Lesson 1

1. Lesson 1 • 1. The Senate's refusal meant that the United States could not join the League of Nations, which made the League too weak to enforce its decisions regarding its members' conflicts with each other. • 2. They shared a feeling of uncertainty and a recognition that it was impossible to predict or rely on the future. The root cause was the destruction and hopelessness caused by World War I.

2. Lesson 2 • 3. They were a new form of dictatorship that rejected individual freedom and aimed to control the political, economic, social, intellectual, and cultural lives of their citizens. Each was led by one leader and one party. Mass propaganda techniques, high-speed communication, and modern technology helped totalitarian states impose their will on their subjects. • 4. Students may suggest that the propaganda would be ineffective because Americans are exposed to mass marketing from a very early age. They would see through it unless the propaganda was much more subtle. Also, it is easy to find opposing viewpoints. They would not believe that even a leader they liked was "always" right.

3. Lesson 3 • 5. It was based on racism, especially against Jews, and extreme nationalism. • 6. Students may suggest her talent may have persuaded him to overlook her gender. Also, he may have decided that the arts were acceptable pursuits for women since it would not prevent them from raising families.

4. 21st Century Skills • 7. Students' answers will vary based on the country they chose. Students should pick a country and give examples explaining why their method of dealing with the crisis was the most effective. • 8. He started by declaring that Jews could no longer be citizens or marry citizens. Then he required them to wear Stars of David and carry ID cards. Next he barred them from public buildings and transportation and from owning, managing, or even working in retail stores. Ultimately, he murdered millions. Students may suggest that this escalation shows that mistreating people causes the perpetrator to think of them as less than human, which makes it easier to treat them even worse.

5. Exploring the Essential Question • 9. Each group's answers should include several first-person accounts of the impact of an economic or political change. Visuals should be relevant to the stories. Students' answers to questions should show familiarity with the societies and political changes discussed.

6. Document-Based Questions • 10. Workers, farmers, and honest businesspeople demand a new deal. Speculators, big business, and crooked politicians are happy with the old one. • 11. Students may suggest wealth was distributed unfairly. The workers, farmers, and small businesspeople who actually created the country's wealth were losing their earnings to speculators, big business, and crooked politicians.

7. Extended-Response Question • 12. Students' lists may include prevention of any five actions of the dictators discussed in Lessons 2 and 3. Example: (1) Protect individual freedoms. (2) Don't let mass media be used for propaganda. (3) Never suspend the Constitution. (4) Never scapegoat one group of people as inferior to everyone else. (5) Keep the workings of government transparent to the people.

8. Chapter Summary • In the years after World War I, Europe and the United States experienced the Great Depression. The resulting waves of social, political, and economic unrest contributed to creation of totalitarian governments in many countries. This chapter discussed the causes of instability in the West after World War I; how dictatorial regimes in some European countries gained popular support after the war; and how Hitler and the Nazi Party gained power in Germany.

10. Reviewing the Enduring Understanding • How did Germany's inability to pay reparations lead to new problems? (Answers may include that France sent troops to the Ruhr Valley, Germany's chief industrial and mining center, which resulted in German workers passively resisting by going on strike. Runaway inflation made the German mark practically worthless. The Dawes Plan reduced reparations and granted a $200 million loan for German recovery, which led to a brief period of prosperity and cooperation.) • What effect did the Great Depression have on the social and political climate in Europe? (Answers may include that European prosperity between 1924 and 1929 was built on U.S. bank loans to Germany. When the U.S. stock market collapsed in October 1929, it shook people's confidence in political democracy and paved the way for fear and the rise of extremist policies that offered solutions to the hardships many people were experiencing. People began to follow leaders who offered simple solutions in exchange for dictatorial power. Movements in art and literature, such as Surrealism and a literary technique known as "stream of consciousness," as well as new discoveries in physics reflected the uncertainty of the times.) • How was social revolution averted in the United States during the Great Depression? (Answers may include Franklin D. Roosevelt's policies of social reform, such as the Works Progress Administration and the Social Security Act, may have averted social revolution in the United States.)

11. Reviewing the Enduring Understanding • What effect did economic problems have on politics in Italy and Russia? (Answers may include that Mussolini's rise to power and his subsequent establishment of a Fascist state was partly a result of Italy's economic problems. In the Soviet Union, Stalin's Five-Year Plan to quickly industrialize the country and expand the labor force resulted in sweeping social and political changes that included collectivization that eliminated private ownership of farms. Collectivization led to peasants hoarding food and slaughtering livestock, which resulted in widespread famine. Those who opposed Stalin's policies were executed or sent to Siberia.) • How did problems in Germany after the war lead to Hitler's rise to power? (Answers may include that the right-wing German elites—industrial leaders, landed aristocrats, military officers, and higher-level bureaucrats—looked to Hitler for leadership and pressured President Hindenburg to allow Hitler to become chancellor and create a new government. The Reichstag—the German Parliament—passed the Enabling Act, giving the government the power to ignore the Constitution for four years while it issued laws to deal with the country's problems. Hitler then had free reign to carry out his plan of creating a Nazi empire by using terror and murder to eliminate the Jews. Hitler was able to convince many Germans to accept the Nazis because he created public works projects and a massive rearmament program to solve Germany's unemployment problem. Hitler used mass rallies and his propaganda reached the German people through the new technology of radio and motion pictures.)