This book addresses the key areas listed in the IB History Guide for Route 2: Twentieth-century world history Topic 3: Origins and development of authoritarian and single-party states. It has chapters on:
• Stalin's USSR
• Hitler's Nazi Germany
• Mao's China
• Nasser's Egypt
• Castro's Cuba
• Peron's Argentina
• Nyerere's Tanzania.
These chapters start with an introduction outlining the key questions they address. They are then divided into a series of sections and topics covering the course content. Throughout the chapters you will find the following features to aid your study of the course content.
Key and leading questions
Each section heading in the chapter has a related key question which gives a focus to your reading and understanding of the section. These are also listed in the chapter introduction. You should be able to answer the questions after completing the relevant section.
Topics within the sections have leading questions which are designed to help you focus on the key points within a topic and give you more practice in answering questions.
Key terms
Key terms are the important terms you need to know to gain an understanding of the period. These are emboldened in the text and are defined in the margin the first time they appear in a chapter. They also appear in the glossary at the end of the book.
Sources
Throughout the book are several written and visual sources. Historical sources are important in understanding more fully why specific decisions were taken or on what contemporary writers and politicians based their actions. The sources are accompanied by questions to help you understand them better and which are similar to questions found on Paper 1 examinations.
Key debates
Historians often disagree on historical events and this historical debate is referred to as historiography. Knowledge of historiography is helpful in reaching the upper mark bands when you take your IB History examinations. There are a number of debates throughout the book to develop your understanding of historiography, some of which quote important historians that you may wish to refer to in your examination.
Theory of Knowledge (TOK) questions
It is important to understand that there are strong links between IB History and Theory of Knowledge (TOK) issues. Chapters 2-9 have Theory of Knowledge questions that make this link.
Summary diagrams
At the end of most sections is a summary diagram which gives a visual summary of the content of the section. It is intended as an aid for revision.
Chapter summary
At the end of each of the topic chapters is a short summary of the content of that chapter. This is intended to help you revise and consolidate your knowledge and understanding of the content.
World History
