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Unit 9: Globalization (c. 1900 to the present): a connected, contested, and changing world

9 dot points across 9 inquiry questions. Click any dot point for a focused answer with worked past exam questions where available.

How did advances in technology shrink the world and accelerate globalization?

Topic 9.1 Advances in Technology and Exchange: the technological advances in communication, transportation, energy, and medicine that accelerated globalization after 1900.
A focused answer to AP World History Topic 9.1, explaining the technological advances that accelerated globalization: communication from the radio to the internet, transportation from air travel to container shipping, new energy sources, and medical and agricultural breakthroughs.
11 min answer →

How did movements after 1900 demand rights, equality, and reform on a global scale?

Topic 9.6 Calls for Reform and Responses After 1900: the rights and reform movements after 1900, including feminist, civil rights, environmental, and other movements, and the responses they provoked.
A focused answer to AP World History Topic 9.6, explaining calls for reform after 1900: feminist movements for women's rights, civil and human rights movements, environmental and economic-justice movements, the human-rights framework, and the responses these movements provoked.
11 min answer →

How did disease, medicine, and population change shape the globalized world?

Topic 9.3 Disease in a Globalized World: the patterns of disease, the medical and public-health advances that fought it, and the resulting changes in population and life expectancy after 1900.
A focused answer to AP World History Topic 9.3, explaining disease in a globalized world: epidemic and pandemic diseases like influenza and HIV/AIDS, the medical advances of vaccines and antibiotics, diseases of longevity and affluence, and the population boom of the twentieth century.
11 min answer →

How did the global economy integrate, and what models and institutions shaped it?

Topic 9.5 Economics in the Global Age: the economic changes of globalization, including free-market neoliberalism, multinational corporations, free-trade agreements, and the rise of new economic powers.
A focused answer to AP World History Topic 9.5, explaining economics in the global age: the spread of free-market neoliberalism, the rise of multinational corporations and global supply chains, free-trade agreements and blocs, and the emergence of new economic powers like China and India.
12 min answer →

How has human activity reshaped the global environment, and how has the world responded?

Topic 9.4 Environment in a Globalized World: the environmental consequences of population growth, industrialization, and consumption, including climate change, pollution, and resource depletion, and the global responses to them.
A focused answer to AP World History Topic 9.4, explaining the environment in a globalized world: climate change driven by fossil fuels, pollution, deforestation and resource depletion from population growth and consumption, and global responses from environmental movements to international agreements.
11 min answer →

How did culture become global, and how did local cultures respond?

Topic 9.7 Globalized Culture After 1900: the spread and blending of culture in a connected world, including global media, consumer culture, sport, and the tension between global and local identities.
A focused answer to AP World History Topic 9.7, explaining globalized culture: the spread of global media and consumer culture, the worldwide reach of sport and brands, cultural blending and hybrid identities, and the tension between global homogenization and local cultures.
11 min answer →

How did international institutions try to govern a connected and contested world?

Topic 9.9 Institutions Developing in a Globalized World: the international institutions that developed to govern a connected world, including the United Nations, the IMF and World Bank, the WTO, NGOs, and regional bodies.
A focused answer to AP World History Topic 9.9, explaining the institutions of a globalized world: the United Nations for peace and rights, the IMF, World Bank, and WTO for the global economy, NGOs and multinational corporations, and regional bodies like the European Union, with their powers and limits.
11 min answer →

Why and how have people resisted globalization?

Topic 9.8 Resistance to Globalization After 1900: the economic, cultural, and political resistance to globalization, including anti-globalization movements, religious fundamentalism, nationalism, and terrorism.
A focused answer to AP World History Topic 9.8, explaining resistance to globalization: economic anti-globalization movements, cultural and religious resistance including fundamentalism, the revival of nationalism and protectionism, and political violence and terrorism.
11 min answer →

What are the costs and limits of the technological advances that drive globalization?

Topic 9.2 Technological Advances and Limitations: the disease, environmental, and other costs and limits of technological change, including pandemics, pollution, and unequal access.
A focused answer to AP World History Topic 9.2, explaining the limitations and costs of technological change: new and re-emerging diseases like influenza and HIV/AIDS, environmental damage from pollution and warming, the digital divide, and unequal access to technology.
11 min answer →