Western Civilization II Final
Average number of children families must have in order to maintain a stable population
2.1 children
Why was West Germany allowed to build an army after 1955?
A German army would permit Germany to assist in the defense of Europe from attack by the Soviet Union.
What was the policy of détente that Social Democrats in Europe pursued?
A progressive relaxation of Cold War tensions
What was the February Revolution in Russia in 1917?
An unplanned uprising of hungry and angry people in the capital
How did the Soviet Union and eastern European Communist regimes treat displaced persons returning home after the war?
As politically unreliable because of their exposure to western European society
What did Marcel Proust attempt to do in his novel Remembrance of Things Past?
Discover the inner meaning of bittersweet memories of childhood and youthful love
Which six western European countries formed the European Economic Community, or Common Market, in 1957?
France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Italy, and West Germany
In 1923, which German politician called off passive resistance in the Ruhr and agreed in principle to pay reparations?
Gustav Stresemann
In the twentieth century, what was John Maynard Keynes known for?
He denounced the Treaty of Versailles for economic reasons.
How did Mao Zedong gain the support of the peasantry in China?
He promised to expropriate land from the large landowners.
Why was Mussolini expelled from the Italian Socialist Party?
He urged Italian entry into World War I.
What is the composer Arnold Schönberg known for?
His creation of twelve-tone music that abandoned traditional harmony and tonality
How did the Soviet Union initially organize the eastern European nations as it threw out pro-Nazi regimes?
It created coalition governments of leftist political parties but reserved key government posts for Moscow-trained Communists.
What was the effect of the 1935 Nuremberg Laws?
It defined as Jewish anyone having three or more Jewish grandparents
Why did Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich create such a sensation when it was published in 1962?
It portrayed in grim detail life in a Stalinist concentration camp.
Who was the director of Triumph of the Will, a brilliant piece of cinematic propaganda based on the 1934 Nazi Party rally at Nuremberg?
Leni Riefenstahl
What was a major reason for the decline of western European birthrates?
Married women entering careers and the related drive for gender equality
Why did the August 1991 attempted coup by the Communist old guard in the Soviet Union fail?
Massive popular resistance rallied around Boris Yeltsin.
In the twenty-first century, which resource could Russia use to assert political influence?
Natural Gas
Why did the rapid economic liberalization of Russia work poorly?
Production of many items was concentrated in one or two giant factories.
What did Germany's Auxiliary Service Law require?
That all men between seventeen and sixty work at jobs considered critical to the war effort
How did Lenin's and the Bolsheviks' view of the Marxist party in Russia differ from the Mensheviks' view of the party?
The Bolsheviks wanted a small, disciplined party, while the Mensheviks wanted a democratic party with mass membership.
Which position did Christian Democrats across Europe endorse during the 1950s?
The Cold War against the Soviet Union
Why were the Balkans considered the "powder keg of Europe"?
The Ottoman Empire had been forced to give up its territory in the region, leading to growing ethnic nationalism.
What aspect of American foreign policy under President George W. Bush most troubled leaders of the European Union?
The United States increasingly ignored international opinion and pursued its own interests unilaterally.
What did the New Left advocate?
The establishment of socialism with a human face that would avoid the worst excesses of capitalism or Soviet-style communism
What was the Holocaust?
The systematic effort of the Nazi state to exterminate all European Jews during the Second World War
Throughout the First World War, what mistake did military commanders repeatedly make?
They attempted to mount massive offensives designed to break through entrenched lines.
How did the moderate Social Democrats in Germany put down the radical Communist Spartacist Uprising?
They called on bands of demobilized soldiers called Free Corps to crush the uprising.
How did the Nazis seek to legitimize their racial policies?
They established research institutes and academies that measured and defined racial differences in order to present prejudice in the guise of enlightened science.
Why did the Germans accept the Treaty of Versailles?
They had little alternative, especially as the naval blockade was still in place and the German people were starving.
What problem was faced by most of the underground resistance groups who opposed the Nazis?
They were not well unified, for they had differing political goals.
The American stock market crash of October 1929 was primarily the result of
an imbalance between real investment and speculation.
The ultimate goal of the plan for an international organization to coordinate coal and steel production in Europe in the 1950s was to
bind the six members of the European Coal and Steel Community so closely that war would be impossible.
In Stalin's Soviet Union, women
could enter the ranks of specialists in industry and science.
Changes in the structure of European society after the Second World War were primarily the result of
economic and technological transformation.
Poland differed from the other Eastern Bloc states in the 1970s and 1980s because
of its independent agriculture and vigorous church.
In response to the growing power of Solidarity in Poland, Wojciech Jaruzelski, a general and head of the Polish government, suddenly
proclaimed martial law and arrested Solidarity's leaders.
In his philosophical writings, Friedrich Nietzsche argued that
the Western world had overemphasized rationality and stifled the authentic passions that drive human activity and true creativity.
Following the failure of his program of nationalization and public investment in the early 1980s, French president François Mitterrand
was forced to introduce austerity measures.