"History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are." David C McCullough
Our class will use a variety of websites throughout the year.
6th Hour Class Textbook website: my.mheducation.com
Your textbook website has a resource called: Smartbook. It responds to your reading, and hopefully will help you improve your reading skills with this text. Each chapter will be assigned for a grade. All chapters will be assigned throughout the year. Your interaction with this resources will provide useful feedback towards your performance.
Here are a few other notable sites – mainly for how they present the idea of World History. https://britishmuseum.withgoogle.com/ Timeline for world history https://artsandculture.google.com/project World Art
http://histography.io/ World History timeline
“In history, as elsewhere, the causes cannot be assumed. They are to be looked for.” Marc Bloch
Unit Seven: The Good War, the Freezer, and a World Without Walls.
“Instead of unity among the great powers – both political and economic – after the war, there is complete disunity between the Soviet Union and the satellites on one side and the rest of the world on the other. There are, in short, two worlds instead of one.” Charles E. Bohlen, 1947
Chapter 36, 37, 38.
Key Ideas: From the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 to the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the late summer of 1945, the people of the world suffered through fourteen years of horrible war and devastating deprivation. To an even greater extent than the Great War, the Second World War was truly a global conflict. Unfortunately, the number of dead and wounded would also be much greater in the second confrontation. Civilians also suffered to a much greater extent. Relations between imperialist nations and their colonies were strained, finally, to the breaking point. Gender relations were transformed once again by international warfare. To the horror of many, the end of World War II led directly into the uncertainty of the cold war and the ever-present nightmare of the atomic age.
The emergence of dozens of new states since the end of World War II has dramatically increased the scale and complexity of international relations. Decolonization in Asia encouraged African independence movements, and by 1970 virtually all colonial possessions in these regions had gained their independence. Frustration followed for many in these regions, however, as national governments proved unable to provide either economic or social stability, encouraging older ethnic and sectarian tensions to resurface. Additionally, the end of the bipolar system created by the cold war has left uncertain the future shape or nature of the international system. While older powers, such as the United States, have retained considerable influence, new actors such as China, India, and Brazil have signaled the emergence of a multi-polar world system, which continues to evolve. Topics such as population control, environmentalism, global terrorism, and gender issues stand as central challenges for all of the planet in this emerging world without walls.
Calendar of Activities and Assignments:
8, 9, 10 April: Begin Unit Seven. Textbook pages 854-858. World War Two and its Aftermath: Introduce the unit – ideas to consider. Read and discuss the Antony Beevor introduction to his World War II text. Assign Chapter 36 Reading. Assign Unit Seven, Assignment One. We will test school wide on April 9. PSAT Test. Afternoon classes will still meet.
11 April Textbook pages 858-864. Read and discuss Rape of Nanking, by Iris Chang. Intense. Consider visual information about aggression in China, from China in the Twentieth Century. Read McNeill treatment of the intro to World War II in Europe, pages 674- 679. Does he focus on the same parts as Beevor?
12 April: Consider World at War, A New Germany. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b4g4ZZNC1E Lots of places to find WWII content. Still, I like this version – produced in the 1970s, it includes interviews with most of the still living major players. It also represents a certain perspective of the war – why it happened, faults, values. See guide. Textbook pages 864-884. Group work regarding aggression leading up to WWII. See historical evaluation of term: appeasement. Read and consider this explanation of historical evaluation. World at War, France Falls!
Watch on your own: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHmxmUfekdQ Guide and reading completed regarding Maginot Line.
15-16 April: Primary Source analysis. Read the speech of Heinrich Himmler in the text. What did Himmler mean when he said, “We do not want, in the end, because we destroyed a bacillus, to be infected by the bacillus and to die”? Assign Chapter 37 Reading, due April 24.
17-18 April: Who won the war? Why did the Allies win the war?” and “Why did the Axis powers lose the war?” Turning points in the war.
When did Japan have its greatest advantage? Why was it necessary to attack the United States? What battles were most important in the Pacific theater of the war?
How had the Germans reached this point? How close was Hitler to complete victory at this point? What mistakes would he make? Consider “Hitler’s Gamble,” by Adam Tooze (History Today, 56 Issue: 11) as a model of defense. Also read and consider “Hitler’s Biggest Blunder,” by Nicholas Henderson. (History Today, Volume: 43 Issue: 4 April 1993). Consider images from Berlin – for meaning – short term and long term. Watch the beginning of the presentation of the cost of war: http://www.fallen.io/ww2/ Assign Unit Seven, Assignment Two, due April 24.
19, 22 April: Text pages 886-896. Lessons of War? Start the discussion with a line from the Hermann Hagedorn poem The Bomb That Fell on America, “The bomb that fell on Hiroshima fell on America too.” What did Hagedorn mean by that line? Have students analyze U.S. political cartoons of WWII and public notices. The Cold War. Origins of the term – and its qualities. Some reading/writing from Gaddis.
23-24 April: Text pages 896-910. View presentation War of the Worlds, by Niall Ferguson. Focus on idea of hot and cold wars, Cuban Missile Crisis, and proxy wars. Program Five: The Icebox
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xN2GSZ2a5LE Consider presentation about whether the 20th century should be considered the most destructive century in World History. Contrast the cost of war for different groups. http://www.fallen.io/ww2/
Niall Ferguson wrote in A New History of the 20TH Century, “THE HUNDRED YEARS AFTER 1900 WERE WITHOUT QUESTION THE BLOODIEST CENTURY IN MODERN HISTORY…FOR THREE REASONS…THESE MAY BE SUMMARIZED AS ETHNIC CONFLICT, ECONOMIC VOLATILITY AND EMPIRES IN DECLINE.”
Small group work on Cuban Missile Crisis. Assign Chapter 38 Reading, due May 6.
25-26 April: Text pages 910-920. Small group work regarding the cold war in Guatemala. Independence in Asia. Overview of several areas and the general pathway towards independence. Some documents also considered in brief. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nze2K2hgTqY Reference to Green Revolution in India and around the world.
29-30 April: Test pages 920-943. Small group activity regarding the Cultural Revolution in China. Then, decolonization in Africa. Struggles in the Post-Colonial Era. Some focus on varying pathways utilized by newly independent African countries. Assign Unit Seven, Assignment Three, due May 6.
1-2 May: View presentation War of the Worlds, by Niall Ferguson. Focus on critical year of 1979. Program Six: Descent of the West https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jYcv1gyJJo [3:08 – 47:34]
Artifact analysis of credit card issued from United Arab Emirates, 2009. Analysis of several artifacts of 21st century and the concept of globalization.
3, 6 May: Who won the Cold War? Did anybody win? Class consideration of text content from Chapter 38. What does the word wangguan mean? What are the implications of this concept? How does it represent the new problems of a changing world? Connect with several cartoons in the topic of globalization.
7-8 May: Small group work regarding several documents on global issues. Reading a selection from texts in small groups: The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Jihad vs. McWorld, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, and The End of History and the Last Man.
9 May: DBQ Work. All completed in class. You may use paper or a computer.
10 May: Test Seven. (30 Multiple Choice questions, 3 short answer questions, 1 DBQ essay - completed the day earlier).
13-14 May: Review for AP Test. Chromebook use in class. College Board website. See the links also posted in the Google classroom.
15 May: AP World History Test. In class, discuss the remainder of the year.
16-17, 20-22 May: Our Semester Final grade will be a review of several historical movies. One we will watch together. The second you will select and complete work according to a rubric. All work will be submitted through the Google Classroom. Begin first film in class. Start with an introduction and organization.
Historical Terms and Concepts to Know Who, what, where, why, when, how, so what?
Axis, Allied powers, Manchuria, invasion of China, Rape of Nanjing, Tripartite Pact, appeasement, Anschluss, Munich Conference, Nonaggression Pact , Warsaw Pact, Blitzkrieg, Rhineland, U-boats, Luftwaffe, the Blitz, Operation Barbarossa, Stalin, Stalingrad, lend-lease program, “a date that will live in infamy,” D-Day, the Final Solution, Wannsee Conference, “comfort women,” Yalta Conference, Potsdam Conference, Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, N.A.T.O., United Nations, “November crime,” Neville Chamberlain, Battle of Britain, “General Winter,” Stalingrad, Midway, Magic, Battle of Okinawa, Vichy government, “genocide,” Raphael Lemkin, Auschwitz, COMECON, United Nations Charter, Spanish Civil War, Ethiopia, Sudetenland, Ardennes, Maginot Line, “Peace in our time,” "scorched-earth," Panzer (Achtung Panzer), cash-and-carry, Stalin's "scorched earth" policy, lebensraum, Anschluss, “Phony War”- sitting war, Reinhard Heydrich, Panzer, UN, Bandung Conference, Ho Chi Minh, NATO, M.A.D., dominion-status, Suez crisis, 38th parallel, Cuban missile crisis, nonalignment, Geneva Agreements, Mau Mau rebellion, Nikita Khrushchev, Abdel Nasser, electronic information age, Global warming, qualities of modern terrorism, Great Leap Forward, Kwame Nkrumah, “Brezhnev doctrine,” Prague Spring, Cultural Revolution, Juan and Eva Perón, Marshal Tito, de-Stalinization, détente, goals of feminism, Sandinistas, OPEC, ASEAN, and the European Union, NGO.
Artifacts/documents to consider:
Into the Jaws of Death photo.
Guernica painting.
Rape of Nanking segment by Iris Chang.
Maps of the theaters of WWII.
Several appeasement sources (from the time period and long after) Hatred by other means documents – Himmler, Goebbels
Photos of Berlin after WWII.
Advertisements and political cartoons in the US during WWII. Magazine articles in the US during WWII.
Cuban Missile Crisis political cartoon
Cold War documents from Guatemala
Churchill Iron Curtain speech
Khrushchev’s report in 1961.
The Wretched of the Earth segment.
Cultural Revolution documents
Credit Card from Arabian Peninsula
Container Ship
Assignments:
Assign Chapter 36 Reading
Assign Unit Seven, Assignment One
Assign Chapter 37 Reading
Assign Unit Seven, Assignment Two
Assign Chapter 38 Reading
Unit Seven, Assignment Three
Assign final writing assignment, May 15, submitted through the Google Classroom.