AMSCO 9.9 Continuity and Change in a Globalized World Notes

Overview

AMSCO Topic 9.9, Continuity and Change in a Globalized World, is the final chapter of Unit 9 and pulls the whole period from 1900 to the present together. The chapter answers one essential question: how did science, technology, politics, justice, transportation, communication, and the environment change and stay the same after 1900? The big takeaway is that rapid scientific and technological advances drove sweeping social, economic, political, cultural, and environmental changes, but many of those changes came with unintended consequences, and scholars still disagree about where it all leads.

Timeline of events showing the continuing change in the modern world. Image courtesy of Rashmi.

For the College Board version of this material, pair these notes with the 9.9 course topic study guide.

Advances in Science and Technology

Science and technology after 1900 transformed how people understood the universe and how they lived in it. AMSCO organizes the breakthroughs into seven areas:

• Origin of the universe. The Big Bang theory, the idea that the universe began with a single cosmic event, improved understanding of the universe and of atomic and subatomic science.
• Wave science. Discoveries about radio, light, sound, and microwaves improved radio and cellular communications and made internet service faster.
• Medical science. Vaccines and cures arrived for polio, tuberculosis, and tetanus. Antibiotics like penicillin let people survive infections. New treatments helped with chronic diseases like cancer and arthritis. Reliable birth control let women control family size. Together, these advances meant longer, healthier lives.
• Energy technologies. Oil extraction improved, nuclear power became a major energy source, and renewables (wind, solar, thermal) got dramatically cheaper. In 2018, the International Renewable Energy Agency predicted renewables would be consistently cheaper than fossil fuels by 2020. More energy meant more productivity, more material goods, and faster transportation.
• Communication technologies. Radio and television spread, telephones reached most homes, and then the internet and cell phones replaced older systems. Mass communication and global information transfer exploded.
• Transportation technologies. Airplanes appeared in the early 1900s, and jets later shrank distances between world regions. Larger, faster ships carrying prefabricated shipping containers expanded global trade and cultural interaction.
• Agricultural technologies. Genetically modified crops resisted drought and disease and produced higher yields. This Green Revolution fueled higher population growth, especially in developing countries, but also reduced biodiversity as modified crops replaced local varieties.

These advances build directly on the technology story in AMSCO 9.1, so review them together.

Changes in a Globalized World

Science and technology set off ripple effects across every part of society. AMSCO traces five categories of change.

Social Changes

World population grew faster than at any earlier time in history, straining existing social orders. Growth was fastest in developing countries (especially among lower socioeconomic classes), while developed countries saw population growth slow. Better communication and transportation made migration easier, producing a "brain drain" as educated, skilled workers left less developed countries for jobs elsewhere.

Women's socioeconomic status rose, especially in developed countries. Women entered careers traditionally reserved for men, won the right to vote, and in some nations held the highest political offices. Birth control gave women real choices, so fertility declined in developed countries as some women delayed or skipped having children. In some countries, though, women saw little improvement as societies resisted change. AMSCO connects this thread back to the reform movements in Topic 9.5.

Economic Changes

Economic globalization that began in the 1800s intensified. Developed nations kept exploiting less developed regions for raw materials and as markets for finished goods. But the world economic order shifted:

• The West, especially the United States, remained dominant but faced new challengers.
• Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore adopted growth policies built on inexpensive labor and high-quality manufacturing, competing with Western economies in consumer goods and high-tech products.
• China's modernization policies after Mao Zedong's death relaxed government control, and China became the world's second-largest economy and a major exporter.
• India became an economic powerhouse with a labor force specializing in software development and engineering.

Political Changes

Mass protest movements drove political and social change. Demonstrations in India showed how nonviolent resistance could win results. Civil rights activists organized in the United States, Northern Ireland, Canada, and elsewhere. Anti-war protests erupted in the US and Western Europe. Women's rights movements spread from Western democracies across the globe. Protests against apartheid ended racial segregation in South Africa, and democracy movements in North Africa and the Middle East produced the Arab Spring. Governments were sometimes slow to respond, and some persecuted, imprisoned, or attacked protesters.

One more continuity-and-change point worth memorizing: governments began playing a larger role in managing or regulating their economies, a shift away from the free-market, laissez-faire economics of the previous era.

Cultural Changes

Once information and people could move quickly worldwide, cultural exchange intensified. Western culture, especially American movies, TV, and music, was consumed globally, and a consumer culture spread. The big change from earlier eras is that exchange became a two-way street. Global audiences watched Hollywood films, but Chinese, Japanese, Indian, and Latin American cuisine landed on American and European plates, and East Asian music and art found loyal US fans. The internet and cellular technology pushed these exchanges into even the most remote places. This pairs with AMSCO 9.6 on globalized culture.

Environmental Changes

Humans overcame environmental limits in new ways. Jet travel turned global trips from months into hours, new petroleum extraction made energy cheap and abundant, and the Space Age made space exploration possible. But the damage piled up too. Airborne pollution rose as factories, cars, and homes burned carbon-based fuels, and water pollution increased as waste was dumped into rivers, lakes, and oceans. Debates over the causes of climate change grew as global temperatures rose, polar ice caps melted, and weather events became more intense and catastrophic.

Perspectives on the Future

AMSCO closes the chapter with four scholars who disagree about where globalization is heading. These make great evidence for continuity-and-change or argumentation prompts.

• Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (1992). Inspired by the fall of the Soviet Union, Fukuyama argued democracy was the ideal government and capitalism the best economic system, both spreading worldwide. Once every country adopted them, the conflicts that drove past wars would vanish. Critics compared him to Karl Marx, who had also wrongly claimed humanity was entering history's final phase.
• Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996). Fukuyama's former teacher rejected the end-of-history argument. Huntington predicted that religion and culture would draw the fault lines of post-Cold War conflict, citing Hindu-Muslim tensions in India and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism hostile to Western culture.
• Amartya Sen, Identities and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny (2006). The Nobel prize-winning economist called Huntington's generalizations oversimplified and pro-Western. Sen pointed to peaceful diverse societies worldwide and argued that globalization gave people many ways to identify themselves beyond religion and ethnicity.
• Michio Kaku, Physics of the Future (2011). Writing once the internet and smartphones connected the globe, the physicist was optimistic that technology and trade could break down cultural barriers and bring material abundance and greater peace.

Unit 9 Essay Prep

These prompts (from the College Board and the AMSCO textbook) are the kind of LEQ this topic feeds into:

1. Evaluate the extent to which the spread of free-market ideas led to economic change in the late twentieth century. (College Board, 2022 AP World History Exam, LEQ #4)
2. Evaluate the extent to which the effects of the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic were similar to or different from the HIV/AIDS epidemic that began in the 1980s. (AMSCO)
3. Evaluate the extent to which the partition of India in 1947 and the partition of Palestine in 1948 were similar or different. (AMSCO)
4. Evaluate the extent to which the partition of Germany and the partition of Korea were similar or different from 1945 to the present. (AMSCO)

Quick evidence banks for two of the most common comparisons:

For Germany vs. Korea: both were divided by capitalist and communist powers after WWII (Berlin Wall 1961-1989, Korea's 38th parallel and DMZ), but Germany reunified in 1990 while Korea remains divided with no formal peace treaty after the 1950-1953 Korean War armistice.

Key Terms to Know

Look up any of these in the AP World key terms glossary for fuller definitions.

Practice and Next Steps

• Review the College Board framing of this material in the 9.9 Continuity and Change in a Globalized World study guide.
• Since 9.9 synthesizes the whole unit, skim the rest of the Unit 9 AMSCO notes, especially 9.4 on global economics and 9.7 on resistance to globalization.
• Quiz yourself with guided multiple-choice practice, then take one of the LEQ prompts above to FRQ practice with instant scoring.