Social Science Vocabulary

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Plutocracy
1) Government by the wealthy
2) A controlling class of the wealthy

World War I, 1919-1939, World War II

Links

http://www.johndclare.net/peace_treaties1.htm

• great website covering Treaty of Versailles, events at the Paris Conference, and outcomes for the future

http://ww2db.com/intro.php?q=5

Why did WW2 start?

Although each of the regional wars of WW2 began for a different reason, it is generally understood that WW2 was started because of Axis aggression.

In Europe, the cause of WW2 could be traced 20 years earlier. At the end of WW1, the Treaty of Versailles failed as an instrument to maintain peace as it seemingly served the agenda of depriving Germany of her status as a sovereign nation. Such deprivation, along with the subsequent hyperinflation and global economical depression, set up the grounds for the rise of the Nazi Party. Many scholars note that Europe might had saved had the Western Allies abandoned the policy of appeasement, which was done in the interest of curbing the expansion of communism. Prompt action committed by the Western Allies against Germany might had removed Adolf Hitler from power, hence possibly lessen the scale of the war.

Additionally, the Nazi Party's racist agenda also provided Germany a distorted justification for their brutal occupation policies.

Italy, which fought on the side of the victors in WW1, believed she deserved much more territorial gains than it received at the end of that conflict. This led to Italy's belief that her invasions against Abyssinia, Albania, and Greece were justified.

In Asia, Japanese expansion led to a brief confrontation with Russia and a full-fledged war against China. The primary motivation was to acquire natural resources to feed the rapidly growing Japanese industry and military. The western imperial powers had long been fueling their industrial might by exploiting their colonies, but Japan, late to the imperial game, always had to import raw materials from abroad. The subsequent Japanese expansion into the South Pacific was Japan's attempt at establishing her base for raw materials, particularly oil, and this attempt brought it directly against the interests of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States.

Why did WW2 end the way it did?

WW2 ended with an Allied victory after Germany and Japan surrendered in 1945. The main reason for the eventual Allied victory was more so economic in nature than military. The Allies possessed vast manpower, raw materials, and manufacturing capacity, something the Axis could not match. As the war dragged on, the Axis powers simply could not handle the seemingly endless supply of weapons that the Allies could bring to the front.

Historical Ages

Historical Ages

Paleolithic Age: 1 million to 10,000 B.C.E.
-- hunters, fishers, gathers
-- not producers of food
-- sparely settled societies
-- division of labor by sex

Neolithic Age: 10,000 to 3100 B.C.E
-- starts in Middle East
-- more settled society
-- domesticated plants and animals
-- invention of pottery
    -- storage of surplus food and liquids
    -- transport food
    -- cook food
    -- made cloth from flax and wool
-- two advanced civilizations
    -- Catal Huyuk, Turkey
    -- Jericho, near Dead Sea
-- rise in population
-- areas
    -- Middle East 8000 B.C.E.
    -- China 4000 B.C.E.
    -- India 3600 B.C.E.

Bronze Age: 3100 to 1200 B.C.E.
-- areas
    -- Mesopotamia (Tigris and Euphrates)
    -- Eygpt (Nile River Valley)
    -- India
    -- China (Yellow River)
-- growth of town along villages
-- cities had monumential buildings
-- elaborate representational artwork
-- smelting and manufacturing of metal tools and weapons
-- different classes of people
-- earliest writing
-- combine tin and copper to make stronger bronze
-- attributes of civilization
    -- urbanization
    -- technological, industrial, and social change
    -- log distance trade
    -- new methods of symbolic communication

American History - Some Essential Questions

http://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/resources/essential-questions-teaching-american-history

Essential Questions in Teaching American History

by John McNamara

A carefully crafted lesson is structured with a well-defined focus and a clearly-stated purpose. The lesson should present the class with an issue that is phrased in the form of a problem to be solved or a question to be analyzed and assessed by the class. Effective lessons do not merely cover information; they present students with major concepts and ideas and challenge students to think critically and take positions on open-ended essential questions. Here are some examples of essential questions for students of American history:

1. Is America a land of opportunity?
2. Did geography greatly affect the development of colonial America?
3. Does a close relationship between church and state lead to a more moral society?
4. Has Puritanism shaped American values?
5. Was colonial America a democratic society?
6. Was slavery the basis of freedom in colonial America?
7. Did Great Britain lose more than it gained from its victory in the French and Indian War?
8. Were the colonists justified in resisting British policies after the French and Indian War?
9. Was the American War for Independence inevitable?
10. Would you have been a revolutionary in 1776?
11. Did the Declaration of Independence establish the foundation of American government?
12. Was the American Revolution a “radical” revolution?
13. Did the Articles of Confederation provide the United States with an effective government?
14. Could the Constitution be written without compromise?
15. Does state or federal government have a greater impact on our lives? (federalism)
16. Does the system of checks and balances provide us with an effective and efficient government? Do separation of powers and checks and balances make our government work too slowly?
17. Is a strong federal system the most effective government for the United States? Which level of government, federal or state, can best solve our nation’s problems?
18. Is the Constitution a living document? (amendment process, elastic clause, judicial interpretation, legislative modifications, etc.)
19. Was George Washington’s leadership indispensable in successfully launching the new federal government?
20. Should the United States fear a national debt? (financial problems of the new nation and Hamilton’s financial plan)
21. Whose ideas were best for the new nation, Hamilton’s or Jefferson’s?
22. Are political parties good for our nation? (Federalists v. Democratic-Republicans)
23. Should the United States seek alliances with other nations?
24. Should the political opposition have the right to criticize a president’s foreign policy?
25. Is the suppression of public opinion during times of crisis ever justified?
26. Should we expect elections to bring about revolutionary changes? (election of 1800)
27. Is economic coercion an effective method of achieving our national interest in world affairs?
28. Should the United States fight to preserve the right of its citizens to travel and trade overseas?
29. Does war cause national prosperity?
30. Was the Monroe Doctrine a policy of expansion or self-defense? Or: Was the Monroe Doctrine a “disguise” for American imperialism?
31. Should presidents’ appointees to the Supreme Court reflect their policies?
32. Did the Supreme Court under John Marshall give too much power to the federal government (at the expense of the states)?
33. Does an increase in the number of voters make a country more democratic?
34. Should the United States have allowed American Indians to retain their tribal identities?
35. Does a geographic minority have the right to ignore the laws of a national majority?
36. Did Andrew Jackson advance or retard the cause of democracy? (autocrat v. democrat)
37. Was the age of Jackson an age of democracy?
38. Should the states have the right to ignore the laws of the national government?
39. Does the United States have a mission to expand freedom and democracy?
40. Have reformers had a significant impact on the problems of American society?
41. Does militancy advance or retard the goals of a protest movement? (abolitionists) Or: Were the abolitionists responsible reformers or irresponsible agitators?
42. Was slavery a benign or evil institution?
43. Can legislative compromises solve moral issues?
44. Can the Supreme Court settle moral issues? (Dred Scott decision)
45. Was slavery the primary cause of the Civil War?
46. Was the Civil War inevitable?
47. Does Abraham Lincoln deserve to be called the “Great Emancipator”?
48. Was the Civil War worth its costs?
49. Was it possible to have a peace of reconciliation after the Civil War?
50. Should the South have been treated as a defeated nation or as rebellious states? (a comparison of the presidential and congressional reconstruction programs)
51. Did the Reconstruction governments rule the South well?
52. Can political freedom exist without an economic foundation?
53. When should a president be impeached and removed from office?
54. Does racial equality depend upon government action?
55. Should African Americans have more strongly resisted the government’s decision to abandon the drive for equality? (Booker T. Washington’s “accommodation” v. W.E.B. Du Bois’s “agitation” approaches)
56. Has rapid industrial development been a blessing or a curse for Americans?
57. Were big business leaders “captains of industry” or “robber barons?”
58. Should business be regulated closely by the government?
59. Should business be allowed to combine and reduce competition?
60. Can workers attain economic justice without violence?
61. Did America fulfill the dreams of immigrants?
62. Has immigration been the key to America’s success?
63. Has the West been romanticized?
64. Can the “white man’s conquest” of Native Americans be justified?
65. Have Native Americans been treated fairly by the United States government?
66. Who was to blame for the problems of American farmers after the Civil War? Or: Was the farmers’ revolt of the 1890s justified?
67. Did populism provide an effective solution to the nation’s problems?
68. Is muckraking an effective tool to reform American politics and society?
69. Can reform movements improve American society and politics? (Progressivism)
70. Were the Progressives successful in making government more responsive to the will of the people?
71. Does government have a responsibility to help the needy?
72. To what extent had African Americans attained the “American Dream” by the early twentieth century?
73. Is a strong president good for our nation? (Theodore Roosevelt) Or: Did Theodore Roosevelt further the goals of Progressivism?
74. Was the “New Freedom” an effective solution to the problems of industrialization?
75. Was American expansion overseas justified?
76. Did the press cause the Spanish-American War?
77. Was the United States justified in going to war against Spain in 1898?
78. Should the United States have acquired possessions overseas?
79. Was the acquisition of the Panama Canal Zone an act of justifiable imperialism?
80. Does the need for self-defense give the US the right to interfere in the affairs of Latin America? (Roosevelt Corollary, “Dollar Diplomacy,” “Watchful Waiting”)
81. Was the United States imperialistic in the Far East?
82. Was world war inevitable in 1914?
83. Was it possible for the US to maintain neutrality in World War I?
84. Should the United States fight wars to make the world safe for democracy? Or: Should the United States have entered World War I?
85. Should a democratic government tolerate dissent during times of war and other crises? (Schenck v. United States, Abrams v. United States)
86. Was the Treaty of Versailles a fair and effective settlement for lasting world peace?
87. Should the United States have approved the Treaty of Versailles?
88. Was American foreign policy during the 1920s isolationist or internationalist?
89. Was the decade of the 1920s a decade of innovation or conservatism?
90. Did the Nineteenth Amendment radically change women’s role in American life?
91. Did women experience significant liberation during the 1920s? Or: Did the role of women in American life significantly change during the 1920s?
92. Should the United States limit immigration?
93. Should the United States have enacted the Prohibition Amendment?
94. Does economic prosperity result from tax cuts and minimal government?
95. Was the Great Depression inevitable?
96. Was the New Deal an effective response to the depression?
97. Did Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal weaken or save capitalism?
98. Did Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal undermine the constitutional principles of separation of powers and checks and balances?
99. Did minorities receive a New Deal in the 1930s?
100. Do labor unions and working people owe a debt to the New Deal?
101. Did the New Deal effectively end the Great Depression and restore prosperity?
102. Has the United States abandoned the legacy of the New Deal?
103. Did United States foreign policy during the 1930s help promote World War II? Or: Could the United States have prevented the outbreak of World War II?
104. Should the United States sell arms to other nations? Or: Should the United States have aided the Allies against the Axis powers? Or: Does American security depend upon the survival of its allies?
105. Was war between the United States and Japan inevitable?
106. How important was the home front in the United States’ victory in World War II?
107. Was the treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II justified or an unfortunate setback for democracy?
108. Should the US employ atomic (nuclear) weapons to defeat its enemies in war? (President Truman’s decision to drop the atom bomb on Japan)
109. Could the United States have done more to prevent the Holocaust?
110. Was World War II a “good war?” Or: Was World War II justified by its results?
111. Was the Cold War inevitable?
112. Was containment an effective policy to thwart communist expansion?
113. Should the United States have feared internal communist subversion in the 1950s?
114. Were the 1950s a time of great peace, progress, and prosperity for Americans?
115. Did the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s expand democracy for all Americans?
116. Should the United States have fought “limited wars” to contain communism? (Korean conflict)
117. Should President Kennedy have risked nuclear war to remove missiles from Cuba?
118. Does the image of John F. Kennedy outshine the reality?
119. Did American presidents have good reasons to fight a war in Vietnam?
120. Can domestic protest affect the outcome of war?
121. Did the war in Vietnam bring a domestic revolution to the United States?
122. Did the “Great Society” programs fulfill their promises?
123. Is civil disobedience the most effective means of achieving racial equality?
124. Is violence or non-violence the most effective means to achieve social change?
125. Did the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s effectively change the nation?
126. Do the ideas of the 1960s still have relevance today?
127. Has the women’s movement for equality in the United States become a reality or remained a dream?
128. Did the Warren Supreme Court expand or undermine the concept of civil liberties?
129. Should affirmative action programs be used as a means to make up for past injustices?
130. Was the Watergate scandal a sign of strength or weakness in the United States system of government? Or: Should Nixon have resigned the presidency?
131. Should the president be able to wage war without congressional authorization?
132. Did participation in the Vietnam War signal the return to a foreign policy of isolation for the United States?
133. Did the policy of detente with communist nations effectively maintain world peace?
134. Is secrecy more important than the public’s right to know in implementing foreign policy? (Bay of Pigs invasion, 1961; clandestine ClA operations; Pentagon Papers court case, 1971; Iran-Contra affair; invasion of Panama, 1989; etc.)
135. Should a president be permitted to conduct a covert foreign policy?
136. Did the policies of the Reagan administration strengthen or weaken the United States?
137. Should human rights and morality be the cornerstones of US foreign policy? Or: Should the United States be concerned with human rights violations in other nations?)
138. Were Presidents Reagan and Bush responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War? Did the United States win the Cold War?
139. Are peace and stability in the Middle East vital to the United States’ economy and national security?
140. Should the United States have fought a war against Iraq to liberate Kuwait?
141. Is it the responsibility of the United States today to be the world’s “policeman?”
142. Can global terrorism be stopped?
143. Does the United States have a fair and effective immigration policy?
144. Should the United States restrict foreign trade?
145. Has racial equality and harmony been achieved at the start of the twenty-first century?
146. Should the United States still support the use of economic sanctions to further democracy and human rights?
147. Should the federal surplus be used to repay the government’s debts or given back to the people in tax cuts?
148. Should Bill Clinton be considered an effective president?
149. Should a president be impeached for ethical lapses and moral improprieties?
150. Should the United States use military force to support democracy in Eastern Europe? In the Middle East?
151. Is it constitutional for the United States to fight preemptive wars? Was the United States justified to fight a war to remove Saddam Hussein from power?
152. Can the United States maintain its unprecedented prosperity? (policies of the Federal Reserve System; balancing the Federal budget; international trade and the global economy; inflation factor; etc.)
153. Is the world safer since the end of the Cold War?
154. Should Americans be optimistic about the future?
155. Should we change the way that we elect our presidents?
156. Has the president become too powerful? Or the Supreme Court?
157. Should limits be placed on freedom of expression during times of national crisis?
158. Should stricter laws regulating firearms be enacted?
159. Should affirmative action programs be continued to overcome the effects of past injustice and discrimination?
160. Is the death penalty (capital punishment) a “cruel and unusual punishment” (and thus unconstitutional)?
161. Does the media have too much influence over public opinion?
162. Should lobbies and pressure groups be more strictly regulated?
163. Do political parties serve the public interest and further the cause of democracy?

Frederick Douglas question

According to "The Narrative of Frederick Douglass," discuss the importance of education and freedom. How does he become educated and how does it change him? Why does he believe that education will set him free? Identify and explain the instances when education becomes a burden to him. Explain your answers. Use specific examples from the narrative.


1) Don't know his birthday
2) Mrs. Auld taught him A,B,C then spell three and four letter words
3) Mr. Auld - "If you teach a nigger how to read, there would no keeping him
-- it would make him discontented
4) He now understood how the white man is able to enslave the black man
-- From that moment Douglass knew that the way to freedom from slavery was reading
-- From what he most dreaded, I most desired
5)Making friends of little white boys he met on the streets
-- get a quick lesson from then when running an errand
6) Constantly reading the "The Columbian Orator"
-- interesting thoughts of my own soul
-- Sheridan's denunciation of slavery
-- the readings of these documents enabled me to utter my thoughts and meet the arguments brought forth to sustain slavery
7) At times I would feel that learning to read had been a curse
-- it had given me a view of my wretched condition with a remedy
-- envied fellow slaves' ignorance
8) Teaching other slaves to read at Sabbath school
-- greatest days
--  any moment they could be taken and given a whipping
9) 

Reconstruction Question

According to the "The American Promise," discuss the difficulties that faced freed people during Reconstruction from 1865-1877. What did freed people expect after emancipation? How did the government leaders and legislation participate in the transition from enslavement to emancipation for freed people? Explain the efforts to aid them. Why did the efforts to aid them fail? Use specific examples from the textbook.

Expectations
-- desire for education
-- equal treatment before the law
-- civil rights
-- land

Legislation
-- 13th Amendment: abolish slavery
-- Freedman's Bureau Acts distributes food and clothing
-- Civil Rights Act of 1866 gave full benefit of laws and end legal discrimination in state laws
-- 14th Amendment makes blacks citizens
-- Military Reconstruction Acts - impose military rule
-- 15th Amendment prohibits racial discrimination in voting
-- Civil Rights Act of 1875 outlaws discrimination in transportation, public accommodations, and juries

Failed
-- South found ways to get around 15th amendment and continue to disenfranchise blacks - literacy, property
-- no state constitution confiscated and redistributed land
-- no state constitution disenfranchised ex-rebels
-- Jim Crow laws aimed at segregation
-- Supreme Court hamper enforcement of 14th and 15th amendment
-- Grant not enforce
-- Congress abandoned reconstruction
-- Northern voters tired of the Negro question
-- Compromise of 1877
-- Failure to protect blacks

Compromise of 1850

Compromise of 1850

• Brokered by Stephen A. Douglas
• Basically the same plan Henry Clay proposed 
• California entered the Union as a free state
• New Mexico and Utah became territories where slavery would be decided by popular sovereignty
• Texas accepted its boundary with New Mexico and received $10 million dollars from the Federal government
• Congress ended the slave trade in the District of Columbia
• Congress enacted a more stringent fugitive slave law
• Signed into law by President Millard Fillmore