History 474B

Devine

Fall 2014

FINAL EXAMINATION STUDY GUIDE

The following twelve questions will appear verbatim on the final exam. You will answer six of them. I will choose one that you MUST answer. You will answer five of your choice from the remaining eleven questions.

Since you have all of the questions a week ahead of time – and 20 minutes to answer each question on the day of the exam – I will expect thorough and thoughtful answers and will grade your responses accordingly. A thorough answer will not limit itself simply to repeating the points made in class – your answers should also draw on evidence in the reading to show that you have actually done the reading.

Please bring an UNMARKED green book to the exam. The exam will take place in Sierra Hall 288 on Tuesday, December 16th from 5:30 pm until 7:00 pm.

1. Why does Thomas Hine characterize the 1970s as a decade when Americans were “falling apart” and “coming together”?

2. Choose one of the following: 1) home and office décor or 2) movies and television shows and explain how they reflected the cultural mood of the 1970s.

3. Why was there so much anti-American sentiment in Iran on the eve of the hostage crisis? What were its origins and why had it intensified during the years leading up to 1979?

4. What was “the White Revolution”? Why did Ayatollah Khomeini and other Iranians oppose it?

5. In Rivethead, Ben Hamper remarks, “That pay stub was like a concrete pair of loafers.” (Hamper, 48) What is the author getting at here? Explain why Hamper had what might be called a “love-hate” relationship with General Motors.

6. Although his critics claimed Ronald Reagan was neither well-prepared nor well-qualified for the presidency, how does a close look at his life before the 1980 election suggest otherwise?

7. Gil Troy argues that both Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev played important roles in bringing the Cold War to a peaceful end. How did each man contribute to ending the Cold War? Why would Troy argue that giving either man “full credit” distorts the historical record?

8. According to Iwan Morgan, what steps did Bill Clinton and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan take to help bring about the prosperity of the 1990s? How did advances in technology – particularly advances in management information science – also help the economy by improving productivity?

9. According to Randy Roberts, how do modern and postmodern celebrities differ? What accounts for Bill Clinton’s success at being a “postmodern celebrity president”?

10. President George W. Bush equated the holding of free elections with “democracy.” Why does Fred Kaplan argue that the two were not synonymous? How could free elections actually undermine the development of democracy?

11. Drawing on the evidence Fred Kaplan presents in Daydream Believers, explain why the Iraq War proved far more lengthy, bloody, and expensive than Bush administration officials originally anticipated.

12. According to Tony Judt and Michael Sandel, what negative consequences can result when a society has very high rates of inequality and people value the pursuit and accumulation of wealth above all else (i.e. when a “market economy” becomes a “market society”)?