RESHAPING RUSSIA AND THE FORMER EAST BLOC

Compare and contrast the Russian/Soviet state in 1914, 1945, and 2014.

How would you explain the pattern of post–Cold War development in Eastern Europe?

GLOBALIZATION AND EUROPEAN DIVERSITY

How did new global connections change the economic relationship between Europe and the rest of the world?

Fifty years from now, what current social and cultural conflicts and challenges do you think will remain for Europe’s population?

CONFRONTING TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY CHALLENGES

What tensions and divisions within western Europe were revealed by the global recession that began in 2008?

In your opinion, will the United States and the European Union move toward closer cooperation on global issues in the decades to come or will they drift further apart? Why?

MAKE CONNECTIONS

What might a late nineteenth-century European find most surprising about the Europe of today? What developments might seem most unlikely from such a person’s perspective?

In your opinion, will western Europe be more or less unified in fifty years than it is today? Why?