What conditions made the twentieth century an age of genocide and mass atrocity?
Topic 7.8 Mass Atrocities After 1900: the genocides and mass killings of the twentieth century, including the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide, and others, and the conditions that enabled them.
A focused answer to AP World History Topic 7.8, explaining the mass atrocities and genocides of the twentieth century: the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide, the Holodomor, the Cambodian and Rwandan genocides, and the conditions of ideology, total war, and state power that enabled them.
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What this topic is asking
Topic 7.8 covers the mass atrocities and genocides of the twentieth century. It asks you to explain the major genocides and mass killings - above all the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide, along with others - and the conditions that enabled them: exclusionary ideologies, powerful modern states, total war, and new technology and bureaucracy. This is a difficult but essential topic that the exam treats seriously.
What "mass atrocity" means
The major genocides
Several stand out for their scale and organization.
The conditions that enabled atrocity
Why did the modern century see such killing?
- Exclusionary ideologies. Ideologies of racism, ultranationalism, and radical revolution defined whole groups - Jews, Armenians, "class enemies," ethnic rivals - as enemies to be eliminated, providing the justification for genocide.
- Powerful modern states. Strong, centralized states had the bureaucracy, records, communications, and technology to identify, round up, and kill large populations systematically.
- Total war and breakdown. Total war and the collapse of normal order provided the cover, chaos, and brutalization that made mass killing easier to carry out and conceal.
These conditions combined to make the twentieth century, for all its progress, also an age of industrial-scale slaughter.
Memory and response
Atrocity prompted new ideas and institutions.
In response to the Holocaust and other atrocities, the world developed the concept of genocide as a crime, held the Nuremberg trials, and adopted instruments like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Genocide Convention. The aspiration of "never again" shaped postwar human-rights efforts, even as later genocides showed how often the world failed to prevent them. This connects to the institutions and reform movements of Unit 9.
Try this
Q1. Name the Nazi genocide of around six million Jews and millions of others during the Second World War. [Recall]
- Cue. The Holocaust.
Q2. Explain one condition that enabled the mass atrocities of the twentieth century. [Short explanation]
- Cue. Powerful modern states armed with exclusionary ideologies defined whole groups as enemies and used their bureaucracy, technology, and the cover of total war to organize killing on an industrial scale.
Exam-style practice questions
Practice questions written in the style of College Board exam questions on this dot point, with worked answer explainers. The year tag is the paper they imitate, not the source.
AP 2019 (style)3 marksBriefly identify ONE genocide or mass atrocity of the twentieth century. Briefly explain ONE condition that enabled it. Briefly explain ONE way ideology contributed to mass killing.Show worked answer →
A Short Answer Question (SAQ), 3 points, one per bullet.
A. Identify: the Holocaust, the Nazi genocide of around six million Jews and millions of others during the Second World War.
B. Condition: total war and powerful modern states gave regimes the bureaucracy, technology, and cover of wartime to carry out killing on an industrial scale.
C. Ideology: racist and exclusionary ideologies, like Nazi antisemitism, defined whole groups as enemies to be eliminated, providing the justification for genocide.
Each bullet must be concrete.
AP 2022 (style)6 marksEvaluate the most significant condition that enabled the mass atrocities of the period c. 1900 to the present.Show worked answer →
A Long Essay Question (LEQ), scored on the 6-point causation rubric.
Thesis (1): "The most significant condition enabling mass atrocity was the rise of powerful modern states armed with exclusionary ideologies, which defined groups as enemies and mobilized bureaucracy and technology to destroy them, though total war provided the cover and chaos that made killing easier."
Contextualization (1): situate the atrocities in an age of total war, mass ideology, and strong states.
Evidence (2): the Holocaust; the Armenian genocide; the Holodomor; later the Cambodian and Rwandan genocides.
Analysis (2): explain HOW ideology and state power combined to enable genocide, then add complexity by weighing them against the role of total war and breakdown of order.
Related dot points
- Topic 7.7 Conducting World War II: the methods and technologies of the Second World War, including total war, the deliberate targeting of civilians, new weapons, and the use of the atomic bomb.
A focused answer to AP World History Topic 7.7, explaining how the Second World War was fought: total war and total mobilization, new technologies like tanks, aircraft, and radar, the deliberate targeting of civilians through strategic bombing, and the use of the atomic bomb.
- Topic 7.6 Causes of World War II: the causes of the Second World War, including the legacy of the First World War, the Great Depression, fascist and militarist expansion, and the failure of appeasement and collective security.
A focused answer to AP World History Topic 7.6, explaining the causes of the Second World War: the legacy of Versailles and the Great Depression, fascist and militarist expansion by Germany, Italy, and Japan, and the failure of appeasement and the League of Nations.
- Topic 7.1 Shifting Power after 1900: the collapse or transformation of land-based empires and the rise of new political ideologies and movements at the start of the twentieth century.
A focused answer to AP World History Topic 7.1, explaining the shift in global power after 1900: the collapse of the Qing, Ottoman, and Russian empires, the Russian and Chinese revolutions, and the rise of new ideologies like communism and the end of dynastic rule.
- Topic 8.4 Spread of Communism After 1900: the spread of communism through revolution and the varied paths and effects of communist movements, including the Russian and Chinese revolutions and their economic and social policies.
A focused answer to AP World History Topic 8.4, explaining the spread of communism: the Russian and Chinese revolutions, the policies of Stalin and Mao including collectivization and the Great Leap Forward, the human costs, and communism's varied paths and effects worldwide.
- Topic 7.9 Causation in Global Conflicts: applying the historical reasoning skill of causation to the global conflicts of the twentieth century, including the world wars and their causes and consequences.
A focused answer to AP World History Topic 7.9, the causation reasoning skill applied to Unit 7: explaining the causes and effects of the world wars, distinguishing long-term from immediate causes, and how to structure a causation essay on twentieth-century conflict.
Sources & how we know this
- AP World History: Modern Course and Exam Description — College Board (2020)