UNIVERSITY OF IOWA

HISTORY 1403. WESTERN CIVILIZATION III: THE MODERN AGE

FINAL EXAMINATION

Instructions. Read Carefully.

DO ALL THREE SECTIONS (in any order)

1. Remember that you will be graded on the quality of your argument in sections I and II. Make sure that you carefully choose which information to include to support your argument. Use specific examples of relevant historical events. Do not hesitate to use evidence from the readings, as well as from the lectures and textbook, where appropriate.

2. Make sure that you answer all parts of the question.

3. Take your time. Use the full two hours available to you.

4. Please turn in both the exam book and the exam.

5. As a courtesy to other students, PLEASE leave as quietly as possible when you are through.

SECTION I. 50 minutes (40%). You will be given two questions from the following list. Answer one question only.

1. In what ways have political leaders influenced the course of history? Choose three examples of political leaders who have fundamentally changed the course of history since the eighteenth century, and explain how things were different because of their intervention. Of the three, choose at least one from the period before 1900. Support your argument with specific reference to historical events in context.

2. What were the major characteristics of the the European empires as they developed before 1945? Compare and contrast them with America's role in the world after 1945.

3. Compare and contrast the ways in which the Napoleonic Wars, the First World War, and the Second World War ended. For each war, identify one important consequence of how the war ended, and explain why that consequence was important.

4. Identify three important changes in the relationship between men and women since the eighteenth century. Be specific, and place the changes in historical context. Which of the three is the most important? Why?

5. How do you explain the steadily growing prestige of science and technology in the nineteenth century in contrast to the ambivalence toward and anxiety about science and technology in the twentieth century?

6. Since the eighteenth century, industrial capitalism has generated growing standards of living for the majority of people in the western world, yet has been the subject of persistent economic, political, and moral criticism. What have been industrial capitalism's greatest strengths, and greatest weaknesses? What have been the greatest strengths, and greatest weaknesses, of the persistent socialist critiques of capitalism? Support your argument with reference to specific historical events in context, including the record of democratic socialism in modern Europe and, in particular, the history of the Soviet Union, 1917-1991.

7. When asked his opinion of Western Civilization, Mahatma Gandhi replied: "I think it would be a good idea!" Given the prevalence of political turmoil, repression, war and massive killing of civilians in the twentieth century, do you think Gandhi's cynicism is justified, or have western societies contributed more to the world than they have damaged it? Support your answer with specific examples from at least two different historical periods, or two different parts of the world

SECTION II. 50 minutes (40%). You will be given two. Answer one question only.

1. Compare and contrast the ways in which the First World War and the Second World War began and ended.

2. Compare and contrast the cultural changes of the 1920s and the 1960s. Pay special attention to the relationship between men and women.

3. What made Nazism and Stalinism so appealing to many members of the public in Europe between 1918 and 1945?

4. Why did so many people, in Germany, Britain, France, and the U.S.S.R, underestimate Hitler and fail to understand his intentions? How did those misunderstandings contribute to the appeal of the policy of appeasement?

5. Compare and contrast the geopolitical struggle for power and influence between Britain, France, Russia, and Germany before 1914 with the international struggle for power and influence between the United States and the Soviet Union since 1945. Identify the major similarities and differences. (02)

6. Explain why Soviet Communism appealed to so many people in the 1930s. Why did it lose its appeal in the late twentieth century? In your answer pay attention to economics, politics, social changes, and diplomacy.

7. What were the three most important causes of the de-colonization of the European empires in the twentieth century? Justify your choice of each cause with reference to specific historical events and/or individuals.

8. Compare and contrast the regimes of Stalin and Hitler. How did they come into power, consolidate their political position, and organize the nation politically and economically?

9. World War I and its immediate aftermath have had long-term consequences for the entire twentieth century. Identify and describe the three most important consequences, and explain why you think they are more important than other consequences.

SECTION III 10 minutes (20%): (1) Identify and (2) briefly explain the significance of five (of the eight terms that you will be given) on the following list.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand

Big Four (Versailles Treaty)

Blitzkrieg

Bolsheviks

Bretton Woods

Containment

Cubism

Demand Management

Dresden

Glasnost/Perestroika

Hiroshima

Impressionism

Jackson Pollock

Lebensraum

Mahatma Gandhi

Marshall Plan

Mary Quant

Mikhael Gorbachev

Neville Chamberlain

Nikita Khrushchev

Non-Aligned Nations

Pablo Picasso

Rasputin

Schlieffen Plan

Sigmund Freud

The Double Helix

"The Third World"

Trench Warfare

Truman Doctrine

Uncertainty Theorem

Yalta