Unit 9 (Globalization) — How Innovation Spread and Why People Pushed Back

Globalization

The growing interconnection of the world’s economies, cultures, and people, accelerated after 1900 as technology made cross-border movement cheaper, faster, and easier.

Friction of distance

The barriers created by cost, time, and difficulty of moving goods, people, money, and ideas; after 1900, technology reduced this friction.

Container shipping

The use of standardized metal containers that move easily between ships, trains, and trucks, dramatically lowering shipping costs and reducing port delays.

Global supply chains

Production systems in which parts are made in multiple countries, assembled elsewhere, and sold worldwide, enabled by reliable low-cost transport and logistics.

Digital networks (internet and mobile phones)

Networked, interactive communication technologies that allow rapid cross-border publishing, coordination, and real-time economic and political activity.

Green Revolution

Mid-to-late 20th century spread of high-yield crop varieties along with expanded irrigation, synthetic fertilizers, and pesticides to increase agricultural output.

Nuclear power

Electricity generation using controlled nuclear reactions; offered high-output energy but raised concerns about accidents, waste storage, and links to weapons proliferation.

Vaccine

A medical technology that trains the immune system to recognize a pathogen, reducing the risk of severe disease.

Mass immunization

Large-scale vaccination programs aimed at protecting whole populations; success depends on organization, infrastructure, trust, funding, and political stability.

Smallpox eradication

A major example of successful global disease elimination through vaccination; widely recognized as eradicated by 1980.

Antibiotics

Drugs that treat bacterial infections, transforming medicine by making many once-deadly infections survivable and enabling safer surgery.

Antibiotic resistance

The evolution of bacteria so that antibiotics become less effective, encouraged by overuse or misuse and capable of spreading across borders.

HIV/AIDS

A global pandemic widely recognized in the late 20th century; its impacts and responses were shaped by stigma, inequality, state capacity, and international funding.

Malaria

A persistent disease (especially in many tropical regions) that highlights limits of technology because outcomes depend heavily on poverty, environment, infrastructure, and sustained prevention efforts.

World Health Organization (WHO)

A UN agency focused on international public health that supports surveillance, shares best practices, coordinates campaigns, and helps mobilize resources across countries.

Health inequality (unequal access)

The pattern in which treatment, vaccines, and reliable healthcare are distributed unevenly, strongly shaping who benefits from medical advances and who remains vulnerable.

Human rights

The idea that all people possess fundamental rights by virtue of being human (e.g., political freedom, legal equality, protection from abuse), formalized more after World War II.

State sovereignty

The principle that states control what happens within their borders, sometimes creating tension with international human-rights norms and enforcement efforts.

Amnesty International

A transnational human-rights NGO (founded in 1961) that documents abuses, publicizes them, and mobilizes pressure to influence government policies.

Environmentalism

A reform movement advocating protection of the natural world, emphasizing that industrial growth and consumerism can create unsustainable harm that often crosses borders.

Greenpeace

An environmental NGO (founded in 1971) known for transnational activism using media attention, direct action, and lobbying to pressure governments and corporations.

Anti-globalization movement

Movements arguing that global economic integration can increase inequality, weaken labor protections, and empower multinational corporations; often call for regulated globalization rather than ending trade entirely.

Race to the bottom

The claim that, without strong regulation, competition in global markets can push firms to seek the cheapest labor and weakest environmental rules, undermining standards.

Feminist movements (gender-equality campaigns)

Reform movements pushing for legal rights, political representation, workplace equality, and control over reproductive choices; increasingly transnational through NGOs, conferences, and media.

Repression and surveillance

A common government response to reform movements and information technologies, including censorship, arrests, limits on NGOs, and expanded monitoring (often justified as security or stability).