- Compare and contrast the response to the Great Depression in the United States, France, Britain, Germany, and the Scandinavian countries. How would you explain the similarities and differences you note?
- What light does the Great Depression shed on the nature of global economic connections in the 1920s and 1930s? How did an economic crisis that began in the United States and Europe spread to Asia, Africa, and Latin America?
|
- In your opinion, was Italy under Mussolini a totalitarian state? Why or why not?
- Compare and contrast Stalinism and Nazism. What were the most important differences between the two ideologies? How did both systems use the persecution of “outsiders” to promote loyalty and obedience to the regime?
|
- What role did race play in the German and Japanese drive for territorial expansion? Is it fair to describe World War II, in Europe and in the Pacific, as a racial war?
- In your opinion, why did the Allies win the war? What role did industrial production play in the Allied victory? What other factors were important?
|
LOOKING BACK, LOOKING AHEAD
- Argue for or against the following proposition: “World War II was the inevitable consequence of the destruction of World War I and the fatally flawed peace treaties produced at its conclusion.” What evidence can you present to support your position?
- What similarities and differences do you see between the Great Depression of the 1930s and the global economic crisis of the early twenty-first century? Could the contemporary crisis lead to another “Age of Dictators”? Why or why not?
|
