The West in the World, 4th Edition (Sherman)

Chapter 21: Modern Life and the Culture of Progress

Critical Thinking Questions

  1. The Second Industrial Revolution


  1. How did the discovery of the Bessemer processes and advances in chemistry help spark a new wave of industrialization?


  2. What new discoveries facilitated travel and communication?


  3. As business grew with the discovery of new inventions during the second industrial revolution, how did it change?


  4. What strategies did merchants use to increase consumer demand?


  5. Who benefitted from this Second Industrial Revolution and in what ways?


  1. The New Urban Landscape


  1. Why did Napoleon III decide to reconstruct the Parisian landscape?


  2. What improvements were made to European cities in this period?


  1. City People


  1. How did the lifestyles of the urban elite and middle class differ?


  2. What opportunities outside the home were open to middle-class women?


  3. What values did the middle class embrace and promote?


  4. What kinds of occupations were open to the lower-middle class?


  5. What job opportunities were open to working-class women?


  6. How did the middle class feel about the working-class and the poor?


  1. Sports and Leisure in the Cities


  1. What character values were sports thought to inculcate?


  2. What leisure activities did people with means enjoy? How did those activities compare with the ones available to workers?


  1. Private Life: Together and Alone at Home


  1. How did people view the home and family? What was a woman's place within the home and family?


  2. How did some women challenge the domestic role of the middle-class woman?


  3. How did sexual realities conflict with Victorian morality?


  4. What types of psychic stresses did people suffer during this period? How did they cope with those stresses?


  1. Science in an Age of Optimism


  1. What was Darwin's theory about the origins of species? How original were his ideas?


  2. How did Social Darwinists apply Darwin's thesis?


  3. How did religious groups react to Darwin's ideas?


  4. How were scientific techniques and principles applied to disciplines other than the natural sciences?


  5. What were the practical ramifications of Pasteur's germ theory? How was his theory received at first?


  6. How did advances in the modern sciences transform surgery and nursing?


  1. Culture: Accepting the Modern World


  1. How did realism and naturalism differ from the romanticism of the early nineteenth century? What themes did realists and naturalists emphasize?


  2. What did impressionists attempt to do in their paintings?


  1. From Optimism to Uncertainty


  1. How did Einstein's theory of relativity change the way scientists looked at the physical nature of the universe?


  2. What were the implications of Freud's explanation of human behavior?


  3. What ideals and tenets of nineteenth-century civilization did Nietzsche attack?


  4. In what way did art, such as expressionism, turn inward? How did such art challenge conventions?


Sherman: The West in the World, Fourth Edition
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