History 479B

Devine/Adams

Fall 2012

FINAL EXAM STUDY GUIDE

 

FINAL EXAMINATION: Thursday, December 13th, 12:45-2:45 pm, 288 Sierra Hall

 

The final will cover all lectures and readings since the midterm.

 

The final will have the same basic format as the midterm.  ALL questions will be drawn directly from the review questions listed below.

 

In Part I (70%), you will answer 7 of 10 short essay questions. Provide as much specific information as you can – SHOW, don’t tell.  Demonstrate why something is true, don’t just assert it. A one or two sentence answer is insufficient if you wish to receive full credit.

 

In Part II (30%), you will answer 2 of 4 long essay questions. Be sure you state your answer to the question at the very beginning – this is your thesis. Then, using specific examples, spend the rest of the essay demonstrating that your thesis is true. Don’t write in generalities or assertions – give specific facts that support your case.

 

 

PLEASE BRING AN UNMARKED GREEN BOOK WITH YOU TO CLASS.

 

Final Exam Study Questions

 

  1. After the war, why did European nations need American dollars?  In what ways did Americans help to get these dollars into European hands?  In what ways did United States make it difficult for Europeans to get these dollars?
  2. What were the international consequences of American businessmen and bankers’ decisions to establish factories or capital investments in some foreign countries but not in others?  For these nations, what were the tradeoffs of the U.S. economic presence in their country?
  3. What was the economic impact of the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act?  How and why did such a bill get passed?
  4. How were both “politics” and the inaction of the Federal Reserve responsible for the banking collapse in March 1933? (Capagna article)
  5. Why does Jim Powell believe FDR’s raising taxes and tariffs in 1933 was a bad decision?  Why does be believe high taxes fostered continued high rates of unemployment?
  6. Through the NRA, New Dealers (often veterans of the War Industries Board) sought to establish a planned economy that would eliminate the negative aspects of competition and replace them with harmonious, well-ordered government-business-labor relations. Is this how things worked out?  Why didn’t the NRA live up to the reformers’ hopes?
  7. The AAA sought to raise agricultural prices, raise tariffs, and “dump” American products on foreign markets in order to give relief to American farmers.  Why does Powell believe these policies were ill-advised?
  8. Though David Kennedy concedes that the New Deal did not bring economic recovery, he argues that FDR’s reform program did produce numerous favorable consequences in the long run. What were they and why were they significant?
  9.  Why does Anthony Badger disagree with those who claim that New Deal reforms merely extended the power of big business and undermined more radical ideas and solutions to the nation’s economic problems?  What evidence does he introduce to show this was not the case?
  10. According to Anthony Badger, what were the external constraints (those outside FDR’s control) that kept the New Deal from achieving its reform goals in full? How did these constraints limit the intended impact of New Deal programs?
  11. What was “hard core” unemployment? Why was it so hard for the “hard core” unemployed to find jobs?
  12. The conventional wisdom that higher unemployment causes lower wages was not true in the 1930s. Instead, real hourly wages held steady or rose. Why did businessmen persist in paying high wages even in the midst of the crisis of the Great Depression?  Why did increasing wages – to an “efficiency wage” – increase profits?
  13. According to Jensen, what three policies did the New Deal not pursue to combat the Depression? Why were these potential remedies not tried?
  14. What factors – “push” and “pull” – account for the African American migration from the South in the years after World War I?  Why have some referred to this migration as the “second emancipation”?
  15. What evidence does Mandel cite to demonstrate an “incremental chipping away at the structure of the plantation economy” from 1900-1939? What structural/economic forces were at work here? What were blacks themselves doing to undermine the plantation economy?
  16. How did the beginning of World War II affect the plantation economy? What specific factors doomed the old system of production?
  17. According to Mandle, “the civil rights movement was born precisely because the South had begun to change.” (95)  How does he connect these two developments? Why does he argue that economic and structural factors explain why the Civil Rights Movement was more successful in the South than in the North?
  18. African Americans did well in the 1950s and 1960s, but by the 1970s this economic progress seemed to ebb. Why did this happen?  Who or what was to blame?  Why did this development produce more inequality within the African American population?
  19. What factors – political, economic, organizational, and ideological – kept the United States and the Roosevelt administration from launching an efficient, streamlined, long-range plan for mobilization in the months and years leading up to World War II?
  20. Why could one argue that the New Dealers in the Roosevelt administration hindered the process of rearmament and mobilization for World War II?  According to William O’Neill, why did they prefer a “politically correct” war effort to an efficient one?
  21. Why do Stephen Horwitz and Michael McPhillips believe that is wrong to say World War II restored economic prosperity to the daily lives of most American people?
  22. After World War II, what steps did national leaders take to avoid the international economic instability that had occurred after World War I?
  23. How did Eisenhower’s economic policies differ from Truman’s?  How did his policies reflect the conservative view of the source of wealth and the need for stability of prices?
  24. What were some of the major transformations in the US economy during the 1950s?  
  25. How did the “three C’s” – cars, construction, and credit – contribute to ‘50s prosperity?
  26. What were the three major lines of the “Keynes-cum-growth” economic policy? (see Collins, p. 18 ff) How did this policy differ markedly from New Deal economic policy? How did the success of “Keynes-cum-growth” policies affect the national mood?
  27. How did the assumptions of “growth liberalism” help shape U.S. defense policy and foreign policy? (Flexible response, “usable power,” the escalation of the Vietnam war, etc.)
  28. Why did Johnson’s insistence on pursuing a “guns-and-butter” policy destroy his presidency, and, arguably, discredit liberalism more broadly?
  29. What does “Populuxe” mean?  What kind of style, attitude, and way of life does this word describe?
  30. In Populuxe Thomas Hine argues that both historians and the contemporary critics of the suburbs were out of sync with suburban residents. What evidence does he offer to suggest that the conventional wisdom about conformity in the suburbs of the 1950s is wrong?
  31. According to Nickles, why did working-class taste not only persist as blue-collar families became more prosperous but also pervade the mass market? 
  32. During the 1950s, the cultural critic Vance Packard accused marketers of designing status symbols like the tail fin and chrome covered refrigerator as a way of fostering status anxiety and encouraging conspicuous consumption.  How does Nickles’ article call into question Packard’s notion of a conspiracy of manipulating marketers “fooling” consumers?
  33. Despite the lavish advertising campaign that accompanied its introduction, why didn’t the Ford Edsel sell?
  34. What arguments did President Kennedy make for a tax cut even though the economy was doing fairly well? What results did the tax cut produce once it went into effect in 1964?
  35. What are “conglomerates”? What were some of the factors that led to the formation of more conglomerates after World War II?  What advantages did conglomerates offer for businessmen? Why did the “conglomerate craze” of the 1960s end badly?
  36. What steps did the government and the private sector take to fuel the “go-go” stock market of the 1960s?
  37. What were the pros and cons of government-funded health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid?
  38. What impact did increasing oil prices have on the US economy?  Why did high oil prices limit economic growth? Why did controlling the price of domestically produced oil not solve the problem?
  39. How did the expectation of inflation make it harder to control inflation? What role did labor unions play in fueling the spiral of inflation?
  40. What is the difference between fiscal and monetary policy? How did Keynesians and monetarists differ regarding the role government should play in the economy?
  41. How did deregulation and increasing worker productivity help control inflation without increasing unemployment?
  42. Why did many Americans initially support Jimmy Carter?  How did a Carter presidency promise to be different than what had come before (i.e. Johnson, Nixon)?  How did Carter’s approach to the office differ from that of his predecessors’? Why, ultimately, did he prove to be an ineffective president?
  43. Why, according to Bruce Schulman, was the great inflation of the 1970s “a transformative event?” (p. 131) What changes occurred?  Why was inflation such a big deal?
  44. How did inflation affect attitudes about credit, spending, and investing?  How did it help to produce changes in the way people did their banking?
  45. What was “stagflation” and why did it contradict conventional economic wisdom?  Why did it prove so devastating for the economic position of those Americans near the bottom of the economic spectrum – the unemployed, the elderly and those on fixed incomes, etc. – and even average Americans (those trying to save for their children’s college education, for example)?
  46. What role did Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker play in fighting inflation after his appointment in 1979?  What policies did he pursue? What were their effects?
  47. According to Wells and Sloan, why did the U.S. economy begin to recover after 1982?
  48. In what areas did the Reagan economic policies of the 1980s succeed and why?  In what areas did they fail to achieve their goals and why?
  1. What role did broader social developments and changes in the economic structure play in widening the gap between rich and poor during the 1980s?  What trends in particular were most significant?
  1. What were the pros and cons of “downsizing” and corporate reorganization?  According to Wells, how can a country “downsize” its way to prosperity?  
  2. What factors caused the high deficits that characterized the Reagan/Bush years? (Note that there is some disagreement on this issue.)  What impact did these deficits have on the economy?  Did they matter?
  3. What factors account for the increasing economic inequalities of the Reagan/Bush years?
  4. After taking office, why did President Clinton decide to abandon his plans for increased public investment and instead focus on reducing the deficit and free trade?
  5. What role did new information technology play in increasing worker productivity during the 1990s?
  6. What factors contributed to the economic prosperity of the 1990s?  To what extent was the prosperity due policies pursued by the Clinton administration and the Federal Reserve? To what extent was it due to structural changes in the economy beyond the control of the federal government?