World history topics/P2 · Causation, change and comparative essays

IB Diploma Programme History SL (the guide first assessed in 2017). This topic prepares Paper 2, the essay paper, which SL and HL students both sit. Schools choose two of the twelve world history topics 世界历史专题, and study each through examples from more than one region. In Paper 2 you write two essays in 1 hour 30 minutes, each on a different topic and each marked out of 15. The questions ask about causes, effects, change and comparison. This handout teaches the essay method and then gives the key facts for the three most taught topics: authoritarian states, the causes and effects of 20th-century wars, and the Cold War.

In May 1928, the Nazi Party won 12 of 491 seats in the German parliament. Four and a half years later, its leader was head of the government. How could a small, extreme party take power in a modern democracy so quickly? Questions like this, about causes and change, are what Paper 2 asks. A good answer is an argument with evidence, not a story.

Must-know for Paper 2:

An essay is an argument 论证: it answers the question and proves the answer. Use this plan:

1. Introduction: answer the question directly in one or two sentences. This is your thesis 论点.
2. Three body paragraphs: each makes one point that supports the thesis. Start with the point, then give precise evidence 证据 (dates, names, numbers), then explain how the evidence proves the point.
3. Counter-argument 反方论证: give the strongest other view, then answer it.
4. Conclusion: a judgement 判断 that weighs the factors ("the most important cause was ... because ..."), not a summary.

The shape of a Paper 2 essay: answer first, three argued legs, a counter-case, a judgement

Precise evidence earns the marks: "the Enabling Act of 23 March 1933 allowed Hitler to make laws without parliament" is much stronger than "Hitler took more power".

For "compare and contrast", never write about one state and then the other. Each paragraph compares both on one point, using words such as whereas, similarly and in both cases.

You have 45 minutes per essay. Spend about 5 minutes on a plan. The most common way to lose marks is narrative 叙述: telling what happened instead of answering the question.

An authoritarian state 威权国家 is ruled by one leader or party that does not allow free elections or opposition. Questions ask about three stages: its emergence 兴起 (how it came to power), its consolidation 巩固 (how it kept power) and its policies 政策 (what it did with power). You must know at least two states from different regions. Germany and Cuba are a common pair.

Germany under Hitler

As unemployment rose, so did the Nazi vote

The graph shows a strong link between the Great Depression 大萧条 and Nazi votes. But the vote fell in November 1932, and Hitler became chancellor by a deal among conservative politicians who thought they could control him, not by an election victory. A good essay weighs economic crisis, Nazi propaganda 宣传, the use of violence, and the mistakes of other politicians.

To keep power, the Nazis used both terror 恐怖 (the Gestapo secret police, concentration camps) and the search for consent (propaganda by Joseph Goebbels, the Hitler Youth, jobs through rearmament and road building). Jewish people were removed from public life by the Nuremberg Laws (1935) and attacked in the violence of Kristallnacht (November 1938), the road to the Holocaust.

Cuba under Castro

Castro's support came from social policies: the 1961 literacy campaign sent about 250,000 teachers and volunteers into the countryside, and official figures show illiteracy falling from about 24% to about 4%. Free health care and schooling followed. At the same time, opposition newspapers were closed, opponents were jailed or left the country, and the CDRs watched each street.

Worked comparison. "Compare and contrast the use of propaganda and force in two authoritarian states."

Whereas Hitler's regime won support mainly through propaganda and economic recovery, Castro's relied more on real social reforms such as the literacy campaign. In both states, however, force set the limits: the Gestapo in Germany and the CDRs in Cuba made opposition dangerous. Propaganda built consent, but terror was the final guarantee.

Historians separate three kinds of cause:

War came quickly: Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on 28 July, Germany on Russia on 1 August and on France on 3 August, and Britain on Germany on 4 August, after German troops entered Belgium.

Effects are political, economic and social. About 10 million soldiers died. Four empires collapsed (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia and the Ottoman Empire). In Britain, most women over 30 got the vote in 1918, partly because of their war work. The peace treaties, especially Versailles, created anger that later helped the Nazis, so the effects of one war became causes of the next.

The Cold War 冷战 was a long rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union, and their allies. They never fought each other directly, but they competed through alliances, an arms race 军备竞赛 and proxy wars 代理人战争 in other countries.

The Cold War, 1945–1991: crises above, alliances and agreements below

• Origins 起源: different ideas (capitalism and communism), Soviet control of Eastern Europe after 1945, and US policies such as the Truman Doctrine (1947) and the Marshall Plan, which gave about US$13 billion to rebuild Western Europe.
• Crises: the Berlin Blockade (1948–49), the Korean War (1950–53), the Berlin Wall (1961) and the Cuban Missile Crisis (October 1962), when the world came close to nuclear war for 13 days.
• Détente 缓和: in the 1970s both sides reduced tension and signed arms agreements such as SALT I (1972).
• The end: the Soviet economy weakened; Mikhail Gorbachev (in power from 1985) introduced reforms; the Berlin Wall fell on 9 November 1989; the Soviet Union ended on 26 December 1991.

Historians disagree about who was responsible. The orthodox view 正统学派 blames Soviet expansion; the revisionist view 修正学派 blames US economic interests; the post-revisionist view 后修正学派 sees fear and misunderstanding on both sides. Using these views shows the examiner you understand that history is argued.

• The essay plan: thesis, three argued paragraphs with precise evidence, counter-argument, judgement; the command terms; 45 minutes per essay.
• Authoritarian states: emergence, consolidation and policies; Germany (1919–1934 timeline, vote and unemployment data, terror and consent) and Cuba (1952–1965, literacy campaign, CDRs); a worked comparison.
• 20th-century wars: long-term, short-term and trigger causes of the First World War; its political, economic and social effects.
• The Cold War: origins, crises, détente and the end; the orthodox, revisionist and post-revisionist views.