AP World Chapter 34 Vocab Flashcards (incomplete)

Gertrude Stein (1874-1946)

• “You are all a lost generation” said to her fellow American write Ernest Hemingway

• given a label to the group of American intellectuals and literati who congregated in Paris in the post-war years

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)

wrote A Farewell to Arms

“Lost generation”

(in poetry and fiction) expressed the malaise and disillusion that characterized U.S. and European thought after the Great War

A Farewell to Arms (1929)

• written by Ernest Hemingway

• war novel with images of meaningless death and suffering

All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)

• written by Erich Maria Remarque

• war novel with images of meaningless death and suffering

Erich Maria Remarque

wrote All Quiet on the Western Front

Oswald Spengler (1880-1936) / The Decline of the West (1918-1922)

• retired German schoolteacher

• made headlines when he published The Decline of the West

  • seen as a obituary of civilization

• proposed that all societies pass through a life cycle of growth and decay comparable to the biological cycle of living organisms

• concluded that European society had entered the final stage of its existence (only war and imperialism remaining)

• brought comfort to those who sought to rationalize their postwar despair

• all nations of the world were equally doomed

Arnold J. Toynbee (1889-1975)

• English historian

• wrote A Study of History

  • analyzed genesis, growth, and disintegration of 26 societies

A Study of History (1934-1961)

• Arnold J. Toynbee’s twelve-volume classic

• sought to discover how societies develop through time

• analyzed genesis, growth, and disintegration of 26 societies

Karl Barth (1886-1968)

• one of the most notable Christian theologians

• published Epistle to the Romans

Epistle to the Romans (1919)

• written by Karl Barth

• a religious bombshell

• attacked the liberal Christian theology that embraced the idea of progress: the tendency of European thinkers to believe in limitless improvement as the realization of God’s purpose

Augustinian, Lutheran, and Calvinist message of original sin

• the depravity of human nature

• fell on receptive ears as many Christians refused to accept the idea that contemporary human society was in any way a realization of God’s purpose

Niokolai Berdiaev (1874-1948)

“Man’s historical experience has been one of steady failure, and there are no grounds for supposing it will ever be anything else”

Democracy

• fallen idol of 19th century progress

• the idea that people should have a voice in selecting the leaders of their government

• widespread support in European societies

Great War’s effect on belief of human progress

• Great War destroyed long-cherished beliefs in the universality of human progress

• science and technology came under attack

“rule of inferiors”

What a German school of conservatives viewed democracy as

“Revolt of the Masses” (1930) / José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955)

• Spanish philosopher

• antidemocratic

• warned readers about the masses who were destined to destroy the highest achievements of Western society

Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

• theory of special relativity

• symbol of revolution in physics

Theory of special relativity (1905)

• shows that there is no single spatial and chronological framework in the universe

• didn’t make sense to speak of space and time as absolutes, because the measurement of those two categories always varies with the motion of the observer

  • (space and time are relative to the person measuring them)

“About the Quantum-Theoretical Reinterpretation of Kinetic and Mechanical Relationships” (1927) / Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976)

established the uncertainty principle

Uncertainty principle

• According to Heisenberg, it is impossible to specify simultaneously the position and the velocity of a sub-atomic particle

• the more accurately one determines the position of an electron, the less precisely one can determine its velocity, and vice versa

• scientists cannot observe the behavior of electrons objectively, because the act of observation interferes them

• also carried broader philosophical ramifications

The indeterminacy of the atomic universe

demanded that the exact calculations of classical physics be replaced by probability calculations

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

• Viennese doctor who focused on psychological explanations of mental disorders

• identified conflict between conscious and subconscious mental processes that lay at the root of neurotic behavior

  • suggested existence of repressive mechanism that keeps painful memories or threatening events away from the conscious mind

• believed that dreams held the key to the deepest recesses of the human psyche

• sexual drives and fantasies as the most important source of repression

• discovered “Oedipus complex”

Oedipus complex

said that male children develop an erotic attachment to their mother and hostility toward their father

Psychoanalysis

• key to understanding all human behavior

  • suggested that human behavior was fundamentally irrational

Freudian doctrines

• shaped the psychiatric profession and established a powerful presence in literature and the arts

  • 1920s: artists focused on hidden depths of memory and emotion of their characters

  • Freud’s emphasis on sexuality to understand human behavior

Dada/Dadaism

• deliberately nonsensical word

• disillusioned artists of this movement (in Zurich, Paris, New York) used available public forums to spit metaphorically on nationalism, materialism, and rationalism, which they felt had contributed to a senseless war

• rejected prevailing standards of art and declared an all-out assault on the unquestioning conformity of culture and thought

• non-artists who created non-art

Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity)

• German art movement of the 1920s

• realistic style of painting that reflected a very cynical and highly critical attitude toward war

• aggressively attacked and satirized the evils of postwar society, especially as symbolized by those in political power

• illustrated devastating effects of the Great War

Wilhelm Heinrich Otto Dix (1891-1969)

• German painter and printmaker

• notorious for his merciless and bitterly realistic depictions of society in the aftermath of war

• had volunteered for the Germany Army in 1914 in the Battle of Somme and became profoundly affected and disillusioned by the sights of war

• one of the most important artists of the Neue Sachlichkeit

George Grosz (1893-1959)

one of the most important artists of Neue Sachlichkeit

“to abolish the sovereignty of appearance” artist program

• paintings no longer depicted recognizable objects from the everyday world

• beauty was expressed in pure color or shape

• some expressed feelings and emotions through violent distortion of forms and the use of explosive colors

• others tried to tap the subconscious mind to communicate inner vision or dream

Great Depression (began 1929)

• global economic depression

• long-lasting and severe

Post-war economic problems

Rubber

Weaknesses of global economy in 1920s

Black Thursday

Contraction of U.S. economy

Germany and Japan

Economic difficulties (1930s)

U.S. investors

Wall Street banks

German economy

economic nationalism

Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (1930)

British royal commission on unemployment insurance

Charles Richet (1850-1935)

Personal suffering

John Steinbeck (1902-1968)

The Grapes of Wrath（1939)

Dust bowl

Planned scarcity