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AP European History AMSCO Guided Notes

9.15: Continuity and Change in the 20th and 21st Centuries

AP European History
AMSCO Guided Notes
9.1 Contextualizing Cold War and Contemporary Europe
9.2 Rebuilding Europe
9.3 The Cold War
9.4 Two Super Powers Emerge
9.5 Postwar Nationalism, Ethnic Conflict, and Atrocities
9.6 Contemporary Western Democracies
9.7 The Fall of Communism
9.8 20th-Century Feminism
9.9 Decolonization
9.10 The European Union
9.11 Migration and Immigration
9.12 Technology
9.13 Globalization
9.14 20th- and 21st-Century Culture, Arts, and Demographic Trends
9.15 Continuity and Change in the 20th and 21st Centuries

AP European History Guided Notes

AMSCO 9.15 - Continuity and Change in the 20th and 21st Centuries

Essential Questions

  1. How did the challenges of the 20th century influence what it means to be European?
I. Conflicts and Political Instability

1. What were the main ideological differences that divided Europe during the Cold War?

2. How did the Cold War represent both continuity and change in European conflict patterns?

A. Cold War Division and European Reunification

1. How did the Cold War force European nations to choose between the democratic West and communist East?

2. What organizations and efforts have European countries used to reunify since the 1950s?

3. How does the level of European cooperation through the European Union represent a change from earlier attempts at continental unity?

B. Ethnic and Regional Conflicts

1. What long-standing issues related to ethnicity and political domination led to conflicts in Spain, Ireland, Yugoslavia, and Belgium?

2. How did Yugoslavia's disintegration illustrate the role of ethnic and religious divisions in European conflicts?

II. Ideological Challenges

1. How did European nations respond differently to economic crises and ethnic tensions in the second half of the 20th century?

A. Western European Welfare States

1. How did Western European democracies use the welfare state to rebuild after World War II?

2. What role did U.S. capital play in the development of Western European welfare systems?

B. Soviet Decline and Eastern European Reform

1. Why did satellite nations like Czechoslovakia and Poland push for democratic governments and capitalist economies?

2. How did the Soviet Union's inability to meet the changing needs of Eastern European nations foreshadow its collapse?

III. Diverse Intellectual and Cultural Movements

1. What major 20th-century events challenged traditional European views about science, reason, and religion?

A. Crisis of Traditional Thought

1. How did modern warfare and nuclear weapons challenge the traditional European belief in science and progress?

2. Why did the tragedies of the 20th century lead many Europeans to question both reason and religious faith?

B. Existentialism, Postmodernism, and Secularization

1. What are existentialism and postmodernism, and how did they develop as responses to 20th-century crises?

2. How did declining religious belief and participation reflect broader changes in European intellectual life?

C. Social Liberalization and Artistic Innovation

1. How did changes in European thought lead to the liberalization of society for marginalized groups?

2. How did 20th-century artists like Joyce, Woolf, Stravinsky, Picasso, and Dalí challenge traditional ideas about art?

3. What inspired the new and evolving artistic endeavors that flourished during the 20th century?