Chapter 20: The Three-World Order, 1940-1975 CE Vocab

Question 1

Holocaust

Answer 1

Deliberate racial extermination by the Nazis of Jews, along with some other groups the Nazis considered “inferior” (including Sinta and Roma, Jehovah’s Witnesses, gay people, and people with mental illness), which claimed the lives of around 6 million European Jews.

Question 2

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

Answer 2

International organization set up in 1949 to provide for the defense of western European countries and the United States from the perceived Soviet threat.

Question 3

Warsaw Pact

Answer 3

(1955–1991) Military alliance between the Soviet Union and other communist states that was established in response to the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Question 4

decolonization

Answer 4

End of empire and emergence of new independent nation-states in Asia and Africa as a result of the defeat of Japan in World War II and weakened European influence after the war.

Question 5

Mao Zedong

Answer 5

(1893–1976) Chinese communist leader who rose to power during the Long March (1934–1935). In 1949, Mao and his followers defeated the Nationalists and established a communist regime in China.

Question 6

Third World

Answer 6

A collective term used for nations of the world, mostly in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, that were not highly industrialized like First World nations or tied to the Soviet bloc (the Second World); it implies a revolutionary challenge to the existing (liberal, capitalist) order. Debate surrounding the best terminology to describe these nations is ongoing.

Question 7

World Bank

Answer 7

International agency established in 1944 to provide economic assistance to war-torn and poor countries. Its formal title is the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Question 8

International Monetary Fund (IMF)

Answer 8

Agency founded in 1944 to help restore financial order in Europe and the rest of the world, to revive international trade, and to offer financial support to Third World governments.

Question 9

neocolonialism

Answer 9

Contemporary geopolitical policy or practice in which a politically, economically, and often militarily superior nation asserts control over a country that remains nominally sovereign.

Question 10

Fidel Castro

Answer 10

(1926–2016) Cuban communist leader who seized power in January 1959. Castro became increasingly radical as he consolidated power, announcing a massive redistribution of land and the nationalization of foreign oil refineries; he declared himself a socialist and aligned himself with the Soviet Union in the wake of the 1961 CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion.

Question 11

Cold War

Answer 11

(1945–1990) Ideological rivalry in which the Soviet Union and eastern Europe opposed the United States and western Europe, but no direct military conflict occurred between the two rival blocs.