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Period 6: Accelerating Global Change and Realignments
​c. 1900 to the PresenT

Key Concept 6.1 Science and the Environment

Rapid advances in science altered the understanding of the universe and the natural world and led to the development of new technologies. These changes enabled unprecedented population growth, which altered how humans interacted with the environment and threatened delicate ecological balances at local, regional, and global levels.
 
I. Researchers made rapid advances in science that spread throughout the world, assisted by the development of new technology. 

A. New modes of communication and transportation virtually eliminated the problem of geographic distance. 

B. The Green Revolution produced food for the earth’s growing population as it spread chemically and genetically enhanced forms of agriculture. 

C. Medical innovations increased the ability of humans to survive and live longer lives. (Examples of medical innovations: polio vaccine, antibiotics, artificial heart)  

D. Energy technologies including the use of petroleum and nuclear power raised productivity and increased the production of material goods. 

II. During a period of unprecedented global population expansion, humans fundamentally changed their relationship with the environment. 

A. As human activity contributed to deforestation, desertification, and increased consumption of the world’s supply of fresh water and clean air, humans competed over these and other resources more intensely than ever before. 

B. The release of greenhouse gasses and other pollutants into the atmosphere contributed to debates about the nature and causes of climate change. 

III. Disease, scientific innovations, and conflict led to demographic shifts. 

A. Diseases associated with poverty persisted, while other diseases emerged as new epidemics and threats to human survival. In addition, changing lifestyles and increased longevity led to higher incidence of certain diseases. (Examples of diseases associated with poverty: malaria, tuberculosis, cholera; Examples of emergent epidemic diseases: 1918 influenza pandemic, Ebola, HIV/AIDS; Examples of diseases associated with changing lifestyles: diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease)  

B. More effective forms of birth control gave women greater control over fertility and transformed sexual practices. Improved military technology and new tactics led to increased levels of wartime casualties. (Examples of improved military technology: tanks, airplanes, the atomic bomb; illustrative examples of new military tactics: trench warfare, firebombing; illustrative examples of wartime causalities: Nanjing, Dresden, Hiroshima)


Key Concept 6.2 Global Conflicts and Their Consequences

At the beginning of the twentieth century, a European-dominated global political order existed, which also included the United States, Russia, and Japan. Over the course of the century, peoples and states around the world challenged this order in ways that sought to redistribute power within the existing order and to restructure empires, while those peoples and states in power attempted to maintain the status quo. Other peoples and states sought to overturn the political order itself. These challenges to, and the attempts to maintain, the political order manifested themselves in an unprecedented level of conflict with high human casualties. In the context of these conflicts, many regimes in both older and newer states struggled with maintaining political stability and were challenged by internal and external factors, including ethnic and religious conflicts, secessionist movements, territorial partitions, economic dependency, and the legacies of colonialism.
 
I. Europe dominated the global political order at the beginning of the twentieth century, but both land-based and transoceanic empires gave way to new states by the century’s end.  

A. The older land-based Ottoman, Russian, and Qing empires collapsed due to a combination of internal and external factors. (Examples of internal and external factors: political and social discontent, technological and economic stagnation, military defeat)  

B. Some colonies negotiated their independence. (Examples of negotiated independence: Indian from the British Empire, Gold Coast from the British Empire, French West Africa) 

C. Some colonies achieved independence through armed struggle. (Examples of independence through armed struggle: Algeria and Vietnam from the French Empire, Angola from the Portuguese Empire)  

II. Emerging ideologies of anti-imperialism contributed to the dissolution of empires and the restructuring of states. 

A. Nationalist leaders in Asia and Africa challenged imperial rule. (Examples of nationalist leaders and parties: Indian National Congress (INC), Ho Chi Minh in French Indochina (Vietnam), Kwame Nkrumah in British Gold Coast (Ghana)).  
 
B. Regional, religious, and ethnic movements challenged both colonial rule and inherited imperial boundaries. (Examples of regional, religious and ethic movements: Muhammad Ali Jinnah in British India, the Quebecois separatist movement in Canada, the Biafra secessionist movement in Nigeria) 

C. Transnational movements sought to unite people across national boundaries. (Examples of transnational movements: communism, pan-Arabism, pan-Africanism) 

D. Movements to redistribute land and resources developed within states in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, sometimes advocating communism and socialism. 

III. Political changes were accompanied by major demographic and social consequences. 

A. The redrawing of old colonial boundaries led to population displacement and resettlements. (Examples of population resettlements and creation of refugee populations: India/Pakistan partition, Zionist Jewish settlement of Palestine and displacement of Palestinians, division of Middle East into mandatory states) 

B. The migration of former colonial subjects to imperial metropoles (the former colonizing country, usually in the major cities) maintained cultural and economic ties between the colony and the metropole even after the dissolution of empires. (Examples of such migrations: South Asians to Britain, Algerians to France, Filipinos to the U.S.) 

C. The proliferation of conflicts led to the Holocaust during World War II and other forms of genocide or ethnic violence. (Examples of genocide or ethnic violence: Armenians in Turkey during and after WWI, Cambodia during the late 1970s, Tutsi in Rwanda in the 1990s)   

IV. Military conflicts occurred on an unprecedented global scale. 

A. World War I and World War II were the first “total wars.” Governments used ideologies, including fascism, nationalism and communism, to mobilize all of their state’s resources, including peoples, both in the home countries and the colonies or former colonies, for the purpose of waging war. Governments also used a variety of strategies, including political speeches, art, media, and intensified forms of nationalism, to mobilize these populations. 

B. The sources of global conflict in the first half of the century varied and included imperialist expansion by European powers and Japan, competition for resources, and the economic crisis engendered by the Great Depression. 

C. The global balance of economic and political power shifted after the end of World War II and rapidly evolved into the Cold War. The United States and the Soviet Union emerged as superpowers, which led to ideological struggles between capitalism and communism throughout the globe. 

D. The Cold War produced new military alliances, including NATO and the Warsaw Pact, and promoted proxy wars in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. 

V. Although conflict dominated much of the twentieth century, many individuals and groups — including states — opposed this trend. Some individuals and groups, however, intensified the conflicts. 

A. Groups and individuals challenged the many wars of the century, and some promoted the practice of nonviolence as a way to bring about political change. (Examples of groups and individuals who challenged war: Picasso in his Guernica, the antinuclear movement during the Cold War, Thich Quang Duc by self-immolation; Examples of individuals promoting nonviolence: Mohandas Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Nelson Mandela in South Africa)  

B. Groups and individuals, including the Non-Aligned Movement, opposed and promoted alternatives to the existing economic, political, and social orders. (Examples of groups and individuals opposing or promoting alternatives: the Anti-Apartheid Movement in South Africa, participants in the global uprisings of 1968, the Tienanmen Square protesters that promoted democracy in China) 

C. Militaries and militarized states often responded to the proliferation of conflicts in ways that further intensified conflict. (Examples of responses that intensified conflicts: promotion of military dictatorship in Chile, Spain, and Uganda;  buildup of the “military-industrial complex” and weapons  trading) 

D. More movements used violence against civilians to achieve political aims. (Movements who used violence: IRA, ETA, Al-Qaeda) 


Key Concept 6.3 New Conceptualizations of Global Economy, Society, and Culture

The twentieth century witnessed a great deal of warfare and the collapse of the global economy in the 1930's. In response to these challenges, the role of state in the domestic economy fluctuated, and new institutions of global governance emerged and continued to develop throughout the century. Scientific breakthroughs, new technologies, increasing levels of integration, changing relationships between humans and the environment, and the frequency of political conflict all contributed to global developments in which people crafted new understandings of society, culture, and historical interpretations. Institutions of global governance both shaped and adapted to these social conditions.
 
I. States responded in a variety of ways to the economic challenges of the twentieth century. 

A. In the Communist states of the Soviet Union and China, governments controlled their national economies. (Example of Communist governments controlling their national economies: Five-Year Plans in the Soviet Union, Great Leap Forward in China) 

B. At the beginning of the century in the United States and parts of Europe, governments played a minimal role in their national economies. With the onset of the Great Depression, governments began to take a more active role in economic life. (Examples of government intervention in the economy: New Deal, Fascist corporatist economy) 

C. In newly independent states after World War II, governments often took on a strong role in guiding economic life to promote development. (Examples governments guiding economic life: Nasser’s promotion of economic development in Egypt, encouragement of export-oriented economies in East Asia) 

D. In a trend accelerated by the end of the Cold War, many governments encouraged free-market economic policies and promoted economic liberalization in the late 20th century. (Examples of governments encouraging free-market policies: U.S. beginning with Ronald Reagan, Britain under Margaret Thatcher, China under Deng Xiaoping, Chile under Pinochet) 

II. States, communities, and individuals became increasingly interdependent, a process facilitated by the growth of institutions of global governance. 

A. New international organizations formed to maintain world peace and to facilitate international  (Examples of new international organizations: League of Nations, United Nations, International Criminal Court) 

B. Changing economic institutions and regional trade agreements reflected the spread of principles and practices associated with free-market economies throughout the world. (Examples of changing economic institutions: International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, World Trade Organization (WTO), Multi-national corporations; Examples of regional trade agreements: The European Economic Community (EEC), North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Mercosur)
 
C. Movements throughout the world protested the inequality of environmental and economic consequences of global integration. (Examples: Greenpeace, the Green Belt Movement in Kenya, Earth Day)
 
III. People conceptualized society and culture in new ways; rights-based discourses challenged old assumptions about race, class, gender, and religion. In much of the world, access to education, as well as participation in new political and professional roles, became more inclusive in terms of race, class, and gender.  

Illustrative examples of challenges to assumptions about race, class, gender, and religion: U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights especially as it sought to protect the rights of children, women, and refugees, global feminism movements, negritude movement, liberation theology in Latin America, Islamic renewal movements in Egypt and Saudi Arabia
 
Illustrative examples of increased access to education and political and professional roles: the right to vote and to hold public office granted to women in the US (1920), Brazil (1932), Turkey (1934), Japan (1945), India (1947), and Morocco (1963); the rising rate of female literacy and the increasing numbers of women in higher education, in most parts of the world, the end of apartheid, caste and reservation in the Indian Constitution of 1949.
 
IV. Popular and consumer culture became global. (Examples of global culture: reggae, Bollywood, World Cup soccer, the Olympics)