AP World History: Modern Notes - Units 7-9

The last three units of AP World History: Modern cover over a hundred years of history. Jumpstart your exam prep with Barron’s AP World History: Modern Notes study notes for units 7-9. Review key exam topics, broad trends, and get an overview of AP World History: Modern Notes Units 7-9. Looking for more AP World History: Modern exam resources? Check out Barron’s AP World History: Modern Premium Test Prep Book and our AP World History Podcast.

AP World History: Modern - Overview of Units 7-9

The twentieth century ranks as one of history’s most tumultuous eras. It was a time of paradox and contradiction, leading the historian Eric Hobsbawm to label it the “age of extremes.” Democratic forms of government were adopted more widely than ever before (and women gained the vote in large parts of the world), but history’s most oppressive dictatorships appeared as well. The 1900s were a time of unprecedented prosperity but also of striking socioeconomic polarity, as the gap between rich and poor widened. There were tremendous cultural and scientific advancements but also the worst wars—including the modern form of violence known as genocide—and the greatest arms buildups in human history.

7 Things to Know About AP World History: Modern Units 7-9

1. The first half of the century was dominated by two mammoth conflicts: World War I and World War II, “total” wars characterized by improved military technology and new tactics, comprehensive mobilization of resources, and immense devastation. World War I destroyed several of the nineteenth century’s great empires and sapped Europe’s strength. World War II, the bloodiest conflict humanity has ever experienced—especially in combination with the Holocaust—dislodged Europe from its position of global mastery.

3. Sweeping trends dominated the century’s second half. One, resulting from Europe’s weakened status, was decolonization. From the 1940s through the 1970s, parts of Africa, Asia, and the Pacific previously under Western imperial control became free. This wave of national liberation created dozens of new nations. In some cases, decolonization proceeded peacefully. In others, decolonization was attained by force or caused nations to disintegrate into political chaos.

4. Another effect of World War II was a new geopolitical alignment, the Cold War. Since the late 1700s, world affairs had been determined by the workings of the European balance of power, but political and economic might was now concentrated in the hands of two evenly matched superpowers: the United States and the Soviet Union. This bipolar equilibrium persisted for four and a half decades, dividing most of the globe into two hostile camps—although the rise of China as a communist power opposed to the USSR, and the attempt of certain nations to form a nonaligned movement, provided diplomatic alternatives.

5. The twentieth century was an era of rapid modernization. Societies already industrialized when the 1900s began—North America, Europe, and Japan—became even more scientifically and technologically innovative and shifted toward postindustrial (or service) economies during the post–World War II era. Such societies are generally referred to as belonging to the developed world. A number of other countries, especially in Asia, have similarly modernized. The developing or nondeveloped world (or in Cold War terms, the Third World) includes most other regions, which lag behind economically and technologically. In global terms, a wide economic gap—the north-south split—opened between richer societies above the equator and poorer ones below it.

6. The 1980s and 1990s saw the collapse of communism in Europe and the USSR and, with that, the end of the Cold War. The same decades witnessed a wave of democratization in many parts of the world, as well as the increased globalization of the world economy. The greater ease with which ethnicities and traditions mix has stimulated a high degree of multiculturalism. Metaphorically speaking, mass communications and transport have eliminated geographical distance, making the world a more connected place. This is especially due to the proliferation of computer technology, which has caused an information (or digital) revolution. Entities other than nation-states—such as multinational corporations, nongovernmental organizations, and regional trade alliances—have had an increasingly large impact on world affairs.

7. The world’s general direction in the twenty-first century remains unclear. Many trends, such as the end of the nuclear arms race, economic globalization, and the spread of popular culture, mass communications, and computer technology, seem to be drawing the world closer together. Other developments threaten to pull the world further apart, including ethnic violence and genocide, extreme forms of nationalism, religious fundamentalism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, potential tensions between China and the West, and ongoing tensions between the West and Islamic states. The same is true of terrorism, most notably in the aftermath of the al-Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001. On the planetary level, all modern societies, developed or undeveloped, have had an immensely greater impact on the environment. The most harmful effect today is climate change, especially in the form of global warming.

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AP World History: Modern - Broad Trends in Units 7-9

Governance, 1900 -1945

Dramatic political changes have characterized the 1900s and 2000s. Two world wars reshaped global affairs, weakening Europe’s position of global dominance after 1914 and dismantling it altogether after 1945. Both were total wars that required near-complete mobilization of human and economic resources. During the interwar years, the future of democracy seemed doubtful with the seemingly inexorable rise of dictatorships, including totalitarian regimes like Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany.

Throughout the century, new weapons and tactics made warfare steadily more destructive and increased its impact on civilian populations. It also gave rise to new categories of violence, such as genocide. Consider the following factors as underlying sources of conflict during the first half of the 1900s: aggressive expansion of empires by Europe and Japan; Anglo-German geopolitical rivalry; ethnic tensions and racial hatred; nationalism; competition for resources; and international economic stress caused by the Great Depression.

Governance, 1945 to the Present

For almost five decades after World War II, most of the world was divided by the Cold War into hostile camps led by the United States and the USSR.

Domestic developments worked themselves out in myriad ways during the postwar years. Geopolitical struggle resulted in a nuclear arms race and the creation of massive military- industrial complexes that still operate today. Warfare continued to harm large numbers of civilians. Also during the Cold War, a wave of decolonization deprived the European powers of their empires. Sometimes through peaceful negotiation, sometimes through violent separation, dozens of new nations were formed in Asia, Africa, and the Pacific.

During the 1980s and 1990s, communism in Eastern Europe and the USSR collapsed, ending the Cold War, and a number of other dictatorships democratized as well. This left the United States as the world’s sole superpower, with China, which remained communist—as a rising power. The al-Qaeda terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, began a new global struggle, the U.S.-led war on terror, which sparked wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and sharpened tensions between the West and the Islamic world. Although the end of the Cold War removed the threat of superpower-caused nuclear annihilation, heightened geopolitical instability and recurrent instances of genocide and ethnic cleansing have prevailed ever since.

Europe 

• World War I (1914–1918, trench warfare) and Paris Peace Conference (1919, Treaty of Versailles)
• Russia’s October Revolution (1917, Vladimir Lenin)
• Weakness of interwar democracies (effects of Great Depression) vs. rise of totalitarian dictatorships (Soviet Russia, Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany)
• Civilian involvement in war (Guernica, Battle of Britain, strategic bombing and Dresden)
• Collective security vs. appeasement in 1930s diplomacy (Munich Agreement)
• World War II (1939–1945, blitzkrieg, aerial warfare)
• Genocide (Holocaust, ethnic cleansing in Yugoslav wars)
• Cold War rivalry (arms race and MAD, containment and domino principle, détente, fall of Berlin Wall)
• “Iron Curtain” division of Europe (NATO vs. Warsaw Pact, Berlin Wall)
• Social welfare systems and economic union in Western Europe (EU)
• East European dissidents (Solidarity) and Soviet perestroika in USSR
• Collapse of European communism (1989–1991) and post-communist “shock therapy” (1990s)

Middle East

• World War I (1914–1918, Gallipoli)
• Genocide (Armenians in Ottoman Empire)
• Paris Peace Conference and the mandate system
• Interwar modernization under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and Reza Shah Pahlavi
• Arab-Israeli conflict (Balfour Declaration, partition of Palestine, Arab-Israeli wars, PLO and Hamas, Camp David and Oslo Accords, First and Second Intifadas)
• OPEC and the geopolitical importance of Middle Eastern oil
• Gamal Nasser (Pan-Arabism) and nationalization of Suez Canal
• Iranian Revolution (1979, Shah of Iran vs. Ayatollah Khomeini)
• Iran-Iraq War and Gulf War (Desert Storm)
• al-Qaeda attacks of 9/11/2001 and U.S.-led “war on terror” (Iraq, Afghanistan)
• Arab Spring + Syrian civil war + ISIS

Africa

• Civilian involvement in war (Italian terror bombing of Ethiopia, child soldiers, Boko Haram abductions)
• Negotiated vs. violent decolonization in Africa (Ghana and French West Africa vs. Algeria, Congo, and Biafra)
• Kwame Nkrumah and Pan-Africanism (Organization of African Unity) authoritarianism in Africa (Joseph Mobutu, Idi Amin)
• Apartheid in South Africa (African National Congress, Nelson Mandela)
• Genocide (Rwanda, Darfur)
• Impact of HIV/AIDS on society and politics

East (and Central) Asia

• Chinese Revolution (1911–1912, Sun Yat-sen, Chiang Kai-shek, and KMT)
• Japanese invasion of China (1931+) and World War II (1939–1945, East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere)
• Civilian involvement in war (Nanjing, Tokyo firebombing, Hiroshima)
• Japan’s economic resurgence and Asia’s “little tigers”
• Mao Tse-tung and People’s Republic of China (1949+, Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution)
• Korean War (1950–1953)
• Deng Xiaoping (economic reform in China, Tiananmen Square protests)
• Economic growth and potential superpower status for Communist China
• Nuclear weapons in North Korea

South (and Southeast) Asia and Oceania

• National liberation in India (Indian National Congress, Mohandas Gandhi and nonviolence)
• World War II (1939–1945, East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere)
• Indochina and Vietnam wars (1945–1975, Ho Chi Minh)
• Indian and Pakistani independence (1947, Jawaharlal Nehru) 
• Indonesian war of independence (1945–1949, Sukarno)
• Genocide (Khmer Rouge in Cambodia)
• Indo-Pakistani rivalry and nuclear weapons

Americas 

• U.S. sphere of influence in Latin America
• Mexican Revolution (1910–1920, PRI)
• Cold War rivalry (arms race and MAD, containment and domino principle, détente, fall of Berlin Wall)
• Authoritarianism in Latin America (Juan Perón, Augusto Pinochet, death squads)
• Genocide (Mayans in Guatemala)
• Cuban Revolution (1959, Fidel Castro, Bay of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis)
• Nicaraguan Revolution (1979, Sandinistas vs. Contras)

Global and Interregional

• International organizations (League of Nations, United Nations, GATT/WTO, International Criminal Court)
• Total wars (civilian casualties, economic mobilization, conscription, restrictions on civil liberties)
• Ethnic violence and genocide
• World War I and World War II
• Global impact of Cold War (proxy wars and brushfire conflicts) decolonization and national liberation
• Rise of terrorism (PLO, IRA, FLQ, Shining Path, al-Qaeda)
• Asymmetrical warfare (WMDs and RMA vs. low-intensity and guerrilla wars)
• Nuclear proliferation (“nuclear club” vs. unofficial programs)

Cultural Developments and Interactions, 1900 to the Present

The hallmarks of twentieth- and twenty-first-century thought and culture have been rapid change and incredible diversity. After World War II, high art in the West began its transition from the modern period (considered in cultural and intellectual terms to have lasted roughly from the 1870s through the 1940s) to the contemporary era, also referred to as the postmodern era.

Other major trends, both in the West and beyond, have included multiculturalism—the interaction and fusion of the world’s various ethnic, artistic, and intellectual traditions—and the effect of mass media technology on culture and the arts. The information (or digital) revolution caused by the widespread availability of computers and the invention of the World Wide Web has vastly altered cultural life in the 1990s and beyond.

Europe

• Uncertainty and anxiety in high culture (impact of world wars, Freudian thought)
• Mass media (high culture, entertainment, propaganda)
• Digitization and social media
• Sports professionalized and politicized
• Existentialism
• Synthetic spirituality (new age, Hare Krishna)

Middle East

• Adoption and adaptation of Western high culture
• Mass media (high culture, entertainment, propaganda)
• Digitization and social media
• Sports professionalized and politicized
• Americanization and westernization of global culture (“coca-colonization”)
• Religious fundamentalism

Africa

• Adoption and adaptation of Western high culture
• Mass media (high culture, entertainment, propaganda)
• Digitization and social media
• Sports professionalized and politicized
• Americanization and westernization of global culture (“coca-colonization”)

East (and Central) Asia

• Adoption and adaptation of Western high culture
• Mass media (high culture, entertainment, propaganda)
• Digitization and social media
• Sports professionalized and politicized
• Americanization and westernization of global culture (“coca-colonization”)
• Synthetic spirituality (Falun Gong)

South (and Southeast) Asia and Oceania

• Adoption and adaptation of Western high culture
• Mass media (high culture, entertainment, propaganda)
• Digitization and social media
• Sports professionalized and politicized
• Americanization and westernization of global culture (“coca-colonization”)
• Religious fundamentalism

Americas

• Uncertainty and anxiety in high culture (impact of world wars, Freudian thought)
• Mass media (high culture, entertainment, propaganda)
• Digitization and social media
• Sports professionalized and politicized existentialism
• Americanization and westernization of Latin American culture (“coca-colonization”)
• Synthetic spirituality (new age, Hare Krishna)
• Religious fundamentalism
• Liberation theology

Global and Interregional

• Modernity vs. postmodernity
• Multiculturalism (Marshall McLuhan’s “global village,” Bollywood, manga, influence of BBC)
• Impact of global conflict on mass culture (James Bond, video games)
• Social media
• Sports professionalized and politicized (modern Olympics)

Technology and Innovation, 1900 to the Present

Scientific and technological advancement during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has been unceasing and spectacular. At breathtaking speed, even beyond the rapid pace set during the industrial era of the 1800s, each invention and insight has sparked new and related innovations. Scientific discoveries have built upon each other in similar fashion, vastly expanding intellectual frontiers.

Although cutting-edge technology and science can be found on every part of the planet, great diversity persists when it comes to the question of how thoroughly they have been adopted or how widely available they are. The advantage possessed here by Europe, North America, and parts of Asia is part of the north-south split discussed in other chapters.

Europe

• Fastest and most thorough progress in new scientific fields

Middle East

• Ongoing progress in new scientific fields

Africa

• Ongoing progress in new scientific fields

East (and Central) Asia

• Fast and thorough progress in new scientific fields (mainly in postwar period)

South (and Southeast) Asia and Oceania

• Ongoing progress in new scientific fields (fast and thorough in certain places)

Americas

• Progress in new scientific fields (fastest and most thorough in North America)

Global and Interregional

• Varying degrees of progress in new scientific fields
• Theoretical physics (relativity and quantum theory)
• Nuclear power + renewable energy (wind, solar, geothermal)
• Agricultural science and technology (Green Revolution)
• Aviation + rocketry and space science
• New weaponry
• Medical advances + birth control + genetic science (DNA)
• Consumer electronics + mass media + social media
• Computers and the digital (information) revolution

Economic Systems, 1900 to the Present

The twentieth and twenty-first centuries have witnessed experiments with many forms of economic organization. There has been a steady march toward the globalization of economic affairs and a more recent one toward the digitization of economic exchange and consumer culture.

These developments have presented both costs and benefits, and their full impact has yet to be measured. Immense wealth has been created in the aggregate during this era—more than the world has ever seen before—but it remains very unevenly distributed, both within societies and between them. Moreover, economies the world over remain vulnerable to business cycles of periodic boom and bust, and the more integrated they become, the more vulnerability they share.

Europe

• Impact of Great Depression (low exports, mass unemployment)
• State intervention: Soviet nationalization (five-year plans) + state capitalism (syndicalism) in fascist nations + democracies’ relief and welfare programs (Keynesian theory)
• Bretton Woods system (World Bank, IMF, GATT)
• Marshall Plan vs. Soviet economic zone in Eastern Europe
• Economic union in Western Europe (European Coal and Steel, European Economic Community, European Union)
• 1970s economic crisis (gold standard, oil embargo, stagflation)
• 1980s free-market reform and liberalization (Margaret Thatcher and theories of Milton Friedman; Mikhail Gorbachev and perestroika)
• Globalization in 1990s and 2000s
• G7/G8
• The EU and the euro (“eurozone”)
• 2007 economic crisis + 2016 Brexit vote + 2020–2021 COVID-19 shock

Middle East

• Bretton Woods system (World Bank, IMF, GATT)
• State intervention: Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal
• OPEC
• 1970s economic crisis (gold standard, oil embargo, stagflation)
• Globalization in 1990s and 2000s
• North-south split
• 2007 economic crisis + 2020–2021 COVID-19 shock

Africa

• Bretton Woods system (World Bank, IMF, GATT)
• State intervention: Julius Nyerere’s modernizing reforms
• 1970s economic crisis (gold standard, oil embargo, stagflation)
• Globalization in 1990s and 2000s
• African Free Trade Zone
• North-south split
• 2007 economic crisis + 2020–2021 COVID-19 shock

East (and Central) Asia

• State intervention: zaibatsu in imperial Japan
• Impact of Great Depression (low exports, mass unemployment)
• Bretton Woods system (World Bank, IMF, GATT) + Asia’s economic “tigers”
• 1970s economic crisis (gold standard, oil embargo, stagflation)
• G7/G8 (Japan)
• Economic intervention: Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward
• 1980s free-market reform and liberalization (Deng Xiaoping’s limited capitalism in China)
• Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group
• Globalization in 1990s and 2000s
• Some nations afflicted by north-south split
• 2007 economic crisis + 2020–2021 COVID-19 shock

South (and Southeast) Asia and Oceania

• Bretton Woods system (World Bank, IMF, GATT)
• State intervention: Indira Gandhi, Sirimavo Bandaranaike
• 1970s economic crisis (gold standard, oil embargo, stagflation)
• Globalization in 1990s and 2000s
• North-south split
• 2007 economic crisis + 2020–2021 COVID-19 shock

Americas

• U.S. origins of Great Depression (Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act)
• Economic intervention: New Deal (Keynesian theory) + Lázaro Cárdenas’s nationalization of Mexico’s oil industry
• Impact of Great Depression on Latin America (low exports, mass unemployment)
• Bretton Woods system (World Bank, IMF, GATT)
• 1970s economic crisis (gold standard, oil embargo, stagflation)
• G7/G8
• 1980s free-market reform and liberalization (Ronald Reagan, Augusto Pinochet, and theories of Milton Friedman)
• Globalization in 1990s and 2000s
• NAFTA + Mercosur
• 2007 economic crisis + 2020–2021 COVID-19 shock

Global and Interregional

• Partial or widespread industrialization of non developed and developing world
• Dominance of post industrial knowledge and service economies in developed world
• Observance of Bretton Woods system by majority of noncommunist world
• Growing importance of multinational corporations
• Rise of regional economic associations and free-trade zones
• Transition from GATT to WTO

Social Interactions and Organizations, 1900 to the Present

Different parts of the world have experienced social transformations differently. As a rule, the changes of the 1900s and early 2000s proceeded along four basic tracks:

Track #1: In Western Europe, the United States, and Canada—the West—as well as in Australia and New Zealand, movement (although in some cases slow or nonexistent before the end of World War II) was toward stable democratization, social equality and individual rights, economic prosperity, the creation of social welfare systems, the shift from industrial to postindustrial production, and rapid scientific and technological development.

Track #2: Prosperous nations in Asia—first Japan, then others like Taiwan, South Korea, Indonesia, and Singapore—made great strides toward economic and technological modernization, especially after World War II. They urbanized, built social welfare systems, and developed postindustrial, high-tech economies. However, they were (and in some cases remain) slower to embrace democracy and tolerate the individualism that had come to characterize Western societies in the 1800s and 1900s.

Track #3: The USSR and Eastern Europe modernized economically. They urbanized and developed social welfare systems, and technological and scientific advancement was considerable. However, political systems were repressive, and not only were economies here overly centralized, but also they remained industrial rather than postindustrial and were cruder in terms of technological finesse than in the West. Even after the collapse of communism, it has been difficult for this region to move toward democracy and prosperity.

Track #4: To one degree or another, the developing nations of Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America are striving to create advanced economies, modern societies, and representative forms of government. Some have made progress, attaining a high level of prosperity or a functioning democracy or both. Others are mired in backwardness, poverty, civil strife, and dictatorship. Most are somewhere in between. Perhaps the most distinctive case is the People’s Republic of China, which has the geography, population, and military capacity of a major power and whose economy has grown considerably since the 1980s. But China’s government is still authoritarian, and social and economic progress remains uneven. Some economists use the acronym BRIC to refer to Brazil, Russia, India, and China, countries whose socioeconomic development does not yet match that of the West but which have been rapidly modernizing and gaining global clout.

Europe

• Features of Western and developed societies (transition to postindustrial and service-oriented lifestyles)
• Social activism: 1968 global protests + Solidarity and Eastern European anticommunist protests
• Ethnic violence and anti-immigration sentiment (anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, persecution of Roma, former Yugoslavia, animosity toward “guest workers” and Muslim refugees)
• Migration from former colonies and spheres of influence (India, Pakistan, Caribbean, Indonesia, Africa)
• Extension of vote to women (near total)
• Feminism and significant progress toward gender equality (Simone de Beauvoir)
• Emerging LGBTQ+ rights

Middle East

• Partial transition to industrial or postindustrial lifestyles
• Social activism: Arab Spring
• Ethnic violence and anti-immigration sentiment (Turkish massacre of Armenians, Arab-Israeli conflict)
• Extension of vote to women (limited to partial)
• Limitations on gender equality

Africa

• Partial transition to industrial or postindustrial lifestyles
• Social activism: anti-apartheid movement in South Africa
• Ethnic violence and anti-immigration sentiment (Rwanda, Darfur)
• Extension of vote to women (partial)
• Limitations on gender equality

East (and Central) Asia

• Partial transition to postindustrial and service-oriented lifestyles
• Rise of BRIC nations
• Social activism: Tiananmen Square protests
• Extension of vote to women (widespread)
• Many limitations to gender equality removed

South (and Southeast) Asia and Oceania

• Partial transition to postindustrial and service-oriented lifestyles
• Rise of BRIC nations
• Ethnic violence and anti-immigration sentiment (Indo-Pakistani violence)
• Indian caste system weakened
• End of White Australia policy
• Social activism: self-immolation of Thich Quang Duc
• Extension of vote to women (widespread)
• Some limitations on gender equality

Americas

• Features of Western and developed societies (transition to postindustrial and service-oriented lifestyles; full in North America, partial in Latin America)
• Rise of BRIC nations
• Social activism: Jim Crow laws vs. civil rights movement in United States + 1968 global protests
• Ethnic violence and anti-immigration sentiment (Mayans in Guatemala, U.S. “melting pot” ideal vs. nativist impulses)
• Migration from spheres of influence (Puerto Rico, Philippines)
• Extension of vote to women (near total)
• Feminism and significant progress toward gender equality (Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, NOW)
• Emerging LGBTQ+ rights

Global and Interregional

• Rapid population growth social equality vs. hierarchy
• Urbanization and suburbanization
• Undeveloped vs. industrial vs. postindustrial lifestyles (north-south split)
• Growing importance of social activism (national liberation, civil rights and racial equality, opposition to war, 1968 global protests, feminism)
• Ethnic violence and anti-immigration sentiment
• Extension of vote to women (widespread)
• Uneven progress toward gender equality and LGBTQ+ rights

Humans and Environments, 1900 to the Present

At no other point in history has human activity had such an overpowering environmental impact as it has had during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Population growth, due principally to improvements in medicine and public-health programming, has exploded. That, combined with ever-increasing reliance on energy-dependent technology, has led to unprecedented and continually mounting levels of resource extraction and consumption. Pollution and species extinction threaten the well-being of the environment as never before, and humanity’s earth-shaping capacity now operates quite literally on a planetary scale—with consequences such as widespread flooding, deforestation, desertification, and climate change in the form of global warming.

Europe

• Comprehensive vaccination (eradication of polio and smallpox)
• Diseases associated with lifestyle and longevity (diabetes, Alzheimer’s)
• Famine in Stalin’s USSR
• Modern environmentalism (recycling, NGOs, parties)
• Strongest environmental regulations
• Environmental disasters (Chernobyl)

Middle East

• Oil industry and environmental impact of fossil fuels
• Agricultural impact of Green Revolution
• Aswan High Dam

Africa

• Ebola
• HIV/AIDS (origination and particular severity)
• Famine in Ethiopia and elsewhere
• Green Belt movement

East (and Central) Asia

• Diseases associated with lifestyle and longevity (diabetes, Alzheimer’s)
• Famine in Mao’s China
• Agricultural impact of Green Revolution
• Three Gorges Dam
• Environmental disasters (Fukushima)

South (and Southeast) Asia and Oceania

• Spanish flu pandemic (particular severity)
• Famine in India
• Agricultural impact of Green Revolution
• Environmental disasters (Bhopal incident, Southeast Asian tsunami)

Americas

• Comprehensive vaccination in North America (eradication of polio and smallpox)
• Diseases associated with lifestyle and longevity (diabetes, Alzheimer’s)
• “Dust bowl” crisis in United States and Canada
• Agricultural impact of Green Revolution (Latin America)
• Modern environmentalism (John Muir, Rachel Carson, Earth Day, Greenpeace, recycling)
• Strongest environmental regulations (North America)
• Environmental disasters (“dust bowl” crisis, Three Mile Island, Exxon Valdez, Hurricane Katrina, Deepwater)

Global and Interregional

• Vaccination campaigns + greater availability of birth control
• Pandemics: Spanish flu + HIV/AIDS + COVID-19
• Rapid population growth (fastest in non developed and developing worlds)
• Environmental impact of fossil-fuel dependency + water shortages
• Pollution and ecosystem destruction + ozone depletion
• Species endangerment
• Global warming (Kyoto and Paris Agreements vs. climate-change denial)