Active vocabulary

1. Security Council

2. possession

3. ballistic missiles

4. humiliating defeat

5. welfare state

6. permissive society

7. mandated

8. mistrust

9. commonwealth

10. to carry out a rapid recapture

11. commercial failure

12. to loose confidence

13. to rise from… to…

14. dockland

15. anniversary

16. soap opera

I. Answer the following questions:

The new international order

1. What was basis of the “Atlantic Charter”?

2. What was the idea of the four allies?

3. What was British policy concerned with?

4. What were the 3 important technical development in the 1950s?

5. Why did Britain want to enter the EC?

The welfare state

1. What were the governments improvements in the welfare of the country?

2. Comment on the work of the Labour government.

3. What was the result of the changes in the work of the government’s main parties?

Youthful Britain

1. What state had Britain become economically dependent on?

2. How did people in Britain start to spend their spare time?

3. Speak about the youthful “pop” culture of the “60-s”.

A popular monarchy

1. What deeds of the members of royal family make us speak about the raise of their popularity?

2. What is Edward VIII well-known for?

The loss of empire

1. How did the British Empire collapse?

2. What kind of a process was it?

Britain, Europe and the United States

1. Why did Britain refuse to join the six European countries in the creation of a European Common Market?

2. Was Britain allowed to enter the EC ten years later? Did it succeed in it at last and when?

3. What was special in the relationship btw Britain and the US?

Nothern Ireland, Scotland and Wales

Speak about the main changes and dates in these countries during the 20^th c.

The years of discontent

1. What was the reason of Britain’s rapid economic slip?

2. How real were economic problems?

3. How did the arrival of immigrants influence the special life of Britain?

4. What were other signs that British society was going through a difficult period?

5. Comment on the women’s movements.

6. How did inflation tell on the welfare of the country?

The new politics

1. What was the Margaret Thatcher’s program?

2. When was she elected?

3. What were the main changes in British politics and how did they cause a major crisis for the Labour Party?

4. What party did Thatcher belong to?

5. Did everyone in the Conservative Party was happy about the change in policy?

6. When did the Conservative Party begin to lose its popularity?

7. What changes Thatcher made in the structure of the Parliament?

8. What was the most serious accusation against the Thatcher government by the middle of the 1980s?

9. Why did the Conservative Party won so convincingly in 1987?

Britain: past, present and future

Be ready to prepare a sort summary (10-15 se-s) on this topic.