1.
What was the impact of World War I, and what problems did European countries face in the 1920s?
2.
HowHow did France, Great Britain, and the United States respond to the various crises of the interwar period, including the Great Depression? How did World War I affect Europe's colonies in Africa and Asia?
3.
Why did Hauser compare the scene he describes from 1932 with conditions in the years 1917 and 1918? How did the growing misery of many ordinary Germans promote the rise of extremist political parties like the Nazis?
4.
Why did many European states experience a retreat from democracy in the interwar years? What are the characteristics of totalitarian states, and to what degrees were there characteristics present in Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and Stalinist Russia?
5.
According to The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism, for Mussolini, what were the basic principles of Italian Fascism? Why might such principles have appealed to a broad public in the aftermath of World War I?
6.
In Hitler's view, what would mass meetings accomplish for his movement? How do mass rallies further the development of nationalism? In the YouTube clip on-line, how does Tomorrow Belongs to Me reflect a nationalist fervor in Nazi Germany? What does the old man represent and why might he act the way he does in the beer garden?
7.
What were Hitler's foreign policy goals, and what steps did he take to achieve them between 1933 and 1939? How did Japan's foreign policy goals set-up what is called the Pacific Theater and lead to war in Asia during the same period?
8.
What were the opposing views of Churchill and Chamberlain on the Munich Conference? Why did they disagree so much? Describe the changes in attitude reflected in the addresses of Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill, as displayed in four video clips from YouTube. How does the tone between the two men's speeches capture the ebbs and flows of the prewar and wartime?
9.
What was the Holocaust, and what role did it play in Nazi policy?
10.
Describe the turning points of World War II. Why do you consider these the pivotal moments that changed the course of the war?
11.
What were the costs of World War II? How did the Allies' visions of postwar Europe differ, and how did these differences contribute to the emergence of the Cold War? What do the statements of Churchill and Stalin tell us about the origins and rhetoric of the Cold War?
12.
Looking back, how did the Allies' treatment of the losers of World War II differ from the treatment of Germany in the Treaty of Versailles after World War I?
13.
In Kennan's view, what was the Soviet policy after World War II? What did he believe determined the policy, and how did he think the United States should respond? In Novilkov's view, what was the goal of the U.S. foreign policy, and how did he believe the Americans planned to achieve it? Why was it so difficult to find a common ground between the two positions?
14.
What were the main developments in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and Western Europe between 1945 and 1965?
15.
According to Khrushchev, what were Stalin's crimes? What purposes, political and historical, do you think Khrushchev intended his denunciation of Stalin to serve?