Module 8

World History II

Lesson 1: Age of Extremes

1. Use the following prompts to identify and discuss the “spirit of revolution” that erupted
throughout much of the world during the final phases of World War I and into 1920s:

a. In general, what types if people led these revolutions and where did they take place?

b. In general, what did these revolutions respond to and how did they differ from revolutions of
the past few hundred years (Age of Revolution)?

2. List three things (two general, one particular) to which the uprising in India responded.

3. What might help to explain the calls for restraint by Gandhi, the leaders of the Indian Nationalist
Movement, and other such colonized people with a privileged status?

4. How did Britain defeat the renewed drive for independence in Ireland after World War I?

5. Why did many Chinese merchants and people of profit and privilege gravitate toward China’s
imperialist oppressors rather than the bulk of the Chinese people and cause of independence?
What did the propertied class (wealthy class) fear?

6. Use the following prompts to identify and discuss the First Chinese Revolution at the close of
World War I:
a. In what regard did Japan ignite this revolution?

b. Due partially to partial industrialization and associated developments, two struggles

became intertwined in this revolution. What were they?

c. How did Jiang Kaishek’s Nationalist forces “reward” the students, workers and peasants
who assisted his efforts?

d. Ultimately, Jiang Kaishek’s Nationalists were willing to abandon the struggle for national
liberation from foreign imperialism. Why?

7. Who were the German Freikorps and why are they historically significant?

8. Identify and discuss what is meant by those historians who refer to the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s
as “the Age of Extremes” and what inclined much of humanity to move in the direction of
extremes (far Left and far Right)?

9. How do the Left/Right designations of the past compare with the popular usage of these terms in
the United States, today, and popular assumptions? (informed opinion).

10. From the information provided in the lesson, identify and discuss how Italian fascism and
Japanese fascism compared with German fascism. You may need to reference the slides, “Rising
Fascism I” to review fascist Germany (I will make the comparisons in the recorded lesson):
 a. Italy:

b. Japan:

11. Based upon what you have learned about fascism, explain why it could be argued that the United
States became beset by powerful fascistic elements after world War I, even if the nation did not
get a fully fascist regime.

Lesson 2: Age of Extremes II

1. Identify and discuss the conditions and circumstances which undermined attempts by Russia to
develop toward modernity after the Russian Revolution, successfully implement socialism and
achieve security and stability (consider internal and external factors).

2. Soviet Russia had great successes as well as great failures. Because the sources that most readily
condition American assumptions emphasize (and often distort) the short-coming, I am asking you
to identify and discuss the successes:

3. Across the 1920s, Soviet Russia and the United States constituted the only major nations to
experience economic growth. Soviet Russia achieved economic growth through its imperfect
socialist experiment. How did the US maintain economic growth and what were the
consequences.

4. Across the 1930s, powerful individuals and entities tried to push the United States into a fascist
military dictatorship. What types of influences kept the United States from descending into
fascism?

5. How did Franklin D. Roosevelt propose to deal with the crisis of capitalism (Great Depression)
and what was the logic behind his New Deal?

Lesson 3: World War II, part 1

1. The Spanish Civil War:

a. What was the cause?

b. Describe the belligerents (two sides of the conflict and allies):

c. Which nations assisted the legitimate, elected government of Spain, and which did not?

d. The International Brigades and Abraham Lincoln Brigade:

e. Outcome and what can explain this outcome?

f. What kind of government did the Spanish Civil War beget through the 1970s?
2. An active Allied alliance against Nazi Germany did not form until after Hitler controlled most of
Europe and had the Soviet Union battling for its life on the Eastern Front. How can we begin to
explain the failure of western nations to act against Hitler’s war machine when a full-scale war
and associated atrocities might have been prevented?

3. 1937- Japan and Italy launched unspeakably brutal invasions targeting China, Ethiopia, and
Libya. These invasions laid out a pattern that continued to be replicated by the Axis Powers
throughout the war, including Germany in Eastern Europe. Describe the major features of this
Axis Powers pattern:

4. The Non-Aggression Pact between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia continues to be one of the
most frequently misrepresented and politicized moments in twentieth-century history. With this
in mind, what was the context and strategic rationale with which Soviet Russia entered into the
agreement with Nazi Germany and occupied Poland? Why was this agreement NOT a case of
like-minded dictators doing what “evil dictators” do?

5. By mid-1941, scattered civilian militias (mostly Leftists) and two European nations continued to
actively resist Nazi Germany. What two European nations had neither fallen to, nor formed a pact
with, Nazi Germany by 1941:
a. .
b.  

6. Operation Barbarossa-
a. What was it?
b. What is its general significance in military history?

7. What were the strategic and ideological reasons that Nazi Germany choose to throw most of its
war machine at Eastern Europe and Soviet Russia?

8. Eastern Europe, between Germany and Russia, was (and still is) a place of great ethnic diversity,
historically shifting borders (as empires expanded and receded), complex divisions and loyalties
which defy unity within modern nation states, and clannishness inclined toward brutal purges.
Combined with the advent of nationalism and ethno-nationalism, these conditions functioned to
escalate the carnage of an already bloody Nazi invasion. Based upon what you have learned in
this lesson, explain why Russia might continue to experience security challenges on its western
border beyond the end of World War II.

9. Had Stalin got things his way, Britain, France, and other western nations would have formed a
mutual defense alliance against Nazi Germany and ousted Hitler before the Nazi rampage across
Europe became truly initiated. This did not happen. What strategic motive did Britain and the US
have for finally forging an alliance with Soviet Russia in the fall of 1941? What was at stake?

10. Even as public opinion polls strongly suggested that an overwhelming number of Americans
opposed US involvement in the ongoing conflicts surging in Europe and Asia (WWII), the
Roosevelt Administration deemed it prudent to compromise US neutrality to the advantage of
nations defending themselves from Axis aggression. Identify the manners in which neutrality
became compromised ahead of an official US entrance into the war:

a. Regarding Germany:
b. Regarding Japan:
 11. Why did Japan attack the US naval base of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and what was the result?

12. During the late-1800s, the United States commenced making colonial claims on lands far from
home and building bases on those colonial claims. The US became officially pulled into World
War II after major attacks on such colonies and a considerable amount of American life lost.

13. In addition to Hawaii, what other American colony sustained a significant attack in the winter of
1941/42 and what was the fate of American servicemen and allies there?

14. The Battle of Midway- What happened and why was it significant to the course of the war?

15. What were the US’s goals and strategic approach to fighting the Japanese in the Pacific?

Lesson 3: World War II

1. Regarding China, what was the United Front and what did its factions entail?

2. Unit 731- What was it and why is it significant?

3. Use the following prompts to discuss Korea and the significance of World War II:

a. Identify and discuss conditions in Korea prior to and during World War II
b. Who was Kim Il-Sung and what were his objectives?
c. From the North Korean perspective, how did the Korean War begin and what did it entail?

4. How did WWII impact colonial relations (as will be seen with regard to Vietnam)?

5. Why might a person from a colonized nation such as Korea, Vietnam or China (or Central
America) become a socialist or communist?

6. How did Hitler and the Nazis imagine western Europe and eastern Europe?

7. SS Einsatzgruppen- What was it and why is it significant?

8. What did the Final Solution entail (beyond mass murder)?

9. Describe Soviet Russia’s struggle with Nazi Germany on the Eastern Front. In sum, what
happened and why is it significant? What percentage of all German casualties occurred there?

10. The Battle of Stalingrad- What happened and why is it significant to course of World War II and
within military history ?

11. How did the American people, in general, respond to the outcome of Stalingrad?

12. What did the Red Army discover as it battled the Nazis back to Berlin?
 13. By what means did Italy become part of the Allies (what happened to allow Italy to switch sides?)

14. The Tehran Conference what major post-war agreements were made there?

Lesson 4: World War II, part 3 1945

1. Operation Overlord (AKA D-Day):

a. What was it?

b. Who commanded it?

c. What did it achieve?

d. What was occurring on the Eastern Front as Operation Overlord went forward on the Western
Front?

2. East Meets West on the Elbe River- What happened and how did it impact many of the men who
were there through the subsequent Cold War?

3. Battle for Berlin- What was it and why is it important?

4. Soviet Russia did the “heavy lifting” in the fight against the Nazis and won the European War
with the assistance of the US and other allies and partisans. The US did the “heavy lifting” in the
fight against Imperial fascist Japan and won the Pacific War with the assistance of Soviet Russia
and other allies and partisans. In sum, what was the US strategy to winning the Pacific War?

5. Compare and contrast Harry Truman and Henry Wallace/ FDR and explain how a Wallace
presidency might have set the United States and world on another path (one that differed from the
Truman path to Cold War).

6. Regarding Truman and the use of atomic weaponry: Name two assumptions commonly made
about the end of World War II and the facts which undermine these assumptions.

7. Compare and contrast the condition of the US and Soviet Russia at the close of World War II and
identify the facts which undermine the notion that Russia was determined to expand. Consider
economic health, home fronts, and challenges, etc.

8. When Truman declared war on communism, what did he truly commit the US to warring against,
and what does this suggest about the “Red Menace” and the “Russian Boogieman” that the
American people were taught to fear? (informed opinion)

9. To what does National Security State and Permanent War Economy refer and how did these
developments under the Truman Administration impact the United States?

10. (In relation to question 9) What has the US not done since World War II (besides not drop a
nuclear weapon on an enemy nation)?