why did the weak economic recovery of the late 1930s create divisive social changes?  Identify these changes for the working-, middle-, and upper-classes.
  7. Identify some of the Christian and liberal thinks and writers of the inter-war period.  What were their major intellectual arguments?
  8. What were the basic economic theories of John Maynard Keynes?  What role did he feel government should play in the economy?  How was this different from the classical laissez-faire views of the past?
  9. How did foreign policy issues have an unexpected, paradoxical effect on conservatives and leftists in Europe in the 1930s?
  10. Why was Ramsay MacDonald a "traitor" to his Labour Party principles?
  11. How was the French election of 1936 a drastic change from earlier ones in the decade?
  12. Identify the reforms initiated by Léon Blum's Popular Front government in France.  Why did it fail within a year?
  13. Why could it be said that World War II actually began with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931?
  14. How did the countries of Eastern Europe try to counterbalance the threat of Germany's rapid rearmament?
  15. Why did Italy invade Ethiopia in 1935?  What was the response of the League of Nations?   of the major European powers?
  16. What was the response of the international community to the German invasion of the Rhineland in 1936?
  17. How did Austria become part of the Third Reich?
  18. What was 'the Sudetenland problem?"  How was it resolved?
  19. Why didn't France live up to its alliance obligations to Czechoslovakia?
  20. Why did Hitler make a diplomatic/military pact with Hitler in 1939?  What were the terms of that agreement?
 

                
 
 

 
 

                
 
Quizzes:
  1. Textbook Quiz --> chapter 27      chapter 28
  2. Other Quizzes:  A   B 
Outlines / Lecture Notes:
  1. "1914-1945" (Mr. Mercado)
    2.
  2. "Between the Wars and Modernism" (Paul Halsall, Fordham University)
  3. lecture outline --> "The Inter-War Turmoils" (Prof. David McGee, Central Virginia Community College)
Review Sheets:
  1. Giant EHAP Review Sheet by a student from the class of '04, Horace Greeley HS
    2.

 


   
 

Ten Commandments of Good Historical Writing

College Board A. P. European History Course Description (.pdf file)