MIDTERM EXAM: STUDY GUIDE
The midterm exam will consist of three sections:
I. two or three terms to identify
II. one short essay
III. identification of a passage from the primary source readings.
You will have choice within all three sections of the exam—that is, a choice among several items to identify; one of two essays; and one of two passages.

I. Identifcations. For each of the identifications, you should do two things: 1) give specific identifying information (who, what, where, when), and 2) briefly explain its significance. This should not be an essay. Think first, and don’t just write everything you know about the item hoping that something will hit the target.

II. Essay. As you study, focus on the major themes we’ve been looking at. Use the lecture outlines and the chapter headings in the textbook, Bonnie Smith’s Europe in the Contemporary World, as a guide to those themes. Review the lecture materials posted on the course website. Some big questions to review:
1. What was liberalism at the beginning of the twentieth century, and how did liberals envision Europe?
2. What major groups were dissatisfied with the established order in Europe on the eve of the Great War? What alternative visions of society did they advocate?
3. What was modern nationalism? What are some examples of its effects in the history of Europe in the first half of the twentieth century?
4. Why did the Great War (“World War I”) happen? What role did various factors play in the slide toward war? What were some of the war’s effects on the “home front?”
5. What were the competing visions for remaking Europe at the time of the Paris Peace Conference? What were the various national interests involved? How was the map of Europe redrawn? What were the “successor states?” What were the strengths and weaknesses of the peace treaties?
6. Why did the Bolshevik revolution take place in Russia? What did it mean for the rest of Europe? What were the main features of the Soviet Union that had emerged by the mid-1920s? What happened under Stalin? How would you explain why Communism in Russia and the USSR developed in the way that it did, from the Bolshevik until the late 1930s under Stalin?
7. What was fascism? How did Mussolini explain its ideas? Who tended to support fascism, and why? How did fascist movements come to power, and what did they do when they got it? What was National Socialism? How would you explain the Nazis’ rise to power in Germany? What did the Nazis do once they were in power?
8. After the first World War, what were the prospects for liberal democracy? What aspects of the 1920s suggested that it was healthy and spreading? What were the warning signs? What problems did the Weimar Republic in Germany face?
9. How would you describe the changes in the position of women that were taking place from the Great War through the interwar period?
10. What were some of the key features of the new forms of popular culture that were beginning to emerge in the 1920s?
11. What was the Great Depression? What are some of the factors that explain why it happened? What insights into its social effects does Orwell’s Road to Wigan Pier offer us? What responses to the economic problems of the Depression seemed to be working best in the 1930s?
12. What was the policy of “appeasement” in the 1930s, and what role did it play in the events that led to a second World War?

III. Identify a passage. The passages to identify will be drawn from the assigned primary source readings in Smith’s Europe in the Contemporary World, or from Mussolini’s Doctrine of Fascism, Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, or Orwell’s Road to Wigan Pier. The passages won’t be tricky. You should be familiar with the readings by Marinetti, Pankhurst, Lenin, Mussolini, Hitler, Woolf, and Orwell.

FINAL EXAM: STUDY GUIDE
The final exam will consist of four sections: identifications; two essays; and a passage from the supplementary readings to identify and explain. One essay will address the second half of the course; the other will ask you to consider an issue that spans the entire century. You will have choice in all four sections. Please remember to bring green books.

For the identifications, the instructions are the same as for the midterm: you should both give specific identifying information (who, what, where, when) and explain the item’s significance.

When you study, focus on the major themes we have been looking at. Use the lecture outlines as a guide to those big themes, and follow them up by reviewing your reading in the textbook, Bonnie Smith’s Europe in the Contemporary World. Use the lists of terms selectively: pay attention to the major terms included there--that is, the terms related directly to the important themes. The outlines other lecture materials are available on the course website:
://www.uoregon.edu/~mccole/303Spring2008/index.html
You can also find copies of the midterm study guide and of this study guide there.

The passage to identify and explain will be drawn from the supplementary readings (that is, everything except Smith, ECW) since the midterm. You should give the author and title, and explain what the passage says. You do not have to give the date.

Some big questions to review from the second half of the course:
1. What kinds of destruction resulted from the Second World War? What was the Holocaust? How would you explain why it happened? What were the major steps in the emergence of genocide against the European Jews and others? What were some of the legacies of the war for postwar Europe?
2. What was the Cold War, and why did it happen? What were the conflicting interests and perceptions of west and east? What were the events that caused the Cold War to gather momentum in the years immediately following World War II?
3. Why did Europe’s position with respect to its colonial empires change during the twentieth century? What were some of the paths to decolonization?
4. How would you describe the postwar order created in Western Europe? What were its major features—economic, political, social, and cultural? Why was there more consensus than there had been between the wars? What is meant by the claim that this was not just reconstruction but a reinvention of parliamentary democracy?
5. How would you describe the kinds of states and societies that emerged in Eastern Europe after World War II? What were the opportunities and limits of “de-Stalinization?” What was the significance of the events of 1956 in Poland and Hungary?
6. What was “Stalinism,” and how, if at all, did it continue to affect the development of the Soviet Union after Stalin’s own death? Why did “de-Stalinization” take place? Was de-Stalinization successful in any way?
7. What caused the 1968 uprisings in Paris? What aspects of the postwar order were the students rebelling against? To what extent were these rebellions a product of postwar social trends?
8. What was the “Prague Spring?” What were some of the repercussions of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968?
9. Why has migration been such an important issue in Europe since World War II? What are the main issues raised by the increasing presence of new immigrants in Europe since the 1960s? Where have the immigrants come from? Why was there so much immigration? How has it affected the migrants themselves? How has it affected the societies they have joined?
10. What are some of the signs that the postwar order in Western Europe was beginning to change by the 1970s?
11. How and why was the postwar social contract in Western Europe challenged in the 1970s and after? What were Mrs. Thatcher’s conservative policies, and why were they significant? To what extent did Thatcher’s “revolution” signal a more general shift to the right in Europe?
12. How would you explain the collapse of Communism in the late 1980s and early 1990s? What were the various factors that played a role in producing the revolutions of 1989?
13. What sorts of changes have taken place in postcommunist Eastern Europe in the 1990s and since?