Lesson Plans

The Western Heritage ©2000

by Kagan, Ozment, and Turner

Focus Lesson 19

Chapter 27: "Political Experiments of the 1920s"

AP* Course Description

1. Intellectual and Cultural History
   • Secularization of learning and culture
   • 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
   • Changes in elite and popular culture, such as the development of new attitudes toward religion, the family, work, and ritual
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
   • Efforts to restrain conflict: treaties, balance of power diplomacy, and international organizations
   • War and civil conflict: origins, developments, technology, and their consequences
3. Social and Economic History
   • The role of urbanization in transforming cultural values and social relationships
   • The shift in social structures from hierarchical orders to modern social classes: the changing distribution of wealth and poverty
   • The influence of sanitation and health care practices on society; food supply, diet, famine, disease, and their impact
   • The development of commercial practices and their economic and social impact
   • The origins, development, and consequences of industrialization
   • Changes in the demographic structure of Europe, their causes and consequences
   • Private and state roles in economic activity
   • Development of racial and ethnic group identities

Key Components

• Instructor's Manual: pp. 50–51
• Study Guide and Workbook, Vol. II: pp. 144–154
• Test Item File: pp. 146–152

Key Web Sites

• The Weimar Republic I
• The Weimar Republic II
• From Accommodation to Neo-Isolationism
• D.4. Chronology, 1920–1929
• Europe in Retrospect
• 1921–22: The Irish Free State and Civil War
• The Avalon Project
• The Russian Civil War

Key Words and Terms

Suggested Pacing

Test Strategy

Key Concepts

• Totalitarianism
  The growth of totalitarianism in Germany after World War I was in part a response to the severe terms of the Treaty of Versailles. Italy felt the penalties of the war, but Russia's turn to totalitarian government should not be surprising when one considers that Russia had known only autocratic rule. Students should be able to compare and contrast the tenets of communism, fascism, and socialism as practiced under Hitler.
  
  
• Changes in Great Britain and France
  Great Britain and France were also caught in the aftermath of World War I. Although they were the victors, they, too, had to deal with the repercussions of their alliances, reparations, economic difficulties, and struggling empires. British voters tried a succession of Labour and Conservative governments in an effort to activate the stagnant economy. France sought to keep the defeated Germany a weak image of its former self. It pushed an economically devastated Germany to pay reparations and made new alliances to heighten its own power. In response, Germany and the Soviet Union forged their own alliance.

Summing Up Student Understanding

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

• Aspects of Western Civilization, Vol. II, edited by Rogers—Chapters 7 and 8
• Documents in World History, Vol. II, edited by Stearns, Gosch, and Grieshaber—Section Three, Reading 28