1. What was the industrial revolution? Why is it significant? Compare and contrast the differences between the U.S., Russia, Chinese, and Japanese responses to the industrial revolution. What do you believe accounts for the differences in which different countries responded to England's industrial challenge? Economically, today, our world may be changing as much as it changed in the nineteenth century. On the basis of your answer, what advice would you give to policy makers examining the global economy today?
2. It has been argued that the roots of many of the current tensions in the Middle East and the Arab world can be traced to the events during and immediately after World War I (including the treaties that ended the war). Would you agree with this conclusion? Give specific examples. Based on your answer to this question, what advice would you give foreign policy officials in the U.S. today?
3. What is fascism? Both the Germans and the Japanese developed politics in the 1930s that deeply challenged the parliamentary and democratic traditions that developed in England, France, and the United States. Some historians have called the kind of political organization in these countries Totalitarianism and have included the government Stalin formed in the USSR as well. What do you believe these historians meant by totalitarianism? What are the similarities between what the Japanese, Germans, and Soviets believed? What are the differences?
4. How did the strategies to end World War II lead to the outbreak of the Cold War? How did the Cold War shape developments in Europe, China, Viet Nam, and Korea? In looking at the policies of the United States and the Soviet Union, were they different from one another, or essentially similar in their respective goals and methods?