Unit 5
The time period for this unit is 1914 to the present.This unit assesses the twentieth century world. The first chapter focuses on technology and on events in Europe. Later chapters deal with specific regions of the globe and present the relationship of each to the technological developments which run through the entire century and promise to affect the next century as well.
The unit starts with major events such as World War I, the Great Depression, World War II (with its two catastrophic technologies--the Holocaust and the atomic bomb) and the Cold War between capitalism and socialism.
Russia's acquisition of industrial power is better known in the West. Starting from the Russian Revolution (and the prior events which facilitated its success), Russian leaders packaged their pursuit of industrialization within the ideological justification of Communism.
Japan's development is less well known in the West. Confronted in the
19th century by the Chinese example of how the West treated weakened,
non-western nations, they undertook their own industrialization in a model
that both borrowed from the west and while preserving core Japanese values.
India, in contrast, began the 20th century as a colony of the British
who sought to retain their firm hold over the country even as they experimented
with limited self rule for the Indians. The struggles for independence
revolve around the role of Mahatma Gandhi who developed the techniques
and organizations associated with the achievement of independence.
China began the 20th century in the disarray that accompanied the final
collapse of its 2000 year system of government by dynasty. Where the discussion
of 19th century China focused on the problematic interventions by Europeans,
this chapter looks at the Chinese themselves to see how they rebuilt their
country.
It is hard to find a similarly simple overall plot for the Middle East.
The stories--and the conflicts--of that region involve overlapping, often
conflicting categories such as Arab and non-Arab, Ottoman and non-Ottoman
national origins, oil rich and oil poor, and Moslem or Jewish religion.
Africa is divided into four parts: colonization, transition toward independence,
achievement of independence, and the rewards and challenges of independence.
At each stage we see the efforts of Africans to deal with Europe's power
to shape African reality.
Latin America is the continent whose culture is most clearly a blend of
cultures from different continents; the continent has a long tradition
of popular revolt against unpopular government and, currently, is dominated
by democratic governments and economies that fall into the mid-range of
material success