7.1 Shifting Power After 1900

Thematic Focus (GOV): Governance — A variety of internal and external factors contribute to state formation, expansion, and decline. Governments maintain order through a variety of administrative institutions, policies, and procedures, and governments obtain, retain, and exercise power in different ways and for different purposes.

Learning Objective Unit 7.A: Explain how internal and external factors contributed to change in various states after 1900.

• KC-6.2.I The West dominated the global political order at the beginning of the 20th century, but both land-based and maritime empires gave way to new states by the century’s end.
• KC-6.2.I.A The older, land-based Ottoman, Russian, and Qing empires collapsed due to a combination of internal and external factors. These changes in Russia eventually led to communist revolution.
• KC-6.2.II.D States around the world challenged the existing political and social order, including the Mexican Revolution that arose as a result of political crisis.

7.2 Causes of World War I

Thematic Focus (GOV): Governance — A variety of internal and external factors contribute to state formation, expansion, and decline. Governments maintain order through a variety of administrative institutions, policies, and procedures, and governments obtain, retain, and exercise power in different ways and for different purposes.

Learning Objective Unit 7.B: Explain the causes and consequences of World War I.

• KC-6.2.IV.B.i The causes of World War I included imperialist expansion and competition for resources. In addition, territorial and regional conflicts combined with a flawed alliance system and intense nationalism to escalate the tensions into global conflict.

7.3 Conducting World War I

Thematic Focus (TEC): Technology and Innovation — Human adaptation and innovation have resulted in increased efficiency, comfort, and security, and technological advances have shaped human development and interactions with both intended and unintended consequences.

Learning Objective Unit 7.C: Explain how governments used a variety of methods to conduct war.

• KC-6.2.IV.A.i World War I was the first total war. Governments used a variety of strategies, including political propaganda, art, media, and intensified forms of nationalism, to mobilize populations (both in the home countries and the colonies) for the purpose of waging war.
• KC-6.1.III.C.i New military technology led to increased levels of wartime casualties.

7.4 Economy in the Interwar Period

Thematic Focus (ECN): Economics Systems — As societies develop, they affect and are affected by the ways that they produce, exchange, and consume goods and services.

Learning Objective Unit 7.D: Explain how different governments responded to economic crisis after 1900.

• KC-6.3.I.B Following World War I and the onset of the Great Depression, governments began to take a more active role in economic life.
• KC-6.3.I.A.i In the Soviet Union, the government controlled the national economy through the Five Year Plans, often implementing repressive policies, with negative repercussions for the population.

Illustrative examples:

• Government intervention in the economy:
  • The New Deal
  • The fascist corporatist economy
  • Governments with strong popular support in Brazil and Mexico

7.5 Unresolved Tensions After World War I

Thematic Focus (GOV): Governance — A variety of internal and external factors contribute to state formation, expansion, and decline. Governments maintain order through a variety of administrative institutions, policies, and procedures, and governments obtain, retain, and exercise power in different ways and for different purposes.

Learning Objective Unit 7.E: Explain the continuities and changes in territorial holdings from 1900 to the present.

• KC-6.2.I.B Between the two world wars, Western and Japanese imperial states predominantly maintained control over colonial holdings; in some cases, they gained additional territories through conquest or treaty settlement and in other cases faced anti-imperial resistance.

Illustrative examples:

• Territorial gains:
  • Transfer of former German colonies to Great Britain and France under the system of League of Nations mandates
  • Manchukuo/Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere
• Anti-imperial resistance:
  • Indian National Congress
  • West African resistance (strikes/congresses) to French rule

7.6 Causes of World War II

Thematic Focus (GOV): Governance — A variety of internal and external factors contribute to state formation, expansion, and decline. Governments maintain order through a variety of administrative institutions, policies, and procedures, and governments obtain, retain, and exercise power in different ways and for different purposes.

Learning Objective Unit 7.F: Explain the causes and consequences of World War II.

• KC-6.2.IV.B.ii The causes of World War II included the unsustainable peace settlement after World War I, the global economic crisis engendered by the Great Depression, continued imperialist aspirations, and especially the rise to power of fascist and totalitarian regimes that resulted in the aggressive militarism of Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler.

7.7 Conducting World War II

Thematic Focus (GOV): Governance — A variety of internal and external factors contribute to state formation, expansion, and decline. Governments maintain order through a variety of administrative institutions, policies, and procedures, and governments obtain, retain, and exercise power in different ways and for different purposes.

Learning Objective Unit 7.G: Explain similarities and differences in how governments used a variety of methods to conduct war.

• KC-6.2.IV.A.ii World War II was a total war. Governments used a variety of strategies, including political propaganda, art, media, and intensified forms of nationalism, to mobilize populations (both in the home countries and the colonies or former colonies) for the purpose of waging war. Governments used ideologies, including fascism and communism to mobilize all of their state’s resources for war and, in the case of totalitarian states, to repress basic freedoms and dominate many aspects of daily life during the course of the conflicts and beyond.
• KC-6.1.III.C.ii New military technology and new tactics, including the atomic bomb, fire-bombing, and the waging of “total war” led to increased levels of wartime casualties.

Illustrative examples:

• Western democracies mobilizing for war:
  • Great Britain under Winston Churchill
  • United States under Franklin Roosevelt
• Totalitarian states mobilizing for war:
  • Germany under Adolf Hitler
  • USSR under Joseph Stalin

7.8 Mass Atrocities After 1900

Thematic Focus (SIO): Social Interactions and Organization — The process by which societies group their members and the norms that govern the interactions between these groups and between individuals influence political, economic, and cultural institutions and organization.

Learning Objective Unit 7.H: Explain the various causes and consequences of mass atrocities in the period from 1900 to the present.

• KC-6.2.III.C The rise of extremist groups in power led to the attempted destruction of specific populations, notably the Nazi killing of the Jews in the Holocaust during World War II, and to other atrocities, acts of genocide, or ethnic violence.

Illustrative examples:

• Genocide, ethnic violence, or attempted destruction of specific populations:
  • Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during and after World War I
  • Cambodia during the late 1970s
  • Tutsi in Rwanda in the 1990s
  • Ukraine in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s

7.9 Causation in Global Conflict

Learning Objective Unit 7.I: Explain the relative significance of the causes of global conflict in the period 1900 to the present.

• KC-6.1 Rapid advances in science and technology altered the understanding of the universe and the natural world and led to advances in communication, transportation, industry, agriculture, and medicine.
• KC-6.2 Peoples and states around the world challenged the existing political and social order in varying ways, leading to unprecedented worldwide conflicts.
  • KC-6.2.I The West dominated the global political order at the beginning of the 20th century, but both land-based and maritime empires gave way to new states by the century’s end.
  • KC-6.2.I.A The older, land-based Ottoman, Russian, and Qing empires collapsed due to a combination of internal and external factors. These changes in Russia eventually led to communist revolution.
  • KC-6.2.II.D States around the world challenged the existing political and social order, including the Mexican Revolution that arose as a result of political crisis.