Deck 21: The Age of the Masses and the Zenith of Modernism 1914-1945

Question 1

Existentialism is concerned primarily with

A)defining terms.
B)clarifying statements.
C)living an authentic life.
D)spiritual values.

Answer 1

C

Question 2

World War II began with Germany's invasion of which country?

A)Austria
B)Czechoslovakia
C)France
D)Poland

Answer 2

D

Question 3

The leading symbol of America's dominant role in popular culture was

A)Igor Stravinsky.
B)Babe Ruth.
C)Walt Disney.
D)Louis Armstrong.

Answer 3

C

Question 4

Fascism supported

A)the supremacy of individual expression.
B)the fusion of the people into one "spirit".
C)representative democracy.
D)free enterprise.

Question 5

By 1914,nations in Europe had adopted or implemented all EXCEPT which of the following technological advancements that increased the destructiveness of war?

A)the 75 mm field cannon
B)machine guns
C)tank battalions
D)rail systems for moving troops and supplies

Question 6

Who of the following was a pioneer of stream-of-consciousness writing?

A)Virginia Woolf
B)George Orwell
C)Ernest Hemingway
D)Langston Hughes

Question 7

Which of the following is true of Japan during the Great Depression?

A)It pursued imperialist goals in the Far East.
B)It sought economic and military aid from the United States.
C)It replaced its monarchy with a parliamentary democracy.
D)Its economy and government collapsed almost simultaneously.

Question 8

What modernist symbol was intended to reflect the hollowness of contemporary life?

A)Yeats's Byzantium
B)Eliot's "waste land"
C)Hughes's river
D)Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County

Question 9

The democratic political system in Germany between the Versailles Treaty and the rise of Hitler was known as the

A)Berlin Republic.
B)Bonn Republic.
C)Weimar Republic.
D)Potsdam Republic.

Question 10

The European country that suffered most from the Great Depression was

A)Germany.
B)France.
C)Italy.
D)Spain.

Question 11

About which of these ideas did Lenin and Marx NOT agree?

A)Economic conditions determine the course of history.
B)History leads inevitably to a communist society.
C)A dedicated communist elite is necessary to initiate revolutionary change.
D)The goal of history is a society run by and for the workers.

Question 12

The April 1917 event that helped determine the outcome of World War I was the

A)entry of the United States into the war on the side of the Allies.
B)Germans' initiation of unrestricted submarine warfare.
C)entry of Turkey into the war on the side of the Central Powers.
D)collapse of the currency in Italy.

Question 13

Which novel reflected the author's debt to popular hardboiled detective fiction of the 1930s?

A)Joyce's Ulysses
B)Woolf's To the Lighthouse
C)Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises
D)Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury

Question 14

Langston Hughes's poetry reflected

A)the values of the late Roman poets.
B)his anguish as a black man in a white world.
C)his hatred of totalitarian governments.
D)his black separatist politics.

Question 15

Which author's philosophy helped to lay the groundwork for logical positivism?

A)Wittgenstein
B)Heidegger
C)Sartre
D)Heisenberg

Question 16

Which of the following eventually became a totalitarian state after World War I?

A)Italy
B)Russia
C)Germany
D)All these answers are correct.

Question 17

Which novel was a satire on Stalinist Russia?

A)Woolf's Mrs.Dalloway
B)Orwell's Animal Farm
C)Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover
D)Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises

Question 18

Which of the following was an ultimate result of the Treaty of Versailles?

A)strengthening the German economy
B)stripping Britain of control over Mosul and Basra
C)strengthening the Ottoman Empire
D)creation of the kingdom of Iraq

Question 19

Which literary work is an example of "epic theater"?

A)Woolf's Mrs.Dalloway
B)Joyce's Ulysses
C)Brecht's Threepenny Opera
D)O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night

Question 20

Who of the following was a European fascist leader in the 1930s?

A)Mussolini in Italy
B)Blum in France
C)King Alfonso of Spain
D)Tito of Yugoslavia

Question 21

Frida Kahlo expressed her creative talents best as

A)an artist of the neoclassical school.
B)a poet of the Harlem Renaissance.
C)a painter of many revealing self-portraits.
D)a playwright of existential dramas.

Question 22

What was controversial about the films of Leni Riefenstahl?

A)rejection of standard story form
B)glorification of the Nazi Party
C)their procommunist message
D)criticism of the machine age

Question 23

The scientist who headed the team that built the first atomic bomb was

A)Einstein.
B)Heisenberg.
C)Planck.
D)Oppenheimer.

Question 24

Duke Ellington's suite Such Sweet Thunder was inspired by

A)Shakespeare.
B)African American spirituals.
C)World War II.
D)jazz.

Question 25

According to your text,which of the following was the "greatest legacy of mass culture to the twentieth century"?

A)skyscrapers
B)stream-of-consciousness literature
C)film
D)Heisenberg's uncertainty principle

Question 26

A key value in Sartre's existentialism is

A)the limits to human choice.
B)submission to forces beyond one's control.
C)faith in God.
D)personal responsibility.

Question 27

Dada artists were famous for their

A)outrageous acts.
B)spiritual values.
C)humanistic beliefs.
D)pure abstraction.

Question 28

Which statement about Picasso's Guernica is NOT correct?

A)It is a protest against Franco's unbridled warfare.
B)It is executed in a modified cubist style.
C)Its vivid colors express the artist's rage.
D)It offers disturbing images in rectangular forms.

Question 29

Surrealist art was inspired by the theories of

A)Marx.
B)Freud.
C)Einstein.
D)Heisenberg.

Question 30

Mondrian's Composition with Blue and Yellow is

A)a photograph of dancers in Times Square.
B)an example of the de Stijl movement.
C)a neorealist representation of dancers in action.
D)a surrealist design charged with erotic elements.

Question 31

Who of the following was a leading surrealist?

A)Beckmann
B)Matisse
C)Dal'
D)O'Keeffe

Question 32

Beckmann's The Departure has the structure of a

A)photograph.
B)mosaic.
C)triptych.
D)carpet.

Question 33

Which painter led the de Stijl movement?

A)Mondrian
B)Malevich
C)Picasso
D)O'Keeffe

Question 34

The most influential exponent of Dada was

A)Picasso.
B)Duchamps.
C)Malevich.
D)Mondrian.

Question 35

Which of the following is a school of philosophy dedicated to defining terms and clarifying statements?

A)existentialism
B)constructivism
C)logical positivism
D)stream-of-consciousness

Question 36

Which of the following musicians created a ballet that draws on a Shaker folk tune?

A)William Grant Still
B)Leopold Stravinsky
C)Aaron Copland
D)George Antheil

Question 37

International-style architecture was characterized by

A)sleekness and lack of ornamentation.
B)the classical orders.
C)Gothic towers.
D)ornamented facades.

Question 38

What was the first art style launched in 1917 by the young Soviet Union?

A)cubism
B)de Stijl
C)constructivism
D)logical positivism

Question 39

Which work by Orson Welles is often called America's best film?

A)Citizen Kane
B)The Birth of a Nation
C)Triumph of the Will
D)Intolerance

Question 40

Which composer's Mechanical Ballet was inspired by machine-oriented culture?

A)Igor Stravinsky
B)Charles Ives
C)Aaron Copland
D)George Antheil

Question 41

Discuss developments in film during the Age of the Masses.

Question 42

How did black American intellectuals,writers,and musicians redefine their place in American life during this period? Focus in particular on the Harlem Renaissance and the writers Hughes and Hurston.

Question 43

What two schools dominated philosophy during this era? What was the goal of each school,and who were its leaders? How did these developments in philosophy mirror events in the wider culture?

Question 44

Discuss World War II,its causes,major events,turning point,and peace settlement.

Question 45

What is totalitarianism? Compare and contrast the two types of totalitarian governments that arose after 1917.What were the origins of these governments,their accomplishments,and their failures? What part,if any,did these totalitarian regimes have on the outbreak of World War II?

Question 46

Describe conditions in the Great Depression,focusing on the countries that suffered most and least.What impact did economic failure have on the era's politics?

Question 47

How did historical events affect political and economic ideologies between 1914 and 1945?

Question 48

What Newtonian concept did Einstein's theory overturn?

A)the relationship between energy and mass
B)the theory of relativity
C)the laws of inertia
D)fixed dimensions of time and space

Question 49

Discuss the scientific advances made between 1914 and 1945.Show what relationship,if any,these advances had to the era's politics and culture.

Question 50

According to suprematism,what was supreme over every other element of life?

A)military power
B)ethnicity
C)feelings
D)material needs
Essay Questions

Question 51

Discuss World War I and its peace settlement.What impact did the war and its aftermath have on politics and culture?

Question 52

Define mass culture.What were its contributions between 1914 and 1945?