4 Flashcards
space
- After the fall of communism in the Soviet Union
in the early 1990s, the United States and Russia
became partners in space exploration with a jointly
run international space station. - By the early twenty-first century, other nations and
organizations, particularly China and the European
Space Agency, had launched missiles into space.
The enormous expense of space travel meant only
the wealthiest nations could afford it.
einstein
- In the early twentieth century, the German mathematician
Albert Einstein contributed to the theory of relativity. - In this new view of the universe and humanity’s
place in it, there are no absolutes. - This view of the universe had tremendous impact
on Western society after World War l. - The “great civilized powers” of Europe had set out
to destroy each other with weapons produced by
the Industrial Revolution, and about 20 million
people were killed. Newton’s view of an ordered,
rational universe didn’t make sense any more. - Philosophers, artists, composers, and theologians
took the scientific concept of relativity and applied
it to society. Right and wrong were no longer
absolutes but instead were concepts for each
individual to determine.
1900s medicine
- The polio vaccine, antibiotics, improved surgical
procedures such as sterilizing equipment, and advances
in cancer treatments all contributed. - Deadly infectious diseases such as smallpox and
whooping cough were virtually eliminated through
global campaigns of inoculation, yet other diseases
developed and spread. - These medical advances were largely limited, however, to
industrialized nations. In 2011, for example, 26 nations with
the lowest life expectancy were in Africa.
green rev
In the mid-twentieth century, the development of powerful
fertilizers and pesticides combined with new high-yield,
disease-resistant crops led to predictions of a famine-free
world.
i. The Green Revolution held out hope that food could be
grown almost anywhere.
ii. Although food production skyrocketed during the Green
Revolution, so did the global population.
india was an early participant: New hybrid rice crops grown in combination with
strong pesticides produced very high yields, so much
so that India seemed to end its long cycle of periodic
famine and became a leader in rice exports.
Attempts to spread the Green Revolution yielded mixed
results.
In the Philippines, rice yields soared, but in much of
Africa, agricultural production stagnated.
ii. Shifting weather patterns contributed to Africa’s lower
crop yield, as have the destructive nature of many civil
wars since the end of World War II.
Criticisms of the Green Revolution included
environmental
concerns about overuse of pesticides and fertilizers, the
tendency of farmers to plant monocrops instead of a variety
of grains as they once had, and unprecedented population
growth. More food means more people can eat and thus
live and reproduce. But from a long-term global perspective,
experts wonder whether the Green Revolution can continue
to feed ever-increasing numbers of people.
As in all wars, most of the civilian deaths were not a
result of battlefield conflict but rather of
disease and
famine.
The first truly global disease epidemic
partly a result of
World War l. The 1918 influenza pandemic killed roughly
20 million people worldwide. It is thought that returning
soldiers carried the disease to their home countries around
the globe, with devastating effects. Through the course
of the twentieth century, new strains of flu occurred from
time to time, but they did not have the impact of the 1918
version.
hiv/aids
HIV/AIDS was the second major pandemic of the twentieth
century
- First identified in the late twentieth century, HIV spread
through sexual contact and needle sharing, the latter
usually by people using illicit drugs. It then entered
undetected into hospital blood supplies and was
transmitted via transfusions.
- Once it entered the societies of Central Africa, it was—
and continues to be—highly destructive.
- AIDS is a leading cause of death in Africa. Government programs promoting both
abstinence and safe sex had limited success in that
continent.
1900s famine
One result of modern war on civilian populations is a
disruption of the food supply.
- Famine struck Europe after World War l.
- Most of the 20 million deaths in the Russian civil war are
attributed to famine.
gov-induced famines
Government policies of keeping food away from those deemed an enemy of the state killed many millions in the
twentieth century.
- In the 1930s, Stalin enacted an “artificial famine”
against rural communities that resisted his rule in the
USSR,and approximately 13 million died.
- In the mid-twentieth century, Mao’s insistence on
industrial over agricultural production caused perhaps
20 million deaths in China.
league of nations
wwi 1914-18
- The creation of a global League
of Nations at the war’s end, designed to keep the peace, gave
many people hope that governments and individuals had
learned their lesson and would find ways to avoid future wars.
Their hopes were short-lived.
WWI causes: imperialism
By the end of the nineteenth century, the colonial
powers of Europe had competed for decades
over land in Africa and Asia. By the beginning of
the twentieth century, wrangling continued over
ever-diminishing amounts of unclaimed territories,
leading to increased competitions and suspicions
among European nations.
WWI causes: nationalism
Tensions rose inside the Austro-Hungarian Empire,
the Ottoman Empire, and the Russian Empire
from ethnic groups that wanted to break off and
form their own nations. In addition, leaders of the
newly unified nations, such as Germany and Italy,
naturally had great pride in their countries and
expressed it through imperialist expansion and
weapons buildup.
WWI causes: arms race
The Industrial Revolution spurred the mass
production of weapons that could kill at faster
rates, and from longer distances, than ever before.
The French developed a machine gun that could
shoot 300 bullets a minute, and the Germans
built a cannon that could fire projectiles over 50
miles. National pride among the “Great Powers”
of Europe started an unofficial competition among governments to see who could produce the best
weapons.
WWI causes: alliance system
Rather than risk going it alone in armed conflict,
the Great Powers formed two competing military
alliances in the early twentieth century: Russia,
England, and France formed the Triple Entente and
Germany, Italy, and Austria-Hungary formed the
Triple Alliance. Geographically, the Entente was
positioned on Germany’s eastern and western
borders, leading that nation’s leaders to develop
“first strike” plans in both directions.
central powers adv
short-term.
- They were connected geographically; the Allies
were separated.
- Germany had the best trained and best equipped
army in the world going into the war.
- The German industrial system was better suited for
conversion to wartime production than were those
of the Allies.
allies adv
long-term
- The Allies had more men of military age than did
the Central Powers.
- The Allies had more factories, but converting them
to war production took time.
- The Allies had a stronger navy and therefore able
to enforce a blockade of the ports of the Central
Powers.
WWI: no one expected to be long
Germany attacked France
and Russiasimultaneously, expecting a quick victory that
would establish Germany as the unquestioned power in
Europe.
- When that did not occur, the two sides hunkered
down into defensive positions in France (the
Western Front) and Russia(the Eastern Front) by
the end of 1914.
- By 191 5, fighting spread to the Ottoman Empire
and the European colonies in Africa.
The new weapons of World War I—including the
machine gun, poison gas, the airplane, and the
submarine—led to changes in tactics and philosophies
about the rules of war.
- The machine gun’s rapid killing power forced
combatants on all sides into defensive trenches,
but despite the enormous losses, military leaders
repeatedly sent long lines of men charging across
“No Man’s Land,” the open fields that lay between
the opponents.
The result was four years of shocking numbers of
deaths and injuries. - An unintended consequence of this kind of
slaughter was a lowering of the value of humanity
in war. Civilians came to be considered legitimate
targets in “total war”—where the full economic
production and political power of nations were
engaged in military victory. Submarines torpedoed
enemy civilian ships—like the British steamship
Lusitania—and cannons indiscriminately fired huge
artillery shells into cities far away.
WWI: european global colonization
One effect of European global colonization was the use
of soldiers recruited from Africa and Asia to fight in the
war.
- India committed one million troops to aid the
British forces.
- Military campaigns ensued in the colonies,
especially in Africa, where German soldiers and
their African recruits battled British and French
soldiers and their African recruits.
- Australian soldiers joined their British counterparts
at the failed Allied assault on Gallipoli, in the
Ottoman Empire.
- The British also convinced Arabs to unite with
them against the Ottomans in Southwest Asia,
promising Arab independence from the Ottomans
as a reward.
WWI: us entrance
In 191 7, the United States entered World War I on the
Allies’ side “to make the world safe for democracy,”
an idealistic pledge made by U.S. President Woodrow
Wilson.
- By late 1918, the addition of U.S. soldiers pushed
the Central Powers to the breaking point, and an
armistice was signed. An armistice is an agreement
that all sides will lay down their arms and leave the
battlefield without declaring a winner—or loser.
- Wilson hoped for “peace without victory,”
believing that punishing Germany after the war
would lead to resentment and another war.After the fighting stopped, however, England
and France declared themselves the winners and
Germany the loser.
14 pt plan
President Wilson proposed the Fourteen Point plan,
designed to stop future wars through a checklist of
international agreements. The key component was an
international organization—the League of Nations—that
was set up to settle differences between member nations
before they erupted into armed conflict. The U.S.
Congress refused to join the very League that Wilson
created. Thus, the League was crippled from the outset.
what was treaty of versailles
The Treaty of Versailles approved the League of Nations
but, yielding to pressures from angry citizens back
home, the leaders of England and France also dictated
terms to the Central Powers and focused on punishing
Germany (so much for “peace without victory”).
Germany was required to take full blame for starting the
war, drastically reduce its military forces, and pay billions
in war reparations to England and France.
germany after WWI
- Many German people developed a strong sense of
resentment toward the Allied nations, especially
after their economy imploded in the 1920s due to
harsh reparation demands from the English and
French. - The German currency, the mark, plummeted
- The Allies required Germany to ditch its
constitutional monarchy and set up a republic—
known as the Weimar Republic. - The government was too frail and fragmented to
deal effectively with the unprecedented economic
crisis. These events caused many Germans to seek
radical alternatives to the Weimar Republic and to
seek revenge against England and France.
WWI casualties and locations
Approximately 20 million soldiers and civilians died in
the war, which was fought in Europe, Southwest Asia,
and Africa.
The political, social, and economic impact
of the loss of so many people shaped many Europeans’
attitudes about war for the next two decades:
In the
1930s, for example, a large number of citizens and
politicians in England and France favored appeasement,
giving in to an aggressor nation rather than challenging
it and risking war.
5 power treaty and lonndon conference of 193
The first two treaties limited the number of
battleships each nation could have. Japan rejected
the limits because it was allotted fewer ships than
the United States and England.
geneva conventions
The Geneva Conventions set rules for war,
particularly the treatment of prisoners of war.
kellogg-briand pact
outlawed war
reassignment of colonies
Many of the African and Middle Eastern colonies
controlled by Germany and the Ottoman Empire were
reassigned by the League of Nations to France and
England, who established a mandate system of rule over
them.
- Under this system, France and England were to
guide the Middle Eastern colonies of Syria and
Lebanon (France), Palestine and Jordan (England),
and Iraq (England) until the League decided the
colonies were ready for independence.
The reality of the situation was that these areas
were simply added to the British and French
colonial collection.
- These moves prompted more nationalist feelings
in the people living in the colonies in the Middle
East and Africa, and also in Southeast Asia.
2 superpowers after WWI
Two Allied nations, the United States and Japan,
emerged from the war with their industrial capacity and
colonial possessions intact, unlike most of Europe, and
were poised to rise to the top of the world’s economic
ladder.
empires that fell during or just after WWI
The Russian,Austrian, Ottoman, and German empires
fell during or just after World War l.
russia after WWI
Conducting the war amidst rising internal problems
proved too much for the Russian czar’s government.
- In 191 7, the czar resigned and was replaced by
a provisional democracy. But it quickly fell to a
communist uprising.
- Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin negotiated an
early withdrawal from the war with the German
government and thus fighting on the eastern front
ended.
- As payback for quitting the war early (and because
they feared the new communist government), the
other Allied powers pretended Russiahad never
been on their side and refused to give them a seat
at Versailles.
Arming their colonial subjects to support the war effort
may not have been in Europe’s best interest because
at the end of the war, nationalist leaders in African and
Asian colonies had military training and equipment.
- Adding to their inclinations toward independence,
many elites had learned about European ideals, such as self-rule, while attending European schools
before the war.
- Another encouragement for leaders of colonial
independence movements was found in a key
feature of the Fourteen Points plan—a call for
“self-determination” for nationalist groups. This
Wilsonian concept was specifically intended for
groups in Europe, but none of the colonial subjects
in Africa or Asia worried about that detail.
The Treaty of Versailles required Germany to
accept full guilt for the war, reduce its military
forces, hand over its colonies, and pay billions in
war reparations to England and France. Germany,
however, was rocked by overwhelming economic
collapse. These humiliations left many Germans
seeking vengeance.
great dep causes
- The United States was the chief financer of
England, France, and Germany’s debts in the
1920s, and when those nations struggled to repay
their loans, U.S. banks began to falter, setting off
chain reactions that damaged global financial
markets. - Another cause of the Great Depression was
overproduction of goods in the United States—
especially farm products. More produce meant
lower prices to farmers; lower prices meant
farmers defaulted on bank loans, banks closed,
and money supplies dried up.
result of great dep
The result in the industrialized nations was that, in
the 1930s, they all reorganized their governments
to be more active in financial matters.
- Italy, Germany, and Japan were the most
prominent nations that radically changed their
governmental and financial systems. These systems
were changed to fascism to address the economic
crises in these three countries.
- Russia—known as the Soviet Union after 1922—
was isolated from the global economy. Europe and
the United States wanted nothing
fascism
Italy introduced fascism in the 1920s as a political and
social means to address its post—World War I economic
woes.
- Under fascism, the government attempted to
control the economy—which was also the case in
communism—but it allowed private ownership of
businesses and other property—as was the case
in capitalism. One catch—all decisions ultimately
came from a single dictator with enormous power, and dissent was severely punished. Anyone
considered “outside” the accepted fascist model
faced unemployment, jail, or death.
- Before the international meltdown of the Great
Depression, Italy’s fascist system—led by Benito
Mussolini—appeared to be on an upswing in the
1920s.
- Fascism appealed to many people around the
world—Germany, Spain, and then Japan followed
Italy’s political model.
nazism
- The National Socialist (abbreviated “Nazi”) German
Workers’ Party was a fringe group in the early 1920s,
at a time when the Weimar Republic was floundering.
It claimed opposition to both democracy on one hand
and communism on the other, and promoted past and
future German glories. - After a failed coup in 1923 landed Hitler in
jail, he decided to undermine the Weimar
government from within the system. Impassioned
speeches about German glory gained Hitler
popular support, and the Nazis rose in power
in the Weimar legislature. Careful cultivation of
sympathetic government and business leaders
helped Hitler’s cause. - Using propaganda, lies, and murder, the Nazis
and Hitler were in absolute control of Germany by
1 934.
fascism requires
conquest to obtain cheap labor and
raw materials—and to unite its people against enemies,
real or invented.
- Italy invaded North Africa and Ethiopia in the
1930s.
- Germany invaded Czechoslovakia and Austria
about the same time.
