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The Western Experience, 8/e

Mortimer Chambers, University of California - Los Angeles
Barbara Hanawalt, Ohio State University
Theodore Rabb, Princeton University
Isser Woloch, Columbia University
Raymond Grew, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

The Nightmare: World War II

Problems for Analysis

I. The Years of Axis Victory


1		1. Evaluate how effectively the democracies responded to the growth of authoritarianism and to such problems as the Ethiopian crisis, the Anschluss, and the Czech partition. 2. France was one of the dominant powers in Europe, yet it fell relatively quickly to the Germans in 1940. How do you explain this collapse?

II. The Global War, 1942-1945


2		1. Analyze the reasons for the turning of the tide against the Axis in 1942. What factors were weakening the Axis powers? What factors were strengthening the Allied powers?

III. Building on the Ruins


3		1. Compare the peace settlement after World War II with that after World War I. Do you think that the Allied leaders learned from history? Were the lessons valid? 2. Compare the political evolution of Eastern and Western Europe between 1945 and 1950. 3. Trace the evolution of the Cold War in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Why was competition between the two great powers so intense?

IV. European Recovery


4		1. What roles did the United States and the Soviet Union play in the economic recovery of Europe? How important was the Marshall Plan? Did the United States and the Soviet Union benefit by providing recovery aid? Explain. 2. Do trends between 1945 and 1958 support hope for the development of regionalism or of internationalism? Explain. 3. Evaluate the attempts by various European states to achieve increased independence from US or Soviet influence.

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