History 342

Devine

Fall 2014

 

Final Exam Study Guide

 

The questions that will appear on the final will be drawn verbatim from the questions below. If you are able to answer these questions thoroughly, you will be well-prepared. It should be clear which questions are short answer questions and which are long answer questions. 

 

In Part one of the midterm, there will 10 short essay questions taken from the list below; you will answer SEVEN of them. In Part two, there will be three long essay questions taken from the list below; you will answer ONE of them.

 

PLEASE BRING AN UNMARKED GREEN BOOK TO CLASS.

 

1.    How did American anticommunism during the Cold War affect Washington’s policies toward Latin America?

2.    How did American anticommunism during the Cold War affect the governments of Guatemala and Chile?

3.    What was Operation Condor and what consequences did it have for several Latin American nations during the Cold War?

4.    Who was Jacobo Arbenz and why was he a significant figure in the history of Guatemala?

  1. Why did the U.S. government label the Arbenz regime of Guatemala “communist”? What did the United Fruit Company have to do with it?

6.    What was “Import Substitution Industrialization”?  How did the I.S.I plans propose to build (or rebuild) the economies of Latin American countries after World War II?  What kept these plans from succeeding?

7.    What was “Neo-liberalism”? What were the pros and cons of such an economic policy?

8.    Though he was popular with many Argentines, why did Juan Peron’s economic policies end up hurting the nation over time?

9.    Choose one Latin American nation discussed in Mason’s “The Chimera of Progress in Latin America” and indicate what are the most significant factors that have impeded long lasting economic prosperity and political stability in that nation.

10. According to Slavenka Drakulic, why was “being a woman” in Eastern Europe a “constant battle against the system?”

11. How does Drakulic define “autocensorship?” Why was it an effective weapon of the state in Eastern Europe?

12. What is “the Communist eye?”  If we looked at our own society through “the Communist eye” how would our perceptions change?

13. Why is Drakulic ambivalent about whether women should buy fur coats?

14. What does Drakulic think of Western feminists and leftists?

15. What does the habit of “collecting” reveal about the Communist system and why it failed?

16. Why do the cities of Communist Europe look so shabby?  Who or what is responsible for this?

17. Who was Josip Broz Tito? Why was he able to maintain stability in Yugoslavia during the Cold War and why his death in 1980 significant in that nation’s history?

18. Why were there tensions between Josef Stalin and Tito during the early Cold War?

19. Why was there such instability and violence in Bosnia during the early 1990s?

20. Who was Slobodan Milosevic and what role did he play in the breakup of Yugoslavia during the early 1990s?

21. What factors accounted for the political instability and economic backwardness of sub-Saharan Africa during the Cold War?

22. Who was Robert Mugabe and why is he a significant figure in the history of Zimbabwe?

23. How did receiving a western education contribute to the “nervous conditions” of the characters in Dangarembga’s novel? [In answering, focus on at least two characters.]

24. How did the combination of tribal tradition and British influence create a “nervous condition” for the female characters in Dangarembga’s novel? [In answering, focus on at least two characters.]

25. Why was the 1953 overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh a significant event in Iranian history? How was this event “re-remembered” in the 1970s to suit a new political agenda?

26. Why did modernization during the “White Revolution” in Iran bring both progress and instability?

27. Why had the Shah lost the backing of most Iranians by 1979?

28. How was the Ayatollah Khomeini able to win widespread support in Iran even though many Iranians did not share his strict religious views?

29. Why was the hostage crisis significant in helping Khomeini to consolidate his power in Iran?

  1. Why do the Islamic Revolutionaries among Azar Nafisi’s students hate The Great Gatsby and believe that it should be “convicted” for being immoral?
  2. How does Nafisi’s interpretation of The Great Gatsby’s meaning differ from that of many of her students?
  3. What does it mean to say “art is a weapon”?  If one believes this, by what standards does one judge art? What are the shortcoming in such an approach?

33. What are some of the things Jay Gatsby and the Islamic Revolutionaries have in common?  Are both “romantics”? Did both subscribe to “colossal illusions”? Did both have difficulty distinguishing imagination from reality?  Did both want to recreate a past that never existed?

34. Why does Nafisi condemn “revolutionary” violence and “revolutionary” justice?

35. Why does Nafisi believe the Iranian revolution went badly wrong? Who or what does she blame?

  1. Why has Afghanistan long been the site of bloody wars and internal factional conflicts?
  2. Though reluctant to become involved in Afghanistan, why did the Soviet Union ultimately decide that it had to invade that nation?  What considerations pushed Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev to make this decision?
  3. How did the situation in Iran during 1979-1980 affect how Moscow and Washington acted during the crisis in Afghanistan during this same period?
  4. How did the US respond to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan?  In what ways did the Carter administration misperceive the Soviets’ reasons for invading Afghanistan?

40. How did the Soviets misperceive the US reaction to Moscow’s invasion of Afghanistan? Why did the Soviet leadership see Washington’s response as aggressive?

41. According to Ahmed Rashid, what role did the CIA play in the Afghan war of 1980-1988? How did the CIA set the stage for what some analysts have called “blow back”?

42. According to Milton Bearden and Ahmed Rashid, what role did Arabs play in the Afghan war and, later, in the rise of the Taliban?

43. Why did Saddam Hussein invade Kuwait in 1990? How had the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988 helped set the stage for this invasion?

44. Why did the Gulf War of 1991 stir up so much anti-American feeling among Arabs and contribute to the emergence of Al Qaeda?

45. Though US forces quickly toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime at the outset of the second Gulf War, why did such a long insurgency and period of internal strife occur in the aftermath?

46. What factors led to the civil war in Syria and the emergence of the Islamic State?