Part One:
Paragraph Questions
Please answer two questions in each section, for a total of four paragraph-long answers. Please indicate which questions you are answering in each section.
Section One: Answer any two of the following questions in one paragraph each.
What did a “place in the sun” mean to Wilhelm II? How did it impact relations with Britain and France?
Describe the differences between the Western and Eastern Fronts in the First World War.
Why were the Bolsheviks able to overthrow the Provisional Government?
Describe the treaties of Versailles and St. Germain.
Section Two: Answer any two of the following questions in one paragraph each.
Outline the main ideas of Mussolini’s fascist movement.
Describe the background to, and aftermath of, the Boxer Rebellion.
Describe the development of Arab nationalism up to the First World War, and how the Sykes-Picot Agreement frustrated some of its aims.
How did the Roosevelt Administration confront the Great Depression?
Part Two:
Essay Questions
Please answer any one of the following questions in a well-developed essay, using evidence from across the semester:
Describe the appeal of the National Socialists to traditional German conservatives, focusing on imperialism and resentment over Versailles.
Agree or disagree, with reasons: The first half of the twentieth century was truly the twilight of European power, as the rise of the United States and Japan prove.
Looking at any one of the following countries – Germany, Russia/USSR, France, Austro-Hungary/Austria or Britain – discuss how its foreign and domestic policies changed from 1900-1939. Feel free to choose your terms, but focus on at least one significant aspect of each kind of policy.
Using the First and Second World Wars as examples, describe the development of the idea of Total War and the deliberate targeting of civilians. What was the logic of this approach?
Agree or disagree, with reasons: The First and Second World Wars both began because of imperial competition.
