Unit 7 - Global Conflict c. 1900 - Present

Question 1

Explain how internal and external factors contributed
to shifting power of states after 1900

Answer 1

• The West dominated the global political order at the beginning of the 20th century, but both land-based and maritime empires gave way to new states by the century’s end
• The older, land-based Ottoman, Russian, and Qing empires collapsed due to a combination of internal and external factors. These changes in Russia eventually led to communist revolution
• States around the world challenged the existing political and social order, including the Mexican Revolution that arose as a result of political crisis

Question 2

Explain the causes and consequences of World War I.

Answer 2

• The causes of World War I included imperialist expansion and competition for resources. In addition, territorial and regional conflicts combined with a flawed alliance system & intense nationalism to escalate the tensions into global conflict
  - Militarization
  - Alliances
  - Nationalism
  - Imperialism
  - Archduke

Question 3

Explain how governments used a variety of methods to
conduct WWI.

Answer 3

• World War I was the first total war. Governments used a variety of strategies, including political propaganda, art, media, and intensified forms of nationalism, to mobilize populations (both in the home countries and the colonies) for the purpose of waging war
• New military technology led to increased levels
  of wartime casualties
  - gas
  - tanks
  - machine guns

Question 4

Explain how different governments responded to
economic crisis after 1900.

Answer 4

• Following World War I and the onset of the Great Depression, governments began to take a more active role in economic life
  - The New Deal
  - The fascist corporatist economy
  - gov’ts w/ strong popular support in Brazil and Mexico
• In the Soviet Union (STALIN), the government controlled the national economy through the Five Year Plans, often implementing repressive policies, with negative repercussions for the population
  - collectivization of agriculture -> famine

Question 5

Explain the continuities and changes in territorial holdings
from 1900 to the present.

Answer 5

• Between the two world wars, Western and Japanese imperial states predominantly maintained control over colonial holdings; in some cases, they gained additional territories
  through conquest or treaty settlement and in other cases faced anti-imperial resistance
• Territorial Gains:
  - Transfer of former German colonies to Great Britain and France under the system of League of Nations mandates
  - Manchukuo/Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere
• anti-imperial resistance:
  - Indian National Congress
  - West African resistance (strikes/congresses) to French rule

Question 6

Explain the causes and consequences of World War II.

Answer 6

• The causes of WWII included the unsustainable peace settlement after WWI, the global economic crisis
  engendered by the Great Depression, continued imperialist aspirations, & especially the rise to power of fascist and
  totalitarian regimes that resulted in the aggressive militarism of Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler

Question 7

Explain similarities and differences in how governments used a variety of methods to conduct war.

Answer 7

• World War II was a total war. Governments used a variety of strategies, including political propaganda, art, media, and intensified forms of nationalism, to mobilize populations (both
  in the home countries and the colonies or former colonies) for the purpose of waging war. Governments used ideologies, including fascism and communism to mobilize all of their
  state’s resources for war and, in the case of totalitarian states, to repress basic freedoms and dominate many aspects of daily life during the course of the conflicts and beyond
• New military technology and new tactics, including the atomic bomb, fire-bombing, and the waging of “total war” led to increased levels of wartime casualties
• western democracies mobilizing for war:
  - Great Britain under Winston Churchill
  - United States under Franklin Roosevelt
• totalitarian states mobilizing for war:
  - Germany under Adolf Hitler
  - USSR under Joseph Stalin

Question 8

Explain the various causes and consequences of mass
atrocities in the period from 1900 to the present.

Answer 8

• The rise of extremist groups in power led to the attempted destruction of specific populations, notably the Nazi killing of the Jews in the Holocaust during World War II, and to other
  atrocities, acts of genocide, or ethnic violence
  - Armenians blamed for conspiring w/ Russians -> slaughtered during + after WWI
  - Cambodia during the late 1970s (Khmer Rouge)
  - Tutsi in Rwanda in the 1990s (Hutus slaughter Tutsis bc germans/belgians preferred them during colonial rule)
  - Ukrainians starved in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s bc of collectivization of agriculture