-
Unit 1 The United States of America
1. The United States is bordered on the
north by
Canada
, on the
south by
Mexico
and
the
Gulf
of
Mexico
,
on
the
east
by
the
Atlantic
Ocean
,
and
on
the
west
by
the
Pacific Ocean.
2. According to the text, the large
territory of the continental US is divided into
three
basic areas:
A. The
Atlantic Seacoast west to the Appalachians;
B. The Mississippi River Basin;
C. The Rockies west to the Pacific;
Unit 2 American population
3.
The first
blacks arrived in
Jamestown
in
1619 as
indentured servants,
but
soon
after 1619 they were
brought to colonies as
slaves.
The blacks were formally freed
in
1863,
but
continued
to
suffer
the
institutionalized
segregation
for
about
a
century.
Today
many
blacks
still
live
in
the
south,
some
have
entered
the
middle
class,
but
one-third of all black families still
live below the
poverty line.
Chapter 5 The Confederation and the
Constitution
1
．
Under the
Articles of Confederation the national government
consisted of only a
legislature
; it had no
separate
executive
and
judicial
divisions. The
state government
was left the exclusive
powers to regulate commerce and
to
tax
their citizens.
2. The
Antifederalists
opposed
the
constitution and prefermd a more
decentralized
federal system of government.
3. George Washington was elected
unanimously as the first US President in
1788
. The
first
Vice-President was
John
Adams
, the first Secretary of
Treasury was
Alexander Hamilton
and the
first Secretary of State was
Thomas
Jefferson
.
4. The most
glorious achievement of Jefferson as President was
the Louisiana
Purchase which was about
828000
square miles. This
Purchase
doubled
the area of
the then United States.
5.
The War of 1812 is also called
the
Second War of Independence
. This war
lasted
three
years and ended
in another American victory. An important result
of the war
was the strengthening of
national
unity
and
patriotism
. And it was after
this war that
the US was able to make
the change of a
semi-
colonial
economy into a really
independent
national
economy.
名词解释
Con
federation(
邦联
)
：
A confederation is a
government in which the constituent governments ,
called states
in the US, create a
central government by constitutional compact but
do not give it
power to regulate the
conduct of individuals.
问答
1. What powers do the national
government and the individual states have under
the Articles of confederation?
the national government: conduct war &
foreign affairs; make commercial treaties;
negotiate with Indians; coin money &
issue bills of credit
the individual
states: deal with foreign countries; engage in
war; issue money & bills
of credit;
collect taxes
Chapter6
American Expansion and the
Civil War
essence of Monroe Doctrine
was which later became the
__cornerstone __
of
the US policy.
territory
was settled between Britain and
the United States
in
_1846__
.Its
boundary on the north was fixed at
the
_forty--ninth_
parallel
of north latitude.
Missouri
Compromise,Missouri was admitted as a
_slave_
state
，
but
the
balance of political power
maintained by admission of
_Maine_
as
a
_free_
addition
，
slavery
was to be prohibited in the rest of Louisiana
Territory north of the
line
_36°30’_
parallel.
1862
，
the federal government
took two revolutionary measures
：
（
1
）
Homestead
Act
and
（
2
）
Emancipation
Proclamation.
July 1863 came the
turning point of of the war at
Gettysburg
.Here the
Confederate army under the general
Robert
was battlefield was
made a national
cemetery
,where Lincoln gave
his famous speech,the
Gettysburg
Address
on November 19,1863.
1865
,the
Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution was
adopted,which
abolished
slavery
throughout the
United States.
问答
was the Monroe Doctrine?
The Monroe Doctrine written by James
Monroe, declared in December of 1823, was a
superlative U.S. foreign policy
statement. It was precipitated by various
independence
movements in South America
and the U.S. government's desire to discourage
European nations from colonizing the
Americas, and a growing American
Monroe Doctrine stated that European nations
should not intervene
in countries to
the south of the U.S. Finally, it promised to stay
out of foreign
affairs.U.S. will not
interfere with European affairs in essence of the
Doctrine is“America for
Americans”.Whic
h later became a
cornerstone of the US
foreign the New
World developed in the years ahead this doctrine
became
more meaningful and was
strengthened by a border interpretation to meet
the needs of
an energetic and ambitious
United States.
名词解释
burg Address
The
Gettysburg Address is a speech delivered by U.S.
President Abraham Lincoln
during the
American Civil War on November 19, 1863 after the
northern victory at
is regarded as one
of the most significant expressions of American
democracy. In just over two minutes,
Lincoln reiterated the principles of human
equality espoused by the Declaration of
Independence and proclaimed the Civil War
as a struggle for the preservation of
the Union sundered by the secession crisis,with
new birth of freedom,
also
redefined the Civil War as a struggle not just for
the Union, but also for the
principle
of human equality.
Chapter 7
Reconstruction and the Birth of Us
Imperialism
1
、
The
Reconstruction
Acts
divided
all
the
former
confederate
states,
except
Tennessee
, into five
military
districts and each
was put under the control of a
Northern
army officer. The officer had the power to keep
order
and to
enforce
martial
law if necessary.
2
、
During
the
Reconstruction
the
Southern
whites
who
supported
the
radical
reconstruction and
joined the
Republican
Party
were called
scalawags
. They
were considered
as
traitors
by the Southern Democrats.
3
、
The
KKK,
founded
in
Tennessee
in
1866,
was
a
secret
society
for
resorting
white
supremacy
and driving blacks out of
politics
.
名词解释
Open Door
Policy
In Sino-American relations,
Theodore Roosevelt pushed the so-
called “Open
Door
Policy”
which
demanded
that
all
the
imperialist
powers
should
enjoy
equal
chance in China as freely as
othe
r aggressors.
Chapter 8
world war I and the depression
1
、
The First World
War was waged between two groups of imperialist
powers:
the
Allies
and the
Central European Power
.
2
、
The
direct
cause
that
made
the
US
declare
war
on
Germany
in
1917
was
the
Germany’s
unlimited
submarine
campaign.
3
、
The major
triumph for Wilson at the Paris Peace Conference
was the formation of
the
League of Nations
.
4
、
The United
States didn’t join the League of Nations because
the US
Senate
refused
to approve the
Treaty of
Versailles
.
5
、
The
Great Depression started with the sudden collapse
of the
Stock Market
in New
York
in
October,
1929
.
This
economic
distress
extended
to
Europe,
Asia,
Africa,
Australia and South
America.
名词解释：
Roaring Twenties
: The ten
years between 1919 and 1929, usually called the
“Roaring
Twenties”
or
the
“Jazz Age”,
were
a
time
of
carefree
prosperity,
isolation
from
the
world’s
problems, bewildering social change and a feverish
pursuit of pleasure.
问答题：
1
、
Why did the US
join the First World War so late?
First, the
United States was lack of military preparedness
when the war began.
Another
factor
for
the
US
to
join
the
war
was
the
American
financial
and
industrial commitment to
the Allied cause,
F
inally
the
factor
that
pushed
the
US
into
the
war
was
Germany’s
submarine
campaign against
merchant ships.
2
、
What were the
major contents and basic ideas of the New Deal?
How do you
comment on the New Deal?
The aims of the New Deal were to raise
commodity prices by limiting production,