SNAPSHOT
- Rapid advances in science and technology
- Increasing global population growth
- Great Britain, France, and the U.S. control half of world’s land mass and people
- Japan, Ottoman Empire, Russia, Germany other great powers
- Africa, India, SE Asia, Oceania mostly peripheries/colonies or semipheripheries
- Qing Dynasty in China weak, in decline
- Continued European, U.S., Japanese spheres of influence in eastern China
- Guomindang military and regional warlords compete for power
- Latin American oligarchies with extensive U.S. and British investments in infrastructure
- Mexico = much political, social, and economic unrest – pre-revolutionary society
- Recently united and industrialized Germany desires to be greater global
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.
(Click on the banner below to a detailed study about advancement in science and the effects on environment during c.1900-Present)
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.
(Click on the banner to a detailed explation about World War 1 and World War 2 and their consequences
(Click on the banner to a detailed explation about World War 1 and World War 2 and their consequences