Contemporary | World History

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.

Key Concept 6.1 Science and the Environment

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. New scientific paradigms transformed human understandings

of the world (such the theory of relativity, quantum mechanics,

the Big Bang theory or psychology).

C. The Green Revolution produced food for the earth’s growing

population as it spread chemically and genetically enhanced

forms of agriculture.

D. Medical innovations (such as the polio vaccine, antibiotics, and

the artificial heart) increased the ability of humans to survive.

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

II. As the global population expanded at an unprecedented rate, humans fundamentally changed their relationship with the environment.

A. Humans exploited and competed over the earth’s finite resources more intensely than ever before in human history.

B. Global warming was a major consequence of the release of greenhouse gases and other pollutants into the atmosphere.

C. Pollution threatened the world’s supply of water and clean air. Deforestation and desertification were continued consequences of the human impact on the environment. Rates of extinction of other species accelerated sharply.

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

A. Diseases associated with poverty (such as malaria, tuberculosis, or cholera) persisted, while other diseases (such as 1919 influenza epidemic, ebola or HIV/AIDS) emerged as new epidemics and threats to human survival. In addition, changing lifestyles and increased longevity led to higher incidence of certain diseases (such as diabetes, heart disease and Alzheimer's disease).

B. More effective forms of birth control gave women greater control over fertility and transformed sexual practices.

C. Improved military technology (such as tanks, airplanes or the Atomic Bomb) and new tactics (such as trench warfare or firebombing) led to increased levels of wartime casualties (such as Nanjing, Dresden or 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 century, but both land-based and transoceanic empires gave way to new forms of transregional political organization by the century’s end.

A. A.The older land-based Ottoman, Russian, and Qing (SEE THE CRASH COURSE BELOW ON CHINA) empires collapsed due to a combination of internal and external factors (Economic hardship, political and social discontent, technological stagnation, military defeat).

B. B. Between the two world wars, European imperial states often maintained control over their colonies and in some cases gained additional territories. Some colonies negotiated their independence (such as India and the Gold Coast from the British empire)...

C. ...Some colonies achieved independence through armed struggle (such as Algeria and Vietnam from the French empire or 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 (Mohandas Gandhi, Ho Chi Minh, Kwame Nkrumah)in Asia and Africa challenged imperial rule.

B. Regional (Quebecois), religious (Muslim League in British India), and ethnic movements (Biafra Movement in Nigeria) challenged both colonial rule and inherited imperial boundaries.

C. The proliferation of conflicts led to various forms of ethnic violence (such as Armenia, the Holocaust, Cambodia and Rwanda) and the displacement of people resulting in refugee populations (such as Palestinians or Darfurians).

D. Transnational movements sought to unite people across national boundaries (such as communism, pan-Arabism or pan-Africanism).

E. The Mexican Revolution arose in opposition to neocolonialism and economic imperialism 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 resettlements or displacement (India/Pakistan Partition, Zionist Jewish settlement of Palestine, Division of middle east into Mandates).

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

C. The proliferation of conflicts led to genocide (such as Armenia, the Holocaust, Cambodia and Rwanda) and the displacement of people resulting in refugee populations (such as Palestinians or Darfurians).

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 political propaganda, art, media, and intensified forms of nationalism to mobilize populations (both in the home countries and the colonies or former colonies)(Gurkha soldiers in India, ANZAC troops in Australia, Military conscription), for the purpose of waging war and, in the case of totalitarian states, to direct many aspects of daily life during the course of the conflicts and beyond

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