Indian Institute of Technology Indore

Mid-Semester Examination
IHS - 402 - Twentieth Century World History

Date: 15.03.16 Marks: 60; Time - 2 hours

Note: Read the questions carefully and do not repeat the answers/arguments. Questions
carry 12 marks each.

1. History can be treated in two ways - [1] It is a treasure house of ideas to which we
can look at to have a hang of what has gone by and in what manner. [2] History
is a mere waste compilation of facts needlessly far-stretched as ‘extra-factual’ that is
hopelessly footprints of our past. There are lot of debates as to how important is not
just knowing our past, but also knowing the ‘ideological’ dimension of it. Defend
either of the ponts or ‘both’ - focusing on the ‘usefulness’ or ‘futility’ of
historical imagination.

Or

A German historian and philosopher Walter Benjamin [1978] once said, “There is no
document of civilization that is not simultaneously a document of barbarism.” It was
clear in his case to identify the barbarian and the civilized cultures [as he was referring
to the German Holocaust agianst the Nazis]. However, it is no easy task to firmly
pinpoint the civilized and the barbarian [in terms of religion, nation, culture etc.].
How do you understand this problem?

2. I stood on my own, the last

of the species that Wght,
seeing these brothers, with feet turned upwards, growing
until they reached the sky, in death,
to kick it. I saw
the moon like an animal
rub a silver face on the worn nails in the boots
of upturned soldiers.

Uri Zvi Greenberg, Balkan front, 1915/16

Black milk of daybreak we drink it at sundown

We drink it at noon in the morning we drink it at night
We drink and we drink it

Paul Celan, Czernowitz, 1944

1
 Both the verses indicate the dance of life and death during the First and the Sec-
ond World Wars respectively. Doubtless, they depict an altogether different human
condition - witnessing the beginning of an ever-alliance between politics, ideology and
technology. Give a critical comment on both the wars discussing their histori-
cal importance. You may focus on certain facts to help back your argument.
Otherwise listing of facts is strictly uncalled for.

Or

Come brothers, hail this great and twilight year,

Come, celebrate the dusk of liberty.

Osip Mandelshtam, Russia, 1918

It was believed by many that ‘a miracle has happened’ in 1917 October Revolution
promising the ‘twilight of liberty’. How important is the Russian Revolution for
twentieth century?

3. “An era was over and a new Europe was being born. This much was obvious. But with
the passing of the old order many longstanding assumptions would be called into ques-
tion. What had once seemed permanent and somehow inevitable would take on a more
transient air. The Cold-War confrontation; the schism separating East from West; the
contest between ’Communism’ and ’capitalism’; the separate and non-communicating
stories of prosperous western Europe and the Soviet bloc satellites to its east: all these
could no longer be understood as the products of ideological necessity or the iron logic
of politics. They were the accidental outcomes of historyand history was thrusting
them aside.”
“Behind these nebulous stirrings of doubt and disillusion there was a very real and, as
it seemed at the time, present threat. Since the end of the Second World War, Western
Europe had been largely preserved from civil conflict, much less open violence. Armed
force had been deployed to bloody effect all across Eastern Europe, in the European
colonies, and throughout Asia, Africa and South America. The Cold War notwith-
standing, heated and murderous struggles were a feature of the post-war decades, with
millions of soldiers and civilians killed from Korea to the Congo. The United States
itself had been the site of three political assassinations and more than one bloody riot.
But Western Europe had been an island of civil peace.”
Comment on whether the cold War was an accidental outcome in the great
ideological conflict.

Or

The disintegration of the Soviet Union and the fall of Berlin Wall followed by the uni-
fication of East and West Germany brought along with them a bundle of triumphant
claims of the west. The most significant ones among them are the ‘Triumph of Cap-
italism’ and the ‘Collapse of Communism’. Keeping the Cold War ideological
rivalry into account, critically discuss the above comment.
4. Another German philosopher G.W.F.Hegel stated, “World history is not the soil in
which happiness grows. Periods of happiness are empty pages in it’.”
This means that even peace is an outcome of great struggles even if achieved in the
token sense. However, for Francis Fukuyama, though the fall of 1989-90 legitimizes the
Western Capitalist win over all its opponents, the fear of history coming to an end is
foreseen. Discuss the main argument of ‘the end of history’.

Or

The post-Soviet era has given rise to/brought back the age-old ‘civilizational rivalry’ to
global politics. Discussing on these lines, Samuel Huntington refers to certain cultural
and civilizational fault-lines causing the conflict. Critically discuss the argument
of the ‘Clash of Civilizations’.

5. Kevin Barrett states, “Certainly the awful destruction and suffering on that day was
all too real. But the result was not to make or alter history but to annihilate and
replace it with myth ... is the significance of failed myth of 9/11. A carefully designed
erasz-religious event, crafted by atheist neocons to dupe the folks of good faith, has
been exposed as a lie. The very magnitude of the lie, in its exposrure has created a
massive gap, a huge yawning vacuum that only the greatest and largest of truths -
the ultimate unities of God, the cosmos, humankind, and planet Earth will be able to
fill.” Understanding the 9/11 controversy is not an easy affair - the event
and mythifying elements following the incident. Make a critical comment
on 9/11 stating your agreement or disagreement or any other standpoint in
relation to the myth argument.