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Credit Sprint / Study guides / World History Unit 7

Credit Sprint's Guide to AP® World History, Unit 7: Global Conflict, c. 1900 to the present

AP® weight 8–10%

The twentieth century saw two world wars, revolutions and the rise of totalitarian states. New technology made war deadlier, empires collapsed, and the Great Depression and genocide shaped the world order.

Global conflict1914WWI1917Russia1929Crash1939WWII1945AtomTwo wars and a depression

What you need to know

  • World War I (1914–1918) began with alliances, militarism, imperial rivalry and nationalism, sparked by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Trench warfare, machine guns and poison gas killed millions, and the Treaty of Versailles blamed Germany.
  • The Russian Revolution of 1917 brought the Bolsheviks to power. Lenin established a communist state, and Stalin later built a command economy and a brutal dictatorship. Revolutions also occurred in Mexico (1910) and China (1911).
  • The Great Depression of the 1930s spread globally and strengthened extremist movements. Fascism arose in Italy under Mussolini and Nazism in Germany under Hitler, while Japan pursued imperial expansion.
  • World War II (1939–1945) was a total war that involved civilians, such as through the bombing of cities. The Holocaust murdered six million Jews and millions of others, and the war ended after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
  • The mandate system gave Britain and France control of former Ottoman territories. Nationalist movements grew in the colonies, including the Indian National Congress, while the war weakened European empires.
  • Genocides and mass violence included the Armenian genocide (1915) and the Holocaust. The United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights emerged after 1945.

Exam traps

Watch forThe Treaty of Versailles was one cause of later tensions. Do not treat it as the only cause of World War II.
Watch forTotal war means the mobilization of whole societies, including civilians and industry. It is not only about the size of armies.
Watch forFascism and communism were rival ideologies, though both led to authoritarian states.

Key terms

  • Triple Entente: The alliance of Britain, France and Russia before World War I.
  • Central Powers: The alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire in World War I.
  • Militarism: The buildup of armed forces and the belief that military strength should guide policy.
  • Total war: A conflict in which a society mobilizes all of its resources, including civilians and industry.
  • Trench warfare: A form of fighting on the Western Front in which armies dug long defensive lines.
  • Treaty of Versailles: The 1919 treaty that ended World War I and forced Germany to accept blame and pay reparations.
  • League of Nations: An international organization created after World War I that proved too weak to keep the peace.
  • Mandate system: The arrangement under which Britain and France governed former German and Ottoman lands after World War I.
  • Russian Revolution: The 1917 uprising in which the Bolsheviks under Lenin seized power and created a communist state.
  • Five-Year Plan: Stalin's program of rapid industrialization and collectivization of agriculture.
  • Collectivization: The Soviet policy of merging private farms into state-run collective farms.
  • Great Depression: The worldwide economic collapse of the 1930s that began with the U.S. stock market crash of 1929.
  • Fascism: A far-right ideology that stresses national unity, a strong leader and the suppression of dissent.
  • Nazism: The ideology of Hitler's regime that combined extreme nationalism, racism and antisemitism.
  • Appeasement: The policy of giving in to demands to avoid war, as at Munich in 1938.
  • Holocaust: The Nazi genocide that murdered six million Jews and millions of others.

Practice questions

Five of the 38 Unit 7 questions in Credit Sprint. Every choice is explained in the app.

1. Which was the immediate trigger of World War I in 1914?
  1. The Russian Revolution in St. Petersburg
  2. Germany's invasion of Poland
  3. The sinking of the Lusitania by a German submarine
  4. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo
Show answer

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. The killing set off an Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia, and alliance commitments pulled Russia, Germany, France and Britain into the war.

2. The Treaty of Versailles (1919) imposed which condition on Germany?
  1. Accepting blame for the war
  2. Germany was united with Austria
  3. Germany received colonies from Britain
  4. Germany was allowed to rebuild a large army
Show answer

Accepting blame for the war. The 'war guilt clause' and heavy payments angered Germans and contributed to economic hardship and resentment exploited by extremists.

3. The Chinese Revolution of 1911 resulted in
  1. Japanese control of the whole country
  2. the restoration of Ming rule
  3. the overthrow of the Qing dynasty
  4. a communist state
Show answer

the overthrow of the Qing dynasty. Sun Yat-sen's ideas inspired revolutionaries, but weak central authority led to warlordism and decades of instability.

4. The Holocaust refers to
  1. the bombing of London by the German air force
  2. the systematic murder of six million Jews
  3. a British policy in India
  4. the deportation of Germans from eastern Europe
Show answer

the systematic murder of six million Jews. Using ghettos, camps and killing centers like Auschwitz, the regime pursued genocide against Jews, and also targeted Roma, disabled people, political prisoners and others.

5. The Yalta and Potsdam Conferences (1945) mattered because they
  1. shaped postwar Europe and began tensions between the Allies
  2. decided to give Germany back its colonies
  3. created the League of Nations
  4. ended the war in the Pacific with Japan's surrender
Show answer

shaped postwar Europe and began tensions between the Allies. Leaders agreed to divide Germany into zones and discussed free elections in eastern Europe, but disagreements foreshadowed the Cold War.