Exam 5 - Questions and Answers

Question 1

The Cold War divided the world along big principles and ideas. Which one of these statements best describe this division?

Answer 1

• Capitalism versus Communism

Question 2

British India was divided into two independent countries in 1947, reflecting divisions between Muslim and Hindu populations. “India” was the largest country, and dominated by Hindus. The Muslim state that was created was/is called:

Answer 2

• Pakistan

Question 3

What was the name given to the loss of European empires in the period 1945 and 1980?

Answer 3

• Decolonization

Question 4

During the Cold War, what did Korea, Germany, and Vietnam all share in common?

Answer 4

• They were divided in two between a Communist/Soviet/Chinese-supported state, and a Western/American/Capitalist-supported state

Question 5

One of the main weapons that threatened global stability during the cold war era has only been used twice in world history (by the United States against two cities in Japan in 1945) Name the weapon:

Answer 5

• Atomic bomb

Question 6

What was the main feature of Gandhi’s Indian nationalism?

Answer 6

• Nonviolent resistance

Question 7

What was the name of the international diplomatic/peace-keeping organization set up after the Second World War to try to prevent future wars and ensure global peace and security?

Answer 7

• The United Nations

Question 8

Between the two world wars, the former Ottoman territory of Palestine was controlled by which country?

Answer 8

• Britain

Question 9

Who was Nelson Mandela?

Answer 9

He protested against apartheid in South Africa, and was thrown in prison. He became President of the country in 1994 after apartheid collapsed

Question 10

What was the main difference between the initial era of pan-Arab nationalism (c. 1945-1970s) led by men like Gamal Abdel Nasser, and the new form of anti-western nationalism which emerged in the wake of the Iranian Revolution of 1979?

Answer 10

• The later form was based more firmly on using Islam as a tool to united people in the Middle East against the west, whereas the former was more about ethnic, not religious, identity.

Question 11

Kwame Nkrumah was a leading voice in Pan-African nationalism. He became President of the first African colony to gain independence (in 1957):

Answer 11

• Ghana

Question 12

This man rose to power during the Communist revolution of China in 1949. He articulated a form of communism based on peasant agricultural co-operation which he claimed was different to both capitalism and Soviet Communism. This “third way” inspired by other “third world” revolutionaries:

Answer 12

• Mao Zedong

Question 13

In the 1980s, China went through a period of ___________ under Chairman Deng.

Answer 13

• Economic liberalization

Question 14

The Arab-Israeli (or Israel-Palestinian) conflict has many dimensions, but at core it is about:

Answer 14

• The conflicting demands of Jewish and Arab populations for independent statehood in the same geographical territory

Question 15

These two leaders are associated with promoting the policy of neo-liberalism in the 1980s. The policy proposed low regulation of the economy, cutbacks in welfare, attacks on Union rights, and cuts in taxes for the wealthy and businesses:

Answer 15

• Ronald Regan and Margaret Thatcher

Question 16

This alliance of independent countries, created in the 1990s, is a giant economic free trade zone with a single currency and a Parliament that legislates for shared policies on social and economic matters. Its economy taken as a whole is larger than that of the United States:

Answer 16

• European Union

Question 17

Which statement best describes the activities of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank as discussed in class?

Answer 17

• They make loans to poor (often former European colonial) countries, but have often put lots of conditions on these giving these loans that tend to benefit richer countries.

Question 18

The growth of a global free market (“globalization”) was helped by the end of what between 1989-91?

Answer 18

• The Soviet Union/Communism

Question 19

Who was responsible for the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001?

Answer 19

• Al-Qaeda

Question 20

This Soviet leader introduced political and economic reform in the Soviet Union in the mid-1980s. He hoped these reforms would ave the USSR, but instead they encouraged its hasty demise as well as that of Eastern European Communism as a whole:

Answer 20

• Mikhail Gorbachev

Question 21

Which decade is most associated with a growing moral freedom and the rise of pop music and youth culture in western European/American culture (“sex, drugs and rock and roll”)?

Answer 21

• 1960s

Question 22

The financial, political, and military mechanisms by which rich industrial countries maintain their control over the resources, economies and governments of poorer nations - without formal annexation - is called:

Answer 22

• Neo-colonialism

Question 23

Who was Ho Chi Minh?

Answer 23

• The leader of communist North Vietnam, and inspiration behind the South Vietnamese Communist movement

Question 24

The attempt at translating the religion of Islam into a framework for government, law, and politics - evident in the late twentieth century across the Middle East - is known as:

Answer 24

• Islamism

Question 25

This man was the leader of the international Zionist movement, and the founding father of the modern state of Israel:

Answer 25

• David Ben-Gurion

Question 26

The commitment, evident across the developed world since the 1980s, to deregulating financial markets, cutting government spending (e.g. on welfare), reducing taxes on corporations and the wealthy is called:

Answer 26

• Neoliberalism

Question 27

“Apartheid” is the name given to the strict legal and social segregation of white and black Africans between the mid-twentieth century and the 1990s in which country?

Answer 27

• South Africa

Question 28

This group was a guerrilla Islamist army made up of tribal groups within Afghanistan. They believed they were the warriors of Allah, called to repel the atheistic Soviet Union from invading the country between 1979 and 1989. The United States gave support to them as part of its attempt at blocking the expansion of the Soviet Union

Answer 28

• Mujahedeen

Question 29

The distinctive feature of Maoism was the idea that communism should be implemented:

Answer 29

• By small village communities growing and making products locally and communally

Question 30

One of the most intense crisis points of the Cold War was triggered when the strongly anti-American dictator Fidel Castro invited the Soviet Union to station nuclear missiles in his country, just off the coast of the United States. This triggered the United States to attempt to stage an invasion to overthrow Castro. Which country were the missiles placed in?

Answer 30

• Cuba