Deck 30: An Age of Anxiety

Question 1

By 1929,the price of a bushel of wheat was

A)unnaturally and dangerously high.
B)at its highest point in two hundred years.
C)the same as today.
D)at its lowest level in four hundred years.
E)the same price it had been a hundred years earlier.

Answer 1

at its lowest level in four hundred years.

Question 2

In the years after World War I,the nineteenth-century concept of human progress

A)gave a sense of hope in the midst of terrible human suffering.
B)remained the foundation of Asian thought.
C)became even more popular among liberal Christian thinkers.
D)was bolstered by the growing popularity of Confucian thought.
E)was attacked by many thinkers and cultural leaders.

Answer 2

was attacked by many thinkers and cultural leaders.

Question 3

The writer whose The Decline of the West proposed that European society had entered the final stage of its existence was

A)Karl Marx.
B)Erich Maria Remarque.
C)Oswald Spengler.
D)Werner Heisenberg.
E)Karl Barth.

Answer 3

Oswald Spengler.

Question 4

Who wrote,"Man's historical experience has been one of steady failure,and there are no grounds for supposing it will be ever anything else"?

A)Erich Maria Remarque
B)Oswald Spengler
C)Arnold Toynbee
D)Gertrude Stein
E)Nikolai Berdiaev

Question 5

Which of the following groups were NOT among the new artistic movements of the twentieth century?

A)expressionists
B)cubists
C)dadaists
D)avant-garde
E)surrealists

Question 6

In Karl Barth's Epistle to the Romans,he

A)laid the groundwork for the rise of fascism in Italy.
B)shocked the Christian world by stressing the importance of material progress above everything else.
C)suggested that Jesus' ideas were a precursor to communism.
D)attacked the liberal Christian theology that had embraced the idea of progress.
E)gave a religious foundation for the ideas of the social Darwinists.

Question 7

The notion that space and time are relative to the person measuring them was first articulated in

A)Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.
B)Kepler's three principles of interplanetary movement.
C)Spengler's The Decline of the West.
D)Einstein's theory of general relativity.
E)Newton's theory of gravity.

Question 8

One of the most significant results of the artistic experimentation of the 1920s and 1930s was that

A)artists learned to adhere to accepted public definitions of reality.
B)photography was no longer considered a legitimate art form.
C)generally accepted standards that distinguished between "good" and "bad" art disappeared.
D)impressionism was recognized as the single best art form.
E)a set of criteria was established that allowed art students to distinguish between "good" and "bad" art.

Question 9

In a purely scientific sense,the uncertainty principle proposes that

A)cloning is essentially impossible because of the difficulty of accounting for genetic mutation.
B)it is impossible to specify simultaneously both the position and velocity of a subatomic particle.
C)complex factors make accurately predicting economic trends essentially impossible.
D)a country's successful transition to democracy is dependent on internal rather than external factors.
E)human behavior is driven more by psychological than by physiological factors.

Question 10

The individual who developed the theory of psychoanalysis was

A)Werner Heisenberg.
B)Oswald Spengler.
C)Nikolai Berdiaev.
D)Sigmund Freud.
E)Albert Einstein.

Question 11

The leading proponent of cubism was

A)Edgar Degas.
B)Pablo Picasso.
C)Marcel Duchamp.
D)Claude Monet.
E)Paul Gauguin.

Question 12

According to Freud,the root of neurotic behavior was

A)a conflict between conscious and unconscious mental processes.
B)summed up in the term "uncertainty principle."
C)the traumatic bloodshed of World War I.
D)the hostility that young boys feel toward their mothers.
E)an easily explainable chemical reaction.

Question 13

The author of All Quiet on the Western Front was

A)Ernest Hemingway.
B)Oswald Spengler.
C)Erich Maria Remarque.
D)W.Somerset Maugham.
E)Arnold Toynbee.

Question 14

Discoveries in physics added to the anxiety of the 1920s and 1930s because they

A)caused a majority of the population to turn to atheism.
B)proved that heaven,for purely scientific reasons,did not exist.
C)called into question established notions of truth.
D)suggested the universe was a very unstable and dangerous place.
E)answered all major questions and eliminated blind faith as a legitimate option.

Question 15

A troubling economic problem in the 1920s was the depressed state of agriculture caused by

A)virulent new strains of disease.
B)the success of several new communist regimes.
C)overproduction and falling prices.
D)the collapse of the cotton market in the southern United States.
E)dangerous underproduction.

Question 16

The term lost generation was coined by

A)Erich Maria Remarque.
B)John Steinbeck.
C)Karl Barth.
D)Sun Yatsen.
E)Gertrude Stein.

Question 17

To finance reparation payments to France and England,the governments of Austria and Germany relied on

A)agricultural surpluses.
B)U.S.loans and investment.
C)investment in British companies.
D)war bonds.
E)infrastructure sales.

Question 18

The spread of photography

A)led many painters to transition to the camera as their instrument of expression.
B)resulted in a lack of creative artistic expression because of general pessimism.
C)led to a new artistic genre that tried to produce paintings that were more accurate than the camera could produce.
D)led many painters to take an almost Luddite-like glee in smashing cameras.
E)led many painters to believe that the purpose of painting was not to mirror reality but to create it.

Question 19

The uncertainty principle is associated with

A)Einstein.
B)Spengler.
C)Heisenberg.
D)Freud.
E)Keynes.

Question 20

The deliberate violation of perspective by Japanese artists influenced

A)Paul Gauguin.
B)Pablo Picasso.
C)Claude Monet.
D)Marcel Duchamp.
E)Edgar Degas.

Question 21

One of the nagging weaknesses of the global economy in the 1920s was the depressed state of agriculture,the result of overproduction and falling prices.

Question 22

At the lowest point of the Great Depression,what percentage of U.S.banks were out of business?

A)5 percent
B)12 percent
C)17 percent
D)21 percent
E)44 percent

Question 23

Which individual's surname means "man of steel"?

A)Lenin
B)Marx
C)Trotsky
D)Gorbachev
E)Stalin

Question 24

Which of the following was NOT one of the chief actions of Roosevelt's New Deal?

A)tighten the money supply
B)give workers the right to organize and bargain collectively
C)provide social security in old age
D)guarantee minimum wages
E)create jobs through public works projects

Question 25

The 1935,the Nuremberg Laws

A)made Austria part of Germany.
B)removed any democratic restraints on Hitler's power and made him the dictator of Germany.
C)recognized the Japanese as honorary Aryans.
D)outlawed communist parties in Germany.
E)deprived German Jews of their citizenship.

Question 26

During the Great Depression,most nations

A)cooperated globally to fight the problem,on a scale never seen before.
B)dramatically reduced tariffs in an effort to facilitate international trade.
C)expanded the money supply and undertook public works to provide jobs.
D)practiced economic nationalism.
E)pushed for an expansion of trade.

Question 27

The leader of the National Socialism movement in Germany was

A)Benito Mussolini.
B)Arthur de Gobineau.
C)Joseph Stalin.
D)Otto von Bismarck.
E)Adolf Hitler.

Question 28

Kristallnacht was

A)a new artistic movement that flourished after World War I.
B)a Nazi-arranged attack on thousands of Jewish stores.
C)Hitler's political treatise that expressed his main ideas.
D)the Russian term for the destructive civil war that followed the revolution.
E)a German term for the sense of disillusionment that World War I veterans felt.

Question 29

The official goal of the Nazi regime toward Jews in the period before World War II was

A)to kill all Jews that could be arrested in order to eliminate the Jews from Germany and eventually the world.
B)to turn them into slaves to work in Germany's armament factories.
C)to pressure them to emigrate.
D)to force all educated German Jews to stay in Germany and expel the rest of the Jewish population.
E)toleration.

Question 30

Who began the fascist movement?

A)Mussolini
B)Hitler
C)Franco
D)Stalin
E)Lenin

Question 31

The Russian civil war that broke out after the revolution was between

A)utopian socialists and Trotskyites.
B)Reds,being the communists of Lenin's regime;and Whites,comprising a collection of anti-communist groups.
C)Leninists and Stalinists.
D)Nicholas II's Imperial Army and Lenin's Revolutionary Army.
E)eastern and western factions.

Question 32

The First Five-Year Plan was

A)a military scheme that called for a massive increase in arms production.
B)designed to transform the Soviet Union from an agricultural nation into an industrial one.
C)designed to increase the agricultural production of the Soviet Union and make it the world's leading food producer.
D)a communist plan to embrace capitalism in order to promote economic growth.
E)a political plan to spark a communist revolution in the United States.

Question 33

John Maynard Keynes

A)first discussed the uncertainty principle.
B)made early discoveries in psychoanalysis.
C)warned that democracy was a threat to the achievements of western society.
D)was positive that laissez-faire capitalism would survive forever.
E)urged government to stimulate the economy by increasing the money supply.

Question 34

According to Werner Heisenberg,it is impossible to specify simultaneously the position and the velocity of a subatomic particle;this is known as the "uncertainty principle."

Question 35

Postwar intellectuals lamented the decline of western society.

Question 36

Lenin's New Economic Policy of 1921

A)pushed the peasants onto large,state-run collectives.
B)stripped all land ownership away from the peasants.
C)called for a trading alliance with communist China.
D)temporarily restored the market economy.
E)initiated the First Five-Year Plan.

Question 37

"War communism"

A)was a term first used by Marx in the Manifesto of the Communist Party.
B)called for carrying the communist revolution to the rest of the world by force.
C)was an unplanned course of nationalization.
D)instituted free market reforms.
E)had been the central feature of Lenin's philosophy for twenty years before the revolution.

Question 38

On Black Thursday,24 October 1929,

A)Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany.
B)Mussolini invaded Ethiopia.
C)the U.S.stock market crashed.
D)Stalin's bloodiest purges began in the Soviet Union.
E)civil war broke out between the Chinese Communist Party and the Guomindang.

Question 39

In response to the Great Depression,John Maynard Keynes

A)proposed that the government should do nothing and wait out the economic hard times.
B)was a big supporter of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff.
C)felt that the government should tighten the money supply.
D)wrote that capitalism had failed and that it was time for the United States to experiment with communism.
E)urged the government to expand the money supply and undertake public works to provide jobs.

Question 40

All of the following constitute steps taken by Benito Mussolini to consolidate power EXCEPT

A)eliminating all other political parties.
B)outlawing freedom of speech.
C)instituting a communist system of government.
D)decreasing freedom of the press.
E)exiling,imprisoning,or killing Italians who spoke out openly against his regime.

Question 41

What did Gertrude Stein mean when she wrote that "You are all a lost generation"? What had caused this profound split from earlier generations? Can you think of similar dramatic breaks with the past in different countries and different centuries?

Question 42

What role did innovations in physics and psychology play in the questioning of traditional knowledge and society? Were there criticisms of science?

Question 43

Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party attracted members of mainstream society,who were frightened by the specter of socialist revolution.

Question 44

Examine the political movement known as fascism.What were its main tenets? Compare fascism to democracy and communism.

Question 45

An integral part of Stalin's drive for industrialization was the collectivization of agriculture.

Question 46

Fascist ideology consistently invoked the primacy of the state and emphasized chauvinism and xenophobia.

Question 47

Examine the causes and implications of the Great Depression.Why was the depression so widespread and so devastating? How did different countries respond to the depression? What would be the long-term consequences of the depression?

Question 48

Describe the course of nationalization in economic development in the Soviet Union under Lenin.Explain war communism and why it was replaced by the New Economic Policy in 1921.

Question 49

Discuss Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.How did this scientific theory capture the spirit of an entire age? Can you think of other scientific discoveries or theories that had a similar effect? How did art reflect the intellectual transformation of the early twentieth century? What did the phrase "to abolish the sovereignty of appearance" mean?

Question 50

Examine the rise to power of Adolf Hitler.What were his main ideas and goals? How did he transform Germany?

Question 51

What were some of the economic problems facing the world powers in the 1920s? Specifically,what factors led to the crash of 1929 and the depression that followed?

Question 52

The guiding force behind Italian fascism was Benito Mussolini,who seized power as dictator in 1926 and ruled Italy as Il Duce.

Question 53

Lenin's New Economic Policy allowed the Russian government to take control of all industries and allowed for no privately-owned enterprises.

Question 54

The Nazi eugenics measures in the 1930s served as a precursor to the wholesale extermination of people classified as racial inferiors.

Question 55

John Maynard Keynes's answer to the central problem of the depression was for governments to balance budgets and curtail public spending.

Question 56

What caused thinkers such as Oswald Spengler to believe that European society was entering its final stage? Why was progress doubted?

Question 57

Examine the transformation of the Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin.What were the main ideas and programs of the two leaders? How did they influence Russian history?

Question 58

As the Great Depression destroyed capitalist economies,international cooperation broke down and governments turned to their own resources and practiced economic nationalism.

Question 59

What are some indications of the "postwar pessimism" of the 1920s? Why did liberal values such as progress and democracy fall under attack at this time?

Question 60

Compare and contrast the ideas and regimes of Stalin and Hitler.Despite tremendous differences in political orientation,how similar were the German and Soviet states? In what ways were Stalin and Hitler a product of their times?

Question 61

What was the impact of the depression on social attitudes? On women and families?

Question 62

What did John Maynard Keynes recommend as a solution to the economic crisis? How did the New Deal of President Roosevelt exemplify this solution?

Question 63

What are some examples of "economic nationalism"? How effective were these measures?

Question 64

Compare the rise to power and consolidation of power by Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler.

Question 65

How did Lenin and the Bolsheviks secure their power in Russia? How did Stalin secure his power within the party and within the Soviet Union?

Question 66

What are the defining characteristics of fascism in both Italy and Germany? Consider the organizational structure and symbols that each adopted.To whom did this message appeal?