• Power and abuse of power: Stalin's purges, Nazi atrocities, Japanese atrocities in China, Holocaust, atomic bombs all are case studies
• Human rights violations: The Holocaust is the canonical case. Armenian Genocide, Ukrainian Famine, Rape of Nanjing, and other mass atrocities all qualify.
• Conflict: The most extreme case in the course; two world wars with continuous related conflict
• Impact of technology: Industrial war, aerial bombing, atomic bombs, mass propaganda; technology multiplied both productive and destructive capacity
• Inequality: Reparations, economic chaos, racial hierarchies, totalitarian violence against "unfit" populations
• Nationalism: Hyper-nationalism of fascist and Nazi regimes, anticolonial nationalism that the war strengthened
• Cultural diffusion: Spread of ideologies, military technologies, eventual U.S. cultural influence in occupied Europe and Japan

IX. Key Terms and People to Memorize

WWI

• MAIN: Militarism, Alliances, Imperialism, Nationalism (long-term causes of WWI)
• Triple Entente: France, Britain, Russia (Allies)
• Triple Alliance / Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy (Italy switched sides). Ottoman Empire joined.
• Schlieffen Plan: German plan for rapid defeat of France through Belgium
• Trench warfare: Static, attritional warfare on the Western Front
• Verdun and Somme: Major 1916 battles with massive casualties and no decisive result
• Gavrilo Princip / Franz Ferdinand: Bosnian Serb assassin and Austrian archduke, June 28, 1914
• Woodrow Wilson: U.S. president, Fourteen Points
• Zimmermann Telegram: German offer of alliance with Mexico, helped trigger U.S. entry
• Armistice: November 11, 1918, end of fighting in WWI
• Armenian Genocide: Ottoman killing of 1.5 million Armenians during WWI

Russian Revolution

• Tsar Nicholas II: Last Russian tsar, abdicated 1917
• Bloody Sunday (1905): Troops fired on peaceful protesters, beginning Revolution of 1905
• February Revolution (March 1917): Bread riots, soldier mutinies, Tsar abdicated
• Provisional Government: Liberal government led by Kerensky after February
• Vladimir Lenin: Bolshevik leader; Peace, Land, Bread
• October Revolution (November 1917): Bolshevik seizure of power
• Bolsheviks: Lenin's faction; renamed Communist Party
• Soviets: Councils of workers and soldiers, basis of new state
• Leon Trotsky: Bolshevik leader, founder of Red Army, defeated by Stalin
• Russian Civil War (1918-1922): Reds vs. Whites; Bolsheviks won
• Treaty of Brest-Litovsk: Russia exited WWI by ceding territory to Germany
• USSR / Soviet Union: Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, established 1922
• War Communism: Wartime emergency policy of grain requisitioning
• New Economic Policy (NEP): Lenin's tactical retreat allowing limited private trade

Versailles and Interwar

• Treaty of Versailles (1919): Peace treaty with Germany; war guilt, reparations, territorial loss

• Big Four: Wilson, Lloyd George, Clemenceau, Orlando

• Fourteen Points: Wilson's principles for peace, including self-determination

• Self-determination: Principle that nations should choose their own government

• League of Nations: International organization to prevent war; weak, failed

• War guilt clause (Article 231): Forced Germany to accept sole responsibility for the war

• Reparations: German payments to victors

• Polish Corridor: Strip of land granted to Poland, separating Germany from East Prussia

• Mandate system: Former German and Ottoman territories under League supervision but practically colonial

• Weimar Republic: German democratic government 1919-1933

• Hyperinflation (1923): Destroyed German middle-class savings

• Great Depression: Global economic catastrophe from 1929