Deck 18: After the Fall: the Western World in a Global Age Since 1985

Question 1

Discuss the impact of terrorism on the West, the "Western mindset", and the relationship between western countries and the rest of the world (specifically, the Middle East).

Answer 1

Answers will vary.

Question 2

Was Mikhail Gorbachev responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union? If not, who or what was? Explain.

Answer 2

Answers will vary.

Question 3

define the following term:
Boris Yeltsin

Answer 3

Answers will vary.

Question 4

How have women's lives changed by the late twentieth and early twenty-first century? What gains have they made? What obstacles still exist? In what countries have women seen the greatest gains, and which countries have been slower to change?

Question 5

define the following term:
Nicolae Ceausescu

Question 6

How and why did the Cold War end? Did anyone "win" this conflict? Who? Why?

Question 7

What has been gained and what has been lost as a result of the digital revolution? Discuss, citing specific examples.

Question 8

Is capitalism the dominant force on the planet today? Why or why not?

Question 9

define the following term:
Mikhail Gorbachev

Question 10

Compare and contrast the experiences of Russia and its Eastern European neighbors since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Question 11

What major economic challenges have plagued the West from the 1980s through the early twenty-first century?

Question 12

With the world increasingly inter-connected via transportation and communication networks, does the name "Western Civilization" still make sense?

Question 13

"The Iraq war was the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time." Discuss with specifics to support or refute the quotation.

Question 14

"Globalization is going to be the salvation of civilization." Do you agree or disagree? Explain, citing evidence to make your case.

Question 15

define the following term:
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Question 16

define the following term:
Vladimir Putin

Question 17

define the following term:
perestroika

Question 18

What are the basic problems and antagonisms between Serbia and the other countries that once made up Yugoslavia ( Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Slovenia)? What forces in the post-Cold War world enabled this dangerous and bloody conflict to escalate so terribly?

Question 19

define the following term:
global economy

Question 20

Is the world facing a "clash of civilizations" in the near future? Why and/or why not?

Question 21

define the following term:
the European Union/EU

Question 22

define the following term:
Helmut Kohl and Angela Merkel

Question 23

define the following term:
Bosnia

Question 24

define the following term:
George W. Bush

Question 25

define the following term:
fall of the Berlin Wall

Question 26

define the following term:
ethnic cleansing

Question 27

define the following term:
glastnost

Question 28

define the following term:
the euro

Question 29

define the following term:
multinational corporation (transnational corporation)

Question 30

define the following term:
Yugoslavia

Question 31

define the following term:
developed nations

Question 32

define the following term:
Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy

Question 33

define the following term:
Bill Clinton

Question 34

define the following term:
the European Community/EC

Question 35

define the following term:
Maastricht Treaty

Question 36

define the following term:
Tony Blair and Gordon Brown

Question 37

define the following term:
Kosovo

Question 38

define the following term:
Václav Havel

Question 39

define the following term:
Czech Republic and Slovakia

Question 40

define the following term:
Office of Homeland Security

Question 41

define the following term:
NGOs

Question 42

define the following term:
Baader-Meinhof gang/Red Army Faction and the Red Brigades

Question 43

define the following term:
Ronald Reagan and the Cold War

Question 44

define the following term:
developing nations

Question 45

define the following term:
Osama bin Laden

Question 46

define the following term:
George H. W. Bush and the "New World Order"

Question 47

define the following term:
Iraq war

Question 48

define the following term:
Anselm Kiefer's Departure from Egypt

Question 49

define the following term:
Shi'ites, Sunnis, and Kurds

Question 50

define the following term:
September 11, 2001, and the World Trade Center

Question 51

define the following term:
al-Qaeda

Question 52

define the following term:
Jorg Haider's Freedom Party

Question 53

define the following term:
"Think globally, act locally"

Question 54

define the following term:
Digital Age

Question 55

define the following term:
Brian Mulroney, Jean Chrétien, and Stephen Harper

Question 56

define the following term:
guest workers

Question 57

define the following term:
the Taliban and war in Afghanistan

Question 58

define the following term:
Pope John Paul II

Question 59

define the following term:
the Persian Gulf War

Question 60

define the following term:
Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction

Question 61

Who was the politician who kept the fractious state of Yugoslavia together for decades after World War II?

A)Marshall Tito
B)General Filopovic
C)President Milosevic
D)Prime Minister Kostunica
E)Marshall Petain

Question 62

Who succeeded Vladimir Putin as president of Russia?

A)Lech Walesa
B)Mikhail Gorbachev
C)Dmitry Medvedev
D)Yuri Andropov
E)Andrei Sakharov

Question 63

Which area witnessed the first independence movement among the Soviet republics during Gorbachev's rule?

A)Afghanistan
B)Azerbaijan
C)Lithuania
D)Georgia
E)Chechnya

Question 64

define the following term:
globalization

Question 65

Which party won nearly 50 percent of the vote in East Germany's 1990 election?

A)Nazis
B)Communists
C)Christian Democrats
D)Green Party
E)Libertarians

Question 66

Who was the Russian president after Boris Yeltsin?

A)Mikhail Gorbachev
B)Vladimir Putin
C)Nikita Khrushchev
D)Dmitry Medvedev
E)Gary Kasparov

Question 67

define the following term:
World Bank and the International Monetary Fund

Question 68

Which country held the first free parliamentary elections to occur in Eastern Europe for forty years in 1988?

A)Hungary
B)Austria
C)Poland
D)Estonia
E)Lithuania

Question 69

On September 11, 2001, terrorists hijacked ____ airplanes as part of a planned assault on the United States.

A)two
B)three
C)four
D)five
E)six

Question 70

define the following term:
global warming/greenhouse effect

Question 71

Which leader of Czechoslovakia in 1990 replaced the Communist government and was a former dissident writer and philosopher?

A)Erich Kádár
B)Gustáv Husák
C)Aleksander Dubcek
D)Václav Hável
E)Marshall Tito

Question 72

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia was plagued by all of these problems EXCEPT

A)a renewed Communist Party majority which took over the government.
B)organized crime.
C)an uprising in largely Muslim Chechnya.
D)economic hardships.
E)a president who was often ill.

Question 73

define the following term:
open-forum social media

Question 74

After becoming Russia's president in 1999, Vladimir Putin made it his mission to

A)decentralize power within the Russian government.
B)strengthen the role of the central government.
C)establish an independent Chechnyan government.
D)promote a more open exchange with the media.
E)raise taxes on the wealthiest members of society and stimulate the economy.

Question 75

define the following term:
Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter films

Question 76

Which Eastern European republic came into existence in 1993 with the breakup of a previously existing state and which was fueled by ethnic rivalries?

A)Lithuania
B)Estonia
C)Albania
D)Lichtenstein
E)Slovakia

Question 77

What did Mikhail Gorbachev intend to do under perestroika ?

A)Frighten the United States with more military spending
B)Create a more free and open political culture in the U.S.S.R.
C)Turn all power over to the people
D)Restructure the economic and political systems
E)End communism and adopt western-style democracy

Question 78

What best describes the ruling policies of Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union?

A)They forced the exportation of Russian Communism to Central and South America.
B)They evoked a "New Thinking" about internal and global politics, as well as an emphasis on openness and reform.
C)They increased political repression in Russia and in Eastern Europe.
D)They grew out of Russian misperceptions of United States strengths and failed to appreciate that American military spending and tax reductions under Ronald Reagan had greatly increased American budget deficits.
E)They led to a reform of Soviet Communism and the permanent strengthening of the Soviet regime.

Question 79

Which dictator, known for his violent suppression of the people, was tried and executed with his wife in late December 1989?

A)Gustáv Husák
B)Václav Hável
C)Aleksander Kwasniewski
D)Nicolae Ceausescu
E)Erich Honecker

Question 80

define the following term:
multiculturalism