Deck 20: The Three-World Order, 1940-1975

Question 1

Which of the following led to the internal migration of 12 million South Asians in 1947?

A) Millions of South Asians moved from rural poverty to seek better lives in urban centers.
B) Both Hindus and Muslims left their homes to relocate to the new countries, India or Pakistan, after more than a million people were killed in religious conflicts.
C) Millions of dalits, the lowest caste in India, moved from Hindu provinces to Muslim provinces, where they were promised equality under law.
D) Millions of people returned from overseas British-controlled plantations and factories to seek independent incomes in the new India.

Answer 1

Both Hindus and Muslims left their homes to relocate to the new countries, India or Pakistan, after more than a million people were killed in religious conflicts.

Question 2

Following World War II, which of the following emerged as the prevailing global political organization?

A) the multiethnic empire
B) the Warsaw Pact
C) the nation-state
D) the European Economic Community

Answer 2

the nation-state

Question 3

Which of the following accurately compares the Germans and Japanese during the 1930s and 1940s?

A) Both encouraged veneration of the emperor.
B) The Germans, but not the Japanese, forced large numbers of prisoners of war POWs) and conquered people to work for their war efforts.
C) Both developed theories of racial superiority.
D) The Japanese, but not the Germans, behaved brutally toward the peoples of the territories they conquered.

Answer 3

Both developed theories of racial superiority.

Question 4

For which of the following reasons did President Harry Truman authorize use of the atomic bomb in 1945?

A) Germany refused to surrender, even though the Soviets, British, and Americans were converging on Berlin.
B) Truman feared that if he did not use the bomb, the Russians would continue their drive to spread communism into western Europe.
C) The bomb had never been tested, and scientists needed to know if the theory behind it was valid.
D) An Allied invasion of Japan would cost hundreds of thousands of American lives, since the Japanese had vowed to defend the main islands to the last man, woman, and child.

Question 5

How did Japan justify its conquest of neighboring territory during World War II?

A) Japan claimed that its conquests were protecting East Asia from American colonial aggression.
B) Japan claimed that it was driving out European imperialists and establishing "Asia for the Asians."
C) Japan claimed that if it failed to take over, Europeans would extend their colonial presence into the region.
D) Japan claimed that conquest was necessary in order to forestall the spread of world communism.

Question 6

Which of the following is a reason why historians have described World War II as a total global conflict?

A) World War II led to significant transformations of all the major prewar forms of government.
B) Fighting in World War II took place on three continents and included soldiers from all continents except Antarctica.
C) All countries in the world were involved in the war, suffering severe financial losses and dislocation to their economies.
D) Class, race, and gender boundaries were dissolved by the needs of total war in all the combating nations.

Question 7

Which of the following first tested President Truman's containment policy?

A) the Berlin blockade
B) the bombing of Nagasaki
C) the Marshall Plan
D) the siege of Stalingrad

Question 8

Which of the following groups of Africans led anticolonial movements immediately following World War II?

A) religious leaders, rural peasants, and urban artisans
B) urban unemployed, former servicemen, western-educated indigenous elites
C) current and former members of colonial legislatures
D) primary school dropouts unable to find gainful employment

Question 9

How did the Korean War transform Japan's relationship with the winners of World War II?

A) Japan became an important ally of the United States in the fight against communism.
B) Japan became an important ally of the Soviet Union in the fight to expand communism.
C) Japan once again became a strong, aggressive neocolonial power.
D) Japan used the Korean War as an opportunity to attempt to redress the war crimes it had committed in World War II.

Question 10

Which of the following factors encouraged the British to transfer power quickly to the Indian National Congress following World War II?

A) The threat of radicalized peasant uprisings prompted the British to expedite the transfer of power to the middle-class leaders of the Indian National Congress.
B) The British had to give up the rule of India because Indian nationalists threatened violent revolution over the British attempt to select the Indian cricket team to tour Australia in 1946.
C) The British, exhausted from World War II, were unable to cope with the cost of famine relief in 1946.
D) The outbreak of civil war between Hindus and Muslims in South Asia in 1945 encouraged the British to leave India as quickly as possible.

Question 11

Which of the following reflects the Chinese Communist Party's approach toward women?

A) It rejected women's rights in order to build support with the patriarchal Chinese peasantry.
B) It subordinated women's individual rights to the rights of the family as an institution.
C) It believed that women were selfish to demand more rights during the war with Japan.
D) It freed women from oppressive laws and customs as part of its government.

Question 12

Which of the following saved Chinese communists from being overwhelmed by Nationalist forces in the Chinese Civil War?

A) The Soviet Union changed its support from the Nationalists to the communists.
B) Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek died suddenly, throwing the Nationalist army into disarray.
C) The Japanese invasion diverted Nationalist troops from pursuing the communists into the Chinese interior.
D) The Nationalist army was diverted to fight against the Germans, who had hopes of conquering China.

Question 13

Why did communism appeal to many Europeans after World War II?

A) The USSR offered a large amount of aid for economic and military redevelopment throughout Europe.
B) Capitalism failed to provide adequate supplies of weapons to protect them from German invasions.
C) Many eastern Europeans, reacting to the horrors of fascism, looked to the Soviets for solutions to rebuild society.
D) The Soviet Union demonstrated how effective communism was at protecting human rights.

Question 14

Which of the following was one of the principal causes of World War II?

A) The Germans and the Russians had a long-standing agreement to divide the world between them.
B) The Great Depression led to decreased military spending in Germany and Japan, which invited aggression from their neighbors.
C) Communism failed to expand its presence in Europe.
D) Resentment lingered over the punitive treaties imposed after World War I.

Question 15

What was the goal of the Marshall Plan?

A) Its goal was to build an "iron curtain" across the center of Europe, blocking the expansion of communism.
B) Its goal was to limit the appeal of communism in Europe by providing grants for reconstruction to democratic governments.
C) Its goal was to ensure that eastern European states would have communist governments, providing a buffer between the USSR and Germany.
D) Its goal was to humiliate the Soviets by showing how little resources the Soviets could muster to rebuild Europe.

Question 16

Which of the following techniques did Hitler use to create his racially based new world order?

A) He set up puppet governments that complied with deportation orders for Jews.
B) He authorized a land invasion of India to block supplies of petroleum from reaching the British.
C) He assisted the Soviets in creating their own concentration camps to house those deemed racially inferior.
D) He accepted the work of German Jewish scientists and artists if they would agree to support his programs.

Question 17

Why did the development of more effective nuclear weapons ultimately decrease the risk of a direct confrontation between the United States and the USSR?

A) Cooperating to develop the new weapons minimized the tension between the two powers.
B) Any conflict that involved nuclear weapons had the potential to destroy the world.
C) The spread of nuclear weapons to other states created new common enemies for the old allies.
D) Both countries felt secure in their own arsenals and were less concerned about their individual rivals.

Question 18

Why did Stalin believe that the Soviet Union deserved to dominate eastern Europe?

A) The Soviet Union had refrained from using nuclear weapons in Europe, and should be rewarded.
B) The Soviet Union had been promised control of eastern Europe at the Yalta conference.
C) The Soviet Union had sacrificed so many people in the war against fascism.
D) The Soviet Union had more money than did the United States to rebuild the devastated region after the war.

Question 19

Which of the following European claims did the systematic implementation of the Nazi genocide challenge?

A) Europeans had claimed that social Darwinism supported their racial superiority.
B) Europeans had claimed that science, technology, and an efficient bureaucracy would make life better for all.
C) Europeans had claimed that liberal capitalism was the most efficient governmental and economic system.
D) Europeans had claimed that their democratic political system was superior to all others.

Question 20

Which of the following issues led to the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union?

A) Their expanding overseas empires impinged on one another, creating borderland conflicts.
B) They had diametrically opposed political and economic ideologies.
C) They had been on opposing sides during World War I and II.
D) They both wanted to colonize western Europe's former colonies.

Question 21

In comparison with life in First World countries, which of the following best describes life for ordinary people in Second World countries?

A) higher standards of living but lower levels of economic security
B) greater social egalitarianism and more opportunities for self-expression
C) lower standards of living but higher levels of economic security
D) higher standards of living but greater demands for military and community service

Question 22

Which of the following is a reason why the Algerian War of Independence shocked French citizens and the colons?

A) The colons controlled Algeria's best land and finances.
B) The French government had declared that Algeria was not a colony, but an integral part of France.
C) France had already granted independence to all of its other African colonies.
D) The colons introduced terror tactics to force the population to choose between them and the nationalists.

Question 23

Which of the following was the main reason why the United States became involved in the conflict between North and South Vietnam?

A) The United States supported South Vietnam because it feared the spread of communism throughout Southeast Asia.
B) The United States supported North Vietnam because it admired Ho's nationalist goals.
C) The United States felt it could be a neutral arbitrator in the region, since the United States had not been a colonial power in the region.
D) The United States became involved in order to get access to petroleum reserves off the eastern coast of Vietnam.

Question 24

Which of the following was a response to Khrushchev's speech in 1956 attempting to separate Stalinism from true communism?

A) Supporters of Stalin attempted to regain control of the Politburo.
B) Polish and Hungarian intellectuals tried to break away from strict communist controls.
C) The Soviet army commanders withdrew troops from eastern Europe.
D) The Politburo gave orders to have Stalin's supporters quietly poisoned to avoid open disunity among the communist elite.

Question 25

During the Cold War, what did the United States and the Soviet Union expect from Third World countries?

A) They expected them to join one or the other of the two opposing Cold War camps.
B) They expected them to encourage world peace and nuclear disarmament.
C) They expected them to remain politically neutral.
D) They expected them to adapt elements from First World and Second World political philosophies to their own specific circumstances.

Question 26

Which of the following is a reason that communism lost its appeal in post-World War II western Europe?

A) Communist political parties were outlawed in western European countries.
B) Strong economic growth led to increased standards of living and expanded access to services like education and health care.
C) Observers who visited the Soviet Union were able to observe and report on the differences between communist theory and Soviet practice.
D) Europeans had successfully prosecuted Nazis and Fascists, so saw nothing to be gained from another authoritarian system such as communism.

Question 27

Which of the following actions were meant by the term blitzkrieg?

A) extensive aerial bombardment by the Allies followed by infantry invasion of Germany
B) the Nazi plan to strike western Europe before turning against the Soviet Union
C) tank-led assaults, followed by motorized infantrymen and finally foot soldiers
D) all-out assault on civilian populations who had helped the Nazis after the civilians were no longer useful

Question 28

Which of the following is a similarity between the decolonization experiences of Algeria and South Africa?

A) Both countries suffered violent civil wars to end colonial control.
B) Both countries were independent before the end of World War II.
C) Both countries had large numbers of European settlers, which prevented a smooth transfer of power.
D) Both countries had trained large numbers of indigenous people in the civil service and military, making transition to independence easier.

Question 29

Under what circumstances did the Cold War become a "hot" war?

A) It became a hot war when the United States and the Soviet Union became involved in armed conflict.
B) It became a hot war when the Soviet Union enforced its will on its eastern European satellite states.
C) It became a hot war when the United States and the Soviet Union armed their Third World allies and encouraged proxy wars.
D) It became a hot war when the United States and the Soviet Union established foreign military bases in Third World countries.

Question 30

Which of the following led European Jews to migrate to Palestine during the first half of the twentieth century?

A) They believed that returning to their place of origin would lead to self-determination.
B) They sought assimilation into an existing regional Semitic culture.
C) They wished to create a new European colony in the Middle East, to replace the Ottoman Empire.
D) They hoped to learn Palestinian agricultural techniques, in order to achieve economic success.

Question 31

Which of the following is a reason why some First World powers supported South Africa during the 1950s and 1960s?

A) South Africa was anticommunist.
B) South Africa was a strategic military and commercial outpost.
C) South Africa had developed a democratic society.
D) South Africa, especially Johannesburg, was an important center for global finance.

Question 32

Why did Egypt emerge as a potent symbol of pan-Arab nationalism in 1956?

A) Egypt's military under Nasser was able to reclaim the Suez Canal from the British, French, and Israelis.
B) Because Egypt was the site of the oldest civilization in the region, it had great prestige.
C) Egypt was the site of origin of the Muslim Brotherhood, which soon came to power after they overthrew the king.
D) Egypt had been the capital of the last Muslim Caliphate, so it was the symbolic home of pan-Arab sentiments.

Question 33

Which of the following factors led to the failure of Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward in 1958?

A) Peasants refused to cooperate in communal living because it conflicted with traditional Chinese values.
B) First World corporations refused to buy any of the items produced in the local Chinese communal factories.
C) The Red Guards were not behind the Great Leap Forward and undercut its effectiveness.
D) The communes failed to provide enough food to avoid famine and the manufactured goods were inferior.

Question 34

Why did many African leaders think that Africa would move swiftly to a special African form of socialism following decolonization?

A) They believed that the common African traditions that informed negritude would enable them to embrace social justice and equality.
B) They believed that they had been most prosperous under, and wanted to return to, Islamic caliphates.
C) They believed that the colonial experience had provided them with strong economic principles to begin independence.
D) They believed that the model provided by the First World was best suited to African conditions.

Question 35

Multinational corporations had which of the following impacts on Third World countries?

A) They removed raw materials, and then left the local government to clean up the mess.
B) They provided important technical knowledge that Third World countries could use to build their industrial bases.
C) They expanded countries' agricultural and manufacturing sectors, but impeded the growth of local firms.
D) They allowed Third World countries to free themselves from dependence on the institutions of international capitalism.

Question 36

How did the Arab-Israeli War of 1947-1948 help shatter the legitimacy of Arab ruling elites?

A) Arab ruling elites did not have the funds to make adequate provision for large numbers of Palestinian refugees.
B) Arab ruling elites counseled caution in challenging the partition, but their military fought anyway.
C) Arab states were poorly prepared to take on the Israeli Defense Force and eventually lost territory granted to them by the United Nations' partition.
D) Arab states lacked sufficient diplomatic training to effectively challenge the United Nations' partition.

Question 37

During the 1950s, Americans expressed anxiety about communism in which of the following ways?

A) Anticommunist rhetoric led to attacks on civil liberties of individuals suspected of being communists or communist sympathizers.
B) Hollywood produced fewer movies than before because so many directors, stars, and writers were blacklisted.
C) Americans bought more consumer goods, which were usually made in the United States.
D) American society became more egalitarian so that communism would be less appealing.

Question 38

Which of the following encouraged the European powers to surrender their African colonies?

A) The European powers determined that it was time to live up to their Enlightenment ideals.
B) The United States encouraged decolonization, but the USSR opposed it.
C) The treaty ending World War II called for immediate decolonization.
D) The European powers were too deep in debt to invest more in pacifying the discontented Africans.

Question 39

Which of the following accurately depicts the Vietnamese intelligentsia under French rule?

A) The Vietnamese intelligentsia rejected western culture and returned to traditional Shinto values.
B) The Vietnamese intelligentsia were granted land and mining concessions to ensure their loyalty.
C) Western-educated Vietnamese living overseas strongly supported the colonial government.
D) Western-educated Vietnamese worked as clerks, teachers, and petty officials, but had few opportunities for advancement.

Question 40

Which of the following people provided the model for protest that Martin Luther King Jr. adopted in his pursuit of civil rights?

A) Nelson Mandela
B) Mohandas Gandhi
C) Ho Chi Minh
D) Gamal Abdel Nasser

Question 41

In which of the following ways was the Prague Spring in 1968 similar to the Hungarian uprising in 1956?

A) Both were attempts to undercut the Marshall Plan in eastern Europe.
B) Both were primarily revolts conducted according to the principles of nonviolent civil disobedience.
C) Both were responding to the Cultural Revolution.
D) Both attempts to decrease communist authoritarianism in eastern Europe were crushed by the Soviet military.

Question 42

What was the cause of the 1973 oil embargo enacted by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries OPEC) ?

A) OPEC wanted to force increased exploration for petroleum and other energy resources.
B) Arab oil-producing states wanted to pressure Israel's First World allies by halting oil exports to them.
C) Threats of war in the Persian Gulf led to closing off the oil fields for fear that they might be destroyed in the fighting.
D) OPEC states were running low on petroleum reserves and needed to find a way to slow down oil consumption.

Question 43

NATO and the Warsaw Pact were both designed to help contain the spread of communism.

Question 44

In which of the following ways did the United States attempt to counter growing radicalism in Latin America?

A) The United Sates accepted the right of Latin American peoples to choose their own form of governance.
B) President Kennedy sent advisors to dole out aid, explain how to reform local land systems, and to demonstrate the benefits of liberal capitalism.
C) President Kennedy condemned the persecution and execution of protestors in Argentina, Uruguay, and Venezuela.
D) The United Sates supported policy makers who supported the democratically elected government of socialist Salvador Allende in Chile.

Question 45

In post-World War II western Europe, the "woman question" concerned what new problem?

A) Women were making gains in the workplace, but without a proportional decrease in domestic responsibility.
B) Women were being advised to focus their lives around acquiring a husband and children.
C) Women were more likely to be sympathetic to communism than were men.
D) More women were moving into the workplace, but there were not enough available jobs to accommodate them.

Question 46

The reason Nazi bureaucrats decided to exterminate, instead of deporting, the Jewish population of eastern Europe was that they believed deportation was too costly.

Question 47

Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique called for a return to traditional gender roles.

Question 48

How did Pacific Rim nations such as South Korea and Taiwan escape the typical Third World cycle of poverty and dependence?

A) They closely followed the international market model.
B) They built a new system from the basic ideas of Karl Marx.
C) They used regulation to promote new industries and required multinationals to cooperate with local firms.
D) They used the World Bank to fund infrastructure projects and the International Monetary Fund to prop up their currencies.

Question 49

Roughly equal numbers of military personnel and civilians died during World War II.

Question 50

Which of the following polices did Nasser pursue after the overthrow of the Egyptian king?

A) a massive redistribution of land from large landholders to smallholders and the landless
B) the institution of strictly religious instruction in public schools
C) the opening of the political system to more political parties
D) the return of the Suez Canal to its original owners, the British and the French, after they provided aid to the government

Question 51

What were the primary postwar functions of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund?

A) to decrease poverty and stabilize monetary systems in the Third World
B) to facilitate the expansion of western multinational corporations into the Third World
C) to promote a middle way of economic development between central planning and free markets
D) to enable the United States to establish military bases around the world

Question 52

Which of the following was a consequence of Rachel Carson's book, The Silent Spring?

A) It led to the environmental movement which questioned many of the ideas about economic progress and material prosperity upon which the "American Dream" had rested.
B) It led to more pesticides being used on crops in Third World countries in order to increase food production.
C) It led to the creation of the Pure Food and Drug Act.
D) It, along with Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, created the modern women's liberation movement.

Question 53

Francophone writer Frantz Fanon argued that violence against European oppressors would provide catharsis to peoples in the Third World.

Question 54

India and China both achieved political independence peacefully.

Question 55

Which Cold War event brought the world closest to nuclear war?

A) the Cuban Missile Crisis
B) the Bay of Pigs invasion
C) the Prague Spring
D) the Battle of Dien Bien Phu

Question 56

The 1950 Group Areas Act required South Africans to live in their designated racial "homeland."

Question 57

The Soviet Union quashed all national attempts to increase autonomy in its fifteen republics.

Question 58

The Cold War superpowers stayed out of civil wars in Third World countries, believing that such conflicts ought to be resolved internally.

Question 59

Which region was the last to undergo decolonization ?

A) western Africa
B) North Africa
C) Southeast Asia
D) southern Africa

Question 60

Japan began its military expansion into mainland Asia after World War II began.

Question 61

Analyze the impact of the Cold War-era international politics on decolonization and nation-building movements in the Third World.

Question 62

Assess the claim that World War I shocked the European-centered world order but World War II destroyed it. How was the Second World War different from the first, and how did their outcomes differ?

Question 63

What motivated the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War? Analyze the political, social, and economic impacts of the Cold War had on the populations of the First and Second Worlds.

Question 64

What issues did Third World radicalism attempt to address? How successful were its leaders in implementing their goals?

Question 65

Evaluate the factors that led to decolonization following World War II. Discuss at least one specific example of each of the following: negotiated transitions, civil wars, or incomplete decolonizations.