Midterm 3 Book Notes

Question 1

Berlin can be seen as a poster child for

Answer 1

Europe’s complex geopolitical history of war, ruin, rebirth, division, unification, and regional hotspot of globalization

Question 2

Cold War

Answer 2

1945-1990
divided the continent and the world into two hostile and highly armed camps- Europe and US against former Soviet Union and its allies

Question 3

European Union

Answer 3

Supranational organization made up of 27 countries

Question 4

environmental diversity of Europe: western extension has

Answer 4

the newest and oldest landscapes in the world

Question 5

Environmental diversity of Europe: Lattitudinal extent

Answer 5

from the Arctic to the mediterranean; subtropics affects climate, vegetation, and human activities

Question 6

Environmental diversity of Europe: Latitudinal control

Answer 6

modified by moderating influences of Atlantic Ocean as well as Baltic, Mediterranean and Black Seas

Question 7

Environmental diversity of Europe: human settlement

Answer 7

long history of human settlement has transformed and modified Europe’s natural landscapes in fundamental ways over thousands of years

Question 8

European Lowland

Answer 8

also known as the North European Plain

• economic focus of western Europe
• high population density
• intensive agriculture
• major industrial regions
• Includes rivers of {Rhine, Loire, Thames, and Elbe}
• home to many of Europe’s important ports {London, Le Havre, Rotterdam, Hamburg}

Question 9

Rhine River

Answer 9

divides the unglaciated southern European Lowland from the glaciated plains to the north

Question 10

Alpine Mountain system

Answer 10

• forms topographic spine of Europe

- consists of mountains running east to west; {Pyrenees, Alps, Apennines, Carpathians, Dinaric Apls and Balkan Ranges}

Question 11

Pyrenees

Answer 11

political boundary between france and spain; include microstate of Andorra
home to Basque people (west) and Catalan-speaking minorities (east)

Question 12

Centerpiece of Europe’s geologic system

Answer 12

Alps

Question 13

Central Uplands

Answer 13

important to western europe because they contain raw materials

Question 14

Western Highlands

Answer 14

backbone of Norway and Sweden and Finland

Oldest mountains

Question 15

fjords

Answer 15

flooded valley inlets in Norway

Question 16

Maritime climate

Answer 16

Along Atlantic coast
most important
no winters below freezing
summers are cloudy and overcast

Question 17

Continental climates

Answer 17

inland, hot summers and cold winters

Question 18

Mediterranean climate

Answer 18

southern Europe from Spain to Greece

Question 19

Transition between maritime and continental climate

Answer 19

between France and Germany

close to the Rhine River

Question 20

Schengen Agreement

Answer 20

can cross national boundaries without stopping or showing passports

Question 21

Germanic Languages

Answer 21

dominate Europe north of the Alps
90 mil speak german
English is second largest

Question 22

90% of Europe speaks

Answer 22

Germanic, Romance, or Slavic (indo-european)

Question 23

Two main alphabets of slavic language

Answer 23

latin- strong Roman catholic heritage (east)

Cyrillic- Greek derived (west)

Question 24

irredentism

Answer 24

state policies for reclaiming lost territory and peoples

Question 25

balkanization

Answer 25

geopolitical processes of small-scale independence movements based upon ethnic fault lines

Question 26

podzol soils

Answer 26

Acidic typical of northern forest environments

limit growing season/ output

Question 27

chernozem soils

Answer 27

steppe environments dominated by grasslands by fertile “black earth”

Question 28

Trans-Siberian Railroad

Answer 28

a key railroad passage to Pacific
From Vladicostok to Moscow
South

Question 29

baikal-Amur Mainline BAM railroad

Answer 29

to the north
thinner than Trans-Siberian
runs from baikal lake to Amur river

Question 30

Gulag Archipelago

Answer 30

collection of political prisons in which inmates often disappeared or spent years far removed from their families/communities

Question 31

Russification

Answer 31

resettling Russians into non-Russian portions of the Soviet Union
millions given inscentives to move elsewhere in order increase Russian Dominance

Question 32

mikrorayons

Answer 32

large-Soviet era housing projects of the 1970s and 1980s

Question 33

Cossacks

Answer 33

slavic-speaking christians who had earlier mgirated to the region seeking freedom in the ungoverned steppes

Question 34

Moldova

Answer 34

Romanian language dominant

Question 35

socialist realism

Answer 35

style devoted to the realistic depiction of workers heroically challenging nature or struggling against capitalism

Question 36

Bolsheviks

Answer 36

faction of Russian communists representing industrial workers, seized power

Question 37

Autonomous areas

Answer 37

republics gave special recognition to smaller ethnic homelands

Question 38

exclave

Answer 38

portion of a country’s territory that lies outside its contiguous land area

Question 39

glasnost

Answer 39

greater openness theory from Mikhail Gorbachev

Question 40

perestroika

Answer 40

restructuring of the planned centralized economy, was an admission that domestic economic conditions increasingly lagged those of western Europe and the US

Question 41

Commonwealth of Independent States

Answer 41

CIS
looser political union of most of the former republics
all former republics expect three Baltic states joined

Question 42

Denuclearization

Answer 42

return of nuclear weapons from outlying republics to Russian control and their partial dismantling was completed during the 1990s

Question 43

siloviki

Answer 43

members of the nation’s military and security forces