Lesson Plans

The Western Heritage ©2000

by Kagan, Ozment, and Turner

Focus Lesson 18

Chapter 26: "Imperialism, Alliances, and War"

AP* Course Description

1. Intellectual and Cultural History
   • Scientific and technological developments and their consequences
   • Major trends in literature and the arts
   • Intellectual and cultural developments and their relationship to social values and political events
   • Developments in social, economic, and political thought
   • Developments in literacy, education, and communication
   • Impact of global expansion on European culture
2. Political and Diplomatic History
   • The rise and functioning of the modern state in its various forms
   • Relations between Europe and other parts of the world: colonialism, imperialism, decolonization, and global interdependence
   • The evolution of political elites and the development of political parties and ideologies
   • The extension and limitation of rights and liberties (personal, civic, economic, and political); majority and minority political persecutions
   • The growth and changing forms of nationalism
   • Forms of political protest, reform, and revolution
   • Relationship between domestic and foreign policies
   • War and civil conflict: origins, developments, technology, and their consequences
3. Social and Economic History
   • The shift in social structures from hierarchical orders to modern social classes: the changing distribution of wealth and poverty
   • The development of commercial practices and their economic and social impact
   • The origins, development, and consequences of industrialization
   • The growth of competition and interdependence in national and world markets
   • Private and state roles in economic activity
   • Development of racial and ethnic group identities

Key Components

• Instructor's Manual: pp. 48–49
• Study Guide and Workbook, Vol. II: pp. 132–143
• Test Item File: pp. 141–146

Key Web Sites

• The New Imperialism
• Imperialism
• The First World War, 1914–1918
• Encyclopedia of the First World War
• History Today: Two Cheers for Versailles
• The Versailles Treaty

Key Words and Terms

Suggested Pacing

Test Strategy

Key Concepts

• World War I
  It is important to see World War I as the culmination of nineteenth century European geopolitics—from the Congress of Vienna that set the prevailing attitude toward minorities to the growth of Romantic nationalism, from British industrial growth early in the century to German attempts to even the race late in the century, from the Concert of Europe to Bismarck's system of alliances, from Napoleonic French hegemony under Napoleon to Prussian hegemony under Bismarck, from the growth of empires to imperialist struggles in Africa and Asia. These forces built to such a level of tension in Europe that the murder of an archduke in the Balkans could spark war.
  
  
• The Russian Revolution
  The Russian Revolution should be analyzed as a response to hundreds of years of Romanov autocracy. It is essential that students see the progression of the revolution itself. With Nicholas II's abdication, the Constitutional Democrats came to power and various socialist groups began to organize workers into soviets. The Social Democrats and Social Revolutionaries offered different ideas for change with eventually the Bolsheviks—a wing of the Social Democratic Party—coming to power under Lenin. Refer to the stages of revolution, from Crane Brinton's book The Anatomy of Revolution in analyzing the Russian Revolution. (See Lesson Plan 11, Chapter 19 of the Focus Lessons.)

Summing Up Student Understanding

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

• Aspects of Western Civilization, Vol. II, edited by Rogers—Chapters 5, 6, and 7
• Sources of the West, Vol. II, edited by Kishlausky—Part V, "Thoughts on Empire" and Part VI, "War and Revolution"
• The Global Experience, Vol. II, edited by Schwartz, Wimmer, and Wolfe—Chapter 24, Readings 156, 157, 159, 162
• Documents in World History, Vol. II, edited by Stearns, Gosch, and Grieshaber—Section Three, Reading 27