La Habra High School
Social Sciences Department

Social Science Standards - World History

WORLD HISTORY

The student will:
  • compare and contrast the Judeo-Christian and classical views of law.
  • distinguish between reason and faith.
  • examine selections from Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Politics.
  • understand Western ideas emphasizing the rule of law and the illegitimacy of tyranny.
  • explain the principles of government generated by: John Locke, Charles-Louis Montesquiea, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Simon Bolivar, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison.
  • chart the evolution of self-government and individual liberties through the following documents: Magna Carta, the English Bill of Rights, the American Declaration of Independence, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, and the U. S. Bill of Rights.
  • trace the influence of the American Revolution and the Constitution on political systems in the contemporary world.
  • identify the stages of the French Revolution.
  • evaluate the causes and effects of the French Revolution leading to the Napoleonic empire.
  • understand how the growth of nationalism was a reaction to the Napoleon era.
  • analyze the underlying motives of the Congress of Vienna and Concert of Europe leading to the Revolutions of 1848.
  • identify the conditions necessary for industrialization.
  • understand why England was the birthplace of the industrial revolution.
  • identify the causes and effects of the industrial revolution as they relate to social, economic and cultural change.
  • discuss the contributions of inventors such as James Watt, Eli Whitney, Henry Bessemer, Louis Pasteur, Thomas Edison.
  • illustrate the causes and effects of urban migration.
  • analyze the evolution of a labor force.
  • describe the emergence of capitalism and the responses to it including Utopianism, Social Democracy, Socialism, and Communism.
  • explore the effects of the industrial revolution on art and literature.
  • understand the transition from Classicism to Romanticism.
  • explain how the industrial revolution gives rise to imperialism and colonialism.
  • articulate the following motives: the role played by national security and strategic advantage; moral issues raised by the search for national hegemony; Social Darwinism and the missionary impulse; material issues such as land, resources, and technology.
  • identify the geographic locations of the colonial holdings of England, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Russia, Spain, Portugal, and the U.S.
  • compare and contrast the differing views of the colonization efforts including long-term and short efforts.
  • determine the role played by Sun Yat-sen in China .
  • identify the motives behind a struggle for independence in colonized regions of the world.
  • analyze the underlying and immediate causes of World War I.
  • identify and describe the military fronts and fighting conditions.
  • access the extent to which the entry of the U.S. and the withdrawal of Russia affected the outcome of World War I.
  • evaluate the nature of war and its overall impact on a human condition.
  • identify the steps leading towards Armenian human rights and genocide by the Ottoman Turks.
  • evaluate the motives of allied leaders and the ramifications of the Treaty of Versailles.
  • examine Wilson's Fourteen Points.
  • describe the causes and effects for the rejection of the proposal to join the League of Nations by the U.S. Senate.
  • illustrate the geographic and political borders of new nations.
  • trace the development of postwar economies.
  • describe the post war culture of disillusionment expressed through art and literature in intellectual life.
  • explain causes and consequences of the Russian Revolution.
  • identify the steps used by Lenin and his Gulag to seize and maintain control.
  • evaluate the nature of totalitarianism under Stalin (the Terror Famine in Ukraine).
  • compare and contrast similarities and differences in the rise of totalitarianism styles in Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union.
  • describe the German, Italian, and Japanese drives for empire in the 1930's.
  • evaluate the effects of aggression as seen through the Rape of Nanking and the Stalin-Hitler Pact of 1939.
  • discuss the political and economic failures prior to the outbreak of World War II.
  • identify the location of the Allied and Axis powers, the major turning points of the war, and the principle theaters of conflict.
  • examine key strategic decisions and the diplomacy that followed.
  • recognize the importance of diplomatic and military leadership.
  • trace the development of the policies that led to the Final Solution.
  • evaluate the extent of the civilian and military losses in Russia, Germany, Britain, United States, China, and Japan.
  • determine the impact that Yalta had on postwar Europe.
  • trace the rise of nuclear weaponry as the Cold War develops.
  • explain the postwar American policy to prevent the spread of communism by implementing the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan.
  • trace the impact of political and economic ideologies.
  • follow the developments in China that led to the rise of communism.
  • identify Eastern Block countries' reactions to seek freedom from Soviet control.
  • identify the various factors that led to the demise of the Soviet Union.
  • understand the challenges to nation building in the contemporary world.
  • include the effects of creating a Jewish state in the Middle East.
  • examine the contemporary events of selected regions.
  • examine the information age and the role technology plays in today's global economy.