AP World History: Accelerating Global Change and Realignments
1900 to the Present
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1. Compare the Mexican, Russian, and Chinese revolutions.
The social, economic, and political backgrounds of these countries made each revolution unique,
yet they shared many commonalities: corruption and inefficient governments, landless
peasantries, and revolutionary leaders who caught their attention. Pay special attention to the
results of these revolutions. Which succeeded at fulfilling their promises more thoroughly? At
what cost? For example, the Mexican Revolution promised and only slowly delivered on land
reform; 1.5 million lost their lives in the revolution. In Russia, upwards of 20 million died in its
civil war. Stalin’s collectivization program led to the death of millions more, but land was
redistributed. In China, the revolution overthrowing the Qing was only a precursor to a more
radical one that ended in 1949. It can be argued that occurred because the “winners” in the first
revolution did not fulfill the promises they had made, and so another was perhaps inevitable.
2. Discuss evidence of political and social change for women in the West in the 1920s.
Women, who lost their economic gains in the war’s factories, attained voting rights and social
freedoms in several countries. Declining birth rates and overall prosperity allowed women to
engage in more leisure activities. Women openly dated, smoked, and drank.
3. Identify some political and social changes among the settler societies in this era.
Settler societies, such as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, became more autonomous during
this era. Canada saw an increasingly strong economy and rapid immigration during the 1920s.
Australia emphasized socialist programs like nationalization of railways, banks, and power
plants, and experienced rapid immigration as well.
4. Describe the factors that led to Japan’s shift from a liberal democracy to a military
controlled government.
After World War I, Japan became Asia’s leading industrial power. The industrial combines
rapidly expanded in areas like shipbuilding. Like Western countries, Japan saw its political
institutions challenged by war and depression. In response, the nation developed an aggressive
foreign policy pushed by a government controlled by the military.
5. Compare totalitarianism in the U.S.S.R. and Germany.
Both the U.S.S.R. and Germany exercised massive and direct control over all the activities of
their subjects. Both governments purged opposition, censored news, controlled movement of
citizens, and distributed commodities. Whereas Germany tried to expand its ideals by conquering
neighbors, the U.S.S.R. remained highly introverted.
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6. Compare the Germans’ policy toward Jews and the Japanese policy toward the Chinese.
Both displayed a callousness toward their subjugated societies. The difference appears to be the
planned depravity of the German Holocaust. The Japanese forces took out their frustrations on
retreating combatants and innocent civilians. The German plan was a systematic process to
purify its society.
7. Describe how the changing roles of women affected Western society.
A key facet of postwar change involved women and the family. From the early 1950s onward,
the number of married working women rose steadily in the West. Where women had lacked the
vote, they now got it. Gains in higher education were dramatic. Access to divorce and birth
control, the latter coming through legal abortion and the Pill, were other major developments.
Marriage and children came at later ages. Maternal care was widely replaced by day-care centers,
as both parents worked. A new wave of feminist political agitation occurred in the 1960s and
1970s. Overall, the family goals established in the Industrial Revolution were less important.
CHAPTER 31
8. Compare Soviet and Western responses during the cold war. Both sides
blamed the other for starting the cold war. Both were at various times responsible for its
continuation. Great suspicions between the foes, often well-grounded (the Cuban Missile Crisis)
kept the world watching—and often participating in—the ultimate game of Stratego. In the same
era, moves toward cooperation, like the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, sometimes separated rhetoric
from action.
9. Trace the changing views about the roles of women during this era. One of the biggest
changes at this time was the shift in work roles for women. The Industrial Revolution ideal of a
homemaker was rethought and a high percentage of women in both Western and Soviet societies
began to work outside the home. Women gained much independence but questions about the
price paid for such victories arose.
10. Generalize the positive and negative outcomes of the implementation of the welfare
state.
The welfare state was state-run “cradle-to-the-grave” care that developed in western Europe and
spread in varying forms to the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The consolidation of
democracy also included a general movement of war decades. Conservatives did not dismantle
the welfare state and socialist parties moderated their tone. Power passed from one side to the
other without major disruption. Student protests, especially in the United States and France in the
1960s, had impact on governmental policies. By the late 1970s, politics began to swing back
toward the right as economic growth slowed.
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11. Describe the political and economic reasons for the United States’ interventions in Latin
America.
After World War I, the U.S. was clearly the dominant power in the Western Hemisphere. In
South America, private investments by U.S. companies and loans from the government were the
chief means of influence. Military intervention became a common means of protecting U.S.
interests. The grounds for these interventions were economic, political, strategic, and ideological.
The U.S. Good Neighbor Policy of the 1930s and the Alliance for Progress of the 1960s sought
to ameliorate tensions.
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12. Compare the political, social, and economic development of Asian and African
countries after independence with the countries of Latin America.
Each region demonstrated a variety of responses to independence: failure of nationalist
governments, establishment of one-party government, military regimes, and charismatic populist
governments. Latin America did not have a successful fundamentalist revolt similar to that of
Iran. Continuing revolutions were common in all regions. Latin America has a different social
hierarchy than elsewhere based on color and ethnic background. South Africa had a system
where a white minority ruled and discriminated against a black African majority. Many of the
regions had a significant underclass.
In economics, all regions had difficulties in overcoming the disadvantages of an absence of
industrialization, an inability to shake off economic dependency within the global trade network,
the creation of huge cities full of the unemployed, and population growth swallowing any
economic gains.
13. Appraise the reasons for the high population growth rates in new Asian and African
nations.
Population growth proved to be one of the most important barriers to economic advance after
independence. Importation of New World food crops had fueled growth, and colonial rule
reinforced the trends by combating local war and disease. Modern transportation systems helped
to check famine. Population growth continued after independence, especially in Africa. The
policies of the colonizers that limited industrial development resulted in few employment
opportunities and an inability to produce necessities for rising populations. Most African and
Asian nations have been slow to develop birth control programs in their male-dominated
societies. Procreation demonstrates male virility, while the wish for male children is critical to
female social standing. In Africa, some societies regard children as vital additions to lineage
networks. High mortality rates formerly had encouraged families to have many children, a factor
persisting when rates declined. Many African and Asian nations have recognized the dangers to
their societies and now are running family planning programs.
14. Compare the cities in Asia, Africa, and Latin America with those of the West.
Most cities in Asia, Africa, and Latin America lacked expanding industrial sectors able to utilize
the people who were arriving, thus forming the urban underclass. This forced governments to
expend valuable resources to keep food and other staples available and cheap. The cities spread
without planning and developed vast slums. The result is the creation of parasitic, not productive,
cities that diminish national resources by drawing supplies from already impoverished rural
regions. The demands upon the latter have caused soil depletion and deforestation that upset
fragile tropical ecosystems.
15. Compare Nasser’s military government with other military regimes.
Gamal Abdul Nasser took power in the usual manner by building a coalition. Once in power,
Nasser eliminated the rivals. This is where he is similar to the other military regimes. Where he
differs is in his approach to economic and social reforms. Nasser used his power to force through
programs that he believed would uplift the long-suffering Egyptian masses. Nasser believed that
only the state could carry out such reforms.
16. Compare post-independence policies in India and Egypt.
Indian leaders favored socialism and state intervention for reforming their society, but differed
from the Egyptians in important ways. Both nations were overcrowded. Indians have preserved
civilian rule since independence. Despite the burden of overpopulation, India differed by
possessing at independence a large industrial and scientific sector, a developed communications
system, and an important middle class. The early leaders of the Indian National Congress were
committed to social reform, economic development, and preservation of democracy and civil
rights. Despite a host of problems, India has remained the world’s largest working democracy.
Further, India came to independence with better communication networks, bureaucratic systems,
and a large skilled and semi-skilled workforce.
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17. Compare the experience in China and Vietnam with the process of decolonization
elsewhere in Asia and Africa. The similarities include an exposure to Western imperialism
during the 19th century, and to that of Japan during the 20th century. By that century, they had
been reduced to economic dependency in the global trade network. They had failed to
industrialize, and shared overpopulation problems and poverty. Their differences from other
African and Asian colonial territories included the failure to develop a Western-educated
middle class and to undertake a lengthy period of nationalist, democratic government. They
accepted a peasant-oriented form of Marxism, achieved greater success in raising the status of
women, and were able to maintain independence from the diplomatic systems of the United
States and the Soviet Union. Both had a secular orientation; they lacked the Catholicism of
Latin America or the religious focus provided by Islam and Hinduism. They emphasized the
peasantry rather than an urban working class.
18. Compare China and Vietnam culturally before and after the revolutions.
Both China and Vietnam have undergone revolutionary transformations during the 20th
century. Communism has replaced Monarchies and colonial regimes. Entire social
classes have disappeared. New educational systems have been created. Women have gained
new legal and social status. Confucianism fell before Marxist-Leninism and later Western
capitalist influences. But much remains unchanged. Suspicion of commercial and
entrepreneurial classes persists, and the belief remains that rulers are obliged to promote the
welfare of their subjects. Ideological systems stress secular and social harmony rather than
religious concerns.