Unit 7 Overview: Global Conflict

3 min read•june 18, 2024

Jed Quiaoit

Unit 7 Overview: Global Conflict

The one thing you need to know about this unit:

Global conflict changed the status quo through shifts in power. Industrialization = Nationalism = More challenges to dominant nations = Imperialism = Interregional conflicts 🔫

Contextualizing the Unit 💥

The 1900s featured a heavily industrialized world where even nations like Japan and Russia have begun to catch up to dominant economies like western Europe and the U.S. The Second Industrial Revolution also gave birth to new technological, transportation and communication advances such as railroad systems, telegraphs, and machines - all of which made life more convenient for everyone!

However, imperialism in Asia (e.g. French in Indochina, British in India) and Africa (the infamous Scramble for Africa) gave rise to intensified conflicts as they became more lethal and prevalent as new weapons emerged: flamethrowers, machine guns, artillery, tanks, fighter planes, the list goes on. These deadly contraptions allowed powerful nations to wage wars against each other to gain more land and influence over local regions. These wars were fought by different people - Indians, Africans, Europeans, Asians, and even Americans - in different theaters across the globe.

As more people became aware of the world beyond them, they started to challenge the social order as new forms of government often came hand in hand with the emergence of political and economic ideologies (e.g. communist regimes, fascist dictatorships, parliamentary republics, etc.).

What exactly happened BEFORE and AFTER each global conflict in terms of politics, society, and economy? Time to find out. 🕘

Image Courtesy of US National Archives on Giphy

Main Events

1910-1920: Mexican Revolution

1914-1918: World War 1

1915: Armenian genocide starts

1917: Russian Revolution

1919: World War 1 ends, postwar negotiations in the Paris Peace Conferences

1920: League of Nations founded… and disbanded later on

1927-1936: Chinese Civil War

1928: Stalin initiates his first Five Year Plan within Soviet Russia

1929-1933: Great Depression

1939-1945: World War 2

1941: Attack on Pearl Harbor

1941-1945: The Holocaust

1945-1950: Chinese Communist Revolution

1945: Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings

1945: United Nations created

1947: Japanese Empire ends

1994: Rwandan genocide

Major Trends Between 1900 to Present

Industrialization transforms the world 🏭
- New weapons → drastic increase in death tolls
- Telegraph & radio networks → communication in battlefields
MAIN → global conflicts
- Militarism ⇒ arms race between nations → destructive firepower
- Alliances ⇒ nations fighting → allies jump in → multinational conflict
- Imperialism ⇒ nations competing over control in territories
- Nationalism ⇒ nations want to demonstrate military & political might
Wartime production → overproduction → lower demand & prices → unemployment → Great Depression → increase in government involvement in economy
- European loans to US → weaker economies than before WWI
- “Failure of capitalism” → rise of socialism & fascism
Postwar agreements → division of colonies among winners
- Local nationalism → anti-imperialist movements → decolonization
- Ethnic prejudice → genocides and violence against minorities
New global entities 🌎
- Organizations (i.e. League of Nations, UN) enforced rules over nations
- Treaties & alliances (i.e. Marshall Plan, NATO, Warsaw Pact) → capitalism vs. socialism → Cold War