Isolationism

Question 1

Isolationism (U.S., 1920s–late 1930s)

Answer 1

A political habit of mind: after WWI many Americans and politicians wanted to avoid entangling alliances and foreign wars. It shaped laws, votes, and a public mood that resisted intervention even as fascism rose abroad.

Question 2

Neutrality vs. Isolationism

Answer 2

Neutrality = a legal stance (not siding in a specific war). Isolationism = broader political/cultural preference to avoid global commitments and influence foreign policy (e.g., 1920s–30s U.S.).

Question 3

End of Isolationism

Answer 3

The shock of direct attack and large-scale involvement (esp. Pearl Harbor) broke the political will for strict non-involvement and pushed the U.S. into full wartime alliances.

Question 4

Pearl Harbor — Dec 7, 1941

Answer 4

Surprise Japanese air attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawai‘i; it destroyed/disabled ships and aircraft and forced the U.S. into WWII. About 2,403 Americans killed that day.

Question 5

America First Committee — founded Sept 4, 1940

Answer 5

A large isolationist pressure group (peaked ~800k members) that argued the U.S. should avoid entering WWII; famous speakers included Charles Lindbergh. The attack on Pearl Harbor fatally undermined its influence.

Question 6

Cash-and-Carry provision (Neutrality Acts → 1939)

Answer 6

Policy change letting belligerent nations buy U.S. goods if they paid cash and carried them on their own ships — a halfway measure to help Britain/France while claiming neutrality. It eased the arms embargo in 1939.

Question 7

Treaty of Kanagawa — Mar 31, 1854

Answer 7

Commodore Perry’s ‘gunboat diplomacy’ forced Japan to end 220 years of isolation (sakoku), opening Shimoda and Hakodate ports to the U.S. — the start of modern US–Japan relations.

Question 8

Treaty of Versailles — Jun 28, 1919

Answer 8

The main peace treaty that formally ended WWI with harsh terms for Germany (territory loss, disarmament, reparations) and helped create the political resentments that fed WWII.

Question 9

The Nuremberg Laws — Sept 15, 1935 (overview)

Answer 9

A set of Nazi statutes that converted Jewish identity from a religious status into a racial one, removing civil rights and legal protections and laying bureaucratic groundwork for persecution.

Question 10

Nuremberg Laws — Reich Citizenship Law (1935)

Answer 10

Story: the law stripped Jews of German citizenship, relegating them to subjects without political rights — a legal starting point for exclusion.

Question 11

Nuremberg Laws — Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour (1935)

Answer 11

Story: this law forbade marriages/sexual relations between Jews and ‘Aryans,’ criminalizing intimate relations and policing racial purity.

Question 12

Fascism (basic idea)

Answer 12

An authoritarian, ultra-nationalist system: centralized power, suppression of opposition, mythic leader, and often aggressive expansion — seen in Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany.

Question 13

Lebensraum (Nazi concept)

Answer 13

Literally ‘living space’ — Hitler’s expansionist rationale: conquer Eastern Europe to acquire land/resources and implement racial restructuring. It justified brutal conquest and ethnic cleansing.

Question 14

Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere (Japan)

Answer 14

Japan’s wartime propaganda/plan for a self-sufficient Asian bloc under Japanese leadership — framed as anti-Western unity but in practice meant Japanese imperial control and resource extraction.

Question 15

Monroe Doctrine — 1823

Answer 15

U.S. policy declaring the Western Hemisphere closed to new European colonization and influence; over time it became a backbone of U.S. hemispheric power and intervention.

Question 16

The Great Depression (1929–c.1939)

Answer 16

A decade-long global economic collapse starting with the 1929 U.S. stock-market crash: massive unemployment, bank failures, and political radicalization that shaped 1930s foreign and domestic policy.

Question 17

1931 London Conference (context & meaning)

Answer 17

In mid-1931, after the Austrian bank Creditanstalt collapsed and Europe’s financial system started cracking, leaders gathered in London to figure out how to stabilize currencies, stop bank runs, and deal with the mess created by post-WWI reparations and international debt.