Period 4 Notes (1900-Present)
AP World History: Modern Exam — Period 4 Notes (1900-Present)
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AP World History: Modern Key Takeaways — Period 4 (1900-Present)
Military conflicts are central to understanding the course of the twentieth century and the current system of states and international organizations. The world wars led to rapid advances in technology, including medical technology, which has helped the global population increase to over seven billion. Some current regional conflicts like those in the Middle East are the legacy of the world wars.
Revolutions and nationalist movements played an important role, especially in the period of de- colonization after WWII. Some existing countries experienced revolutions, like China and Russia, while other countries were created through nationalist movements, like Vietnam. Some current regional conflicts are the legacy of these movements, such as the dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir.
In the second half of the twentieth century into the present, political and economic reforms reshaped interstate relations, and the world economy became more integrated. The fall of the Soviet Union, the opening of Chinese trade with the United States in the 1970s, the formation of the European Union, and the population and industrial growth of states have led to significant structural changes.
Advances in computer technology, especially the growth of the Internet from the 1990s to the present, have changed economic and social structures. While this technology brought about new ways of communication and has fundamentally changed economies in the developed world, it has also led to new types of crime, such as hacking and identity theft.
Over the course of the twentieth century, social structures changed to include more rights for minority groups and women. The decline of traditional social structures has been caused by many factors, such as changes in the workforce, new concepts of human rights in the post-WWII period, and the rapid growth and industrialization of the global south.
Globalization in the economic and cultural spheres also increased, including the advent of mass culture based on new communications technologies like radio, television, and the Internet. This has accelerated changes caused by the other significant events in the period, such as the world wars, the expansion of human rights, and the interconnection of global trade.
Key Terms: Period 4 (1900-Present)
Remember that the AP World History exam tests you on the depth of your knowledge, not just your ability to recall facts. While we have provided brief definitions here, you will need to know these terms in even more depth for the AP exam, including how terms connect to broader historical themes and understandings.
Origins of World War I
Alliances: A formal system of treaties binding participant states to mutual military aid in the case of attack by a third party.
Militarism: System of national organization that prioritizes military spending and glorifies conflict and military service; examples include the British Empire and the Soviet Union.
World War I: Global conflict that began in Europe in 1914 and continued until November 1918, concluding with the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.
World War I
Total war: Style of warfare which reorders national economies toward war and includes civilians as targets; movement away from rules of limited engagement in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; common examples are World War I and World War II.
League of Nations: International organization created after World War I as part of the peace effort; weakened by the absence of the United States, which never joined, and the Soviet Union, which was expelled; precursor to the United Nations; dissolved prior to World War II.
Mohandas Gandhi: Leader of the Indian Independence Movement known for a strategy of nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience; inspired later leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Dalai Lama.
Global Depression
World War II: Global conflict from 1939 to 1945 between the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) and the Allied powers (Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States); led to the collapse of the European and Japanese empires and changed the world’s political and economic structure.
Great Depression: Global economic depression sparked by the collapse of the American stock market in 1929; led to the rise of fascism and WWII; affected the global economy but was especially severe in Europe, which was still recovering from WWI.
Rise of Fascist and Totalitarian States
Fascism: Governmental system organized around extreme nationalism, militarism, and consolidation of state power in a single charismatic leader.
Benito Mussolini: Leader of Italy’s Blackshirts and key proponent of fascism as an anti-communist movement; deposed King Vittorio Emmanuel II and established a fascist government in 1922.
Adolf Hitler: Austrian-born German leader who planned to restore Germany to its prewar status 126 through militarism, ultranationalism, extreme violence, and anti-Semitism; appointed chancellor in 1933; leader of the National Socialist Ger- man Workers Party (NSDAP), commonly called the Nazi Party.
Joseph Stalin: Took control of Russia after the death of Vladimir Lenin; created a system of one-man dictatorial rule known as Stalinism; oversaw mass purges and pogroms in Soviet Russia until his death in 1953.
World War II
Firebombing: Use of incendiary bombs during warfare, often directed at cities and other civilian targets; used extensively during World War II.
Atomic bomb: Developed in the United States during World War II and used against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, sparking an arms race that continued into the Cold War.
United Nations: International organization founded in 1945 with the intent of settling postwar concerns and the creation of a new global order based on mutual peacekeeping; mostly focused on human rights in the modern era.
Cold War: Ideological struggle between the capitalist United States and the communist Soviet Union from 1949 to 1993 that included many other states in proxy wars and alliance networks, like NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
Revolutions
Vladimir Lenin: Leader of the Bolsheviks in Russia during World War I; seized power in 1917 and created the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
Mao Zedong: Leader of the Chinese Communist Party in the 1920s and 1930s; reemerged in the 1940s to fight the Nationalists (Kuomintang) under Chiang Kai-shek; leader of China from 1949–1976; promoted mass purges and modernization programs, following the Stalinist example.
Great Leap Forward: Mao Zedong’s plan starting in 1958 to collectivize all aspects of the econ- omy, most notably by having communal houses with backyard furnaces for steel production; led to millions of deaths from starvation.
Fidel Castro: Guerrilla leader of Cuba who deposed Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959; allied Cuba with the Soviet Union; led the country until his resignation in favor of his brother Raul Castro in 2008.
The Cold War
Proxy wars: Regional conflicts that typically involve tacit or hidden support from major powers who are antagonistic to one another but not openly at war; were particularly common during the Cold War era; sometimes directly involved the armed forces of major powers (e.g., the Vietnam War and the United States, and the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s).
Vietnam: Southeast Asian nation that formed after the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954; divided into North and South Vietnam, site of an important proxy war during the Cold War; unified into one country after U.S. withdrawal in 1973 and communist victory in 1975.
NATO: North Atlantic Treaty Organization, founded in 1949 by the nations of North America and Europe to counter the spread of communism in Eastern Europe.
Warsaw Pact: Alliance formed in 1955 by the Soviet Union and seven Eastern Bloc countries to counteract the growing influence of NATO.
Non-Aligned Movement: International organization formed during decolonization to promote a middle path for newly independent nations between the United States and the Soviet Union in the Cold War.
European Union: Supranational organization in Europe promoting common economic regu- lation and growth; grew out of the European Economic Community, which was founded in 1957; commonly referred to as the EU.
Independence and Nationalist Movements
Indian National Congress: Political party founded in 1885 by British-educated Hindu leaders that pushed for Indian independence along the model of a federal state.
Muhammad Ali Jinnah: Muslim political leader who supported the creation of an independent Muslim nation as a counter to the federal idea of the Indian National Congress; became the first leader of Pakistan after partition.
Indian/Pakistan Partition: Creation of Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority India after Great Britain granted India independence in 1947; led to mass migration, a refugee crisis, and hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths.
Algeria: Former French colony and the largest nation in Northwest Africa; gained independence in 1962; still closely connected with France economically and culturally.
Ho Chi Minh: Vietnamese nationalist leader who fought against the Japanese during the Axis occupation of French Indochina in World War II, then fought the French after the war, then fought the American-supported regime in South Vietnam to create a unified communist Vietnam in 1975.
Political Reform and Economic Changes
Deng Xiaoping: Leader of communist China from Mao Zedong’s death in 1976 to his own death in 1997; instituted the Four Modernizations to introduce capitalist reform in China.
Tiananmen Square: Large public square in Beijing, China. Site of a 1989 conflict between students protesting for democratic reform and the Chinese military defending the leadership of Deng Xiaoping.
Technology, Populations, and the Environment
Green Revolution: Technological movement in the 1960s and 70s that introduced new agricultural techniques and high-yield seed strains in an attempt to boost food production in developing countries.
Cholera: Acute bacterial infection of the small intestine associated with inadequate sanitation and unsanitary drinking water; associated with poverty and developing nations.
Social and Cultural Changes
Liberation theology in Latin America: Movement in the Roman Catholic Church that argued for Church attention to focus on world issues of poverty, human rights, and economic justice.
AP World History: Modern Exam — Period 4 Notes (1900-Present)
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Get the full Kaplan AP World History: Modern book from Amazon
Sign up for an AP World History: Modern Review Session
AP World History: Modern Key Takeaways — Period 4 (1900-Present)
Military conflicts are central to understanding the course of the twentieth century and the current system of states and international organizations. The world wars led to rapid advances in technology, including medical technology, which has helped the global population increase to over seven billion. Some current regional conflicts like those in the Middle East are the legacy of the world wars.
Revolutions and nationalist movements played an important role, especially in the period of de- colonization after WWII. Some existing countries experienced revolutions, like China and Russia, while other countries were created through nationalist movements, like Vietnam. Some current regional conflicts are the legacy of these movements, such as the dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir.
In the second half of the twentieth century into the present, political and economic reforms reshaped interstate relations, and the world economy became more integrated. The fall of the Soviet Union, the opening of Chinese trade with the United States in the 1970s, the formation of the European Union, and the population and industrial growth of states have led to significant structural changes.
Advances in computer technology, especially the growth of the Internet from the 1990s to the present, have changed economic and social structures. While this technology brought about new ways of communication and has fundamentally changed economies in the developed world, it has also led to new types of crime, such as hacking and identity theft.
Over the course of the twentieth century, social structures changed to include more rights for minority groups and women. The decline of traditional social structures has been caused by many factors, such as changes in the workforce, new concepts of human rights in the post-WWII period, and the rapid growth and industrialization of the global south.
Globalization in the economic and cultural spheres also increased, including the advent of mass culture based on new communications technologies like radio, television, and the Internet. This has accelerated changes caused by the other significant events in the period, such as the world wars, the expansion of human rights, and the interconnection of global trade.
Key Terms: Period 4 (1900-Present)
Remember that the AP World History exam tests you on the depth of your knowledge, not just your ability to recall facts. While we have provided brief definitions here, you will need to know these terms in even more depth for the AP exam, including how terms connect to broader historical themes and understandings.
Origins of World War I
Alliances: A formal system of treaties binding participant states to mutual military aid in the case of attack by a third party.
Militarism: System of national organization that prioritizes military spending and glorifies conflict and military service; examples include the British Empire and the Soviet Union.
World War I: Global conflict that began in Europe in 1914 and continued until November 1918, concluding with the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.
World War I
Total war: Style of warfare which reorders national economies toward war and includes civilians as targets; movement away from rules of limited engagement in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; common examples are World War I and World War II.
League of Nations: International organization created after World War I as part of the peace effort; weakened by the absence of the United States, which never joined, and the Soviet Union, which was expelled; precursor to the United Nations; dissolved prior to World War II.
Mohandas Gandhi: Leader of the Indian Independence Movement known for a strategy of nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience; inspired later leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Dalai Lama.
Global Depression
World War II: Global conflict from 1939 to 1945 between the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) and the Allied powers (Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States); led to the collapse of the European and Japanese empires and changed the world’s political and economic structure.
Great Depression: Global economic depression sparked by the collapse of the American stock market in 1929; led to the rise of fascism and WWII; affected the global economy but was especially severe in Europe, which was still recovering from WWI.
Rise of Fascist and Totalitarian States
Fascism: Governmental system organized around extreme nationalism, militarism, and consolidation of state power in a single charismatic leader.
Benito Mussolini: Leader of Italy’s Blackshirts and key proponent of fascism as an anti-communist movement; deposed King Vittorio Emmanuel II and established a fascist government in 1922.
Adolf Hitler: Austrian-born German leader who planned to restore Germany to its prewar status 126 through militarism, ultranationalism, extreme violence, and anti-Semitism; appointed chancellor in 1933; leader of the National Socialist Ger- man Workers Party (NSDAP), commonly called the Nazi Party.
Joseph Stalin: Took control of Russia after the death of Vladimir Lenin; created a system of one-man dictatorial rule known as Stalinism; oversaw mass purges and pogroms in Soviet Russia until his death in 1953.
World War II
Firebombing: Use of incendiary bombs during warfare, often directed at cities and other civilian targets; used extensively during World War II.
Atomic bomb: Developed in the United States during World War II and used against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, sparking an arms race that continued into the Cold War.
United Nations: International organization founded in 1945 with the intent of settling postwar concerns and the creation of a new global order based on mutual peacekeeping; mostly focused on human rights in the modern era.
Cold War: Ideological struggle between the capitalist United States and the communist Soviet Union from 1949 to 1993 that included many other states in proxy wars and alliance networks, like NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
Revolutions
Vladimir Lenin: Leader of the Bolsheviks in Russia during World War I; seized power in 1917 and created the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
Mao Zedong: Leader of the Chinese Communist Party in the 1920s and 1930s; reemerged in the 1940s to fight the Nationalists (Kuomintang) under Chiang Kai-shek; leader of China from 1949–1976; promoted mass purges and modernization programs, following the Stalinist example.
Great Leap Forward: Mao Zedong’s plan starting in 1958 to collectivize all aspects of the econ- omy, most notably by having communal houses with backyard furnaces for steel production; led to millions of deaths from starvation.
Fidel Castro: Guerrilla leader of Cuba who deposed Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959; allied Cuba with the Soviet Union; led the country until his resignation in favor of his brother Raul Castro in 2008.
The Cold War
Proxy wars: Regional conflicts that typically involve tacit or hidden support from major powers who are antagonistic to one another but not openly at war; were particularly common during the Cold War era; sometimes directly involved the armed forces of major powers (e.g., the Vietnam War and the United States, and the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s).
Vietnam: Southeast Asian nation that formed after the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954; divided into North and South Vietnam, site of an important proxy war during the Cold War; unified into one country after U.S. withdrawal in 1973 and communist victory in 1975.
NATO: North Atlantic Treaty Organization, founded in 1949 by the nations of North America and Europe to counter the spread of communism in Eastern Europe.
Warsaw Pact: Alliance formed in 1955 by the Soviet Union and seven Eastern Bloc countries to counteract the growing influence of NATO.
Non-Aligned Movement: International organization formed during decolonization to promote a middle path for newly independent nations between the United States and the Soviet Union in the Cold War.
European Union: Supranational organization in Europe promoting common economic regu- lation and growth; grew out of the European Economic Community, which was founded in 1957; commonly referred to as the EU.
Independence and Nationalist Movements
Indian National Congress: Political party founded in 1885 by British-educated Hindu leaders that pushed for Indian independence along the model of a federal state.
Muhammad Ali Jinnah: Muslim political leader who supported the creation of an independent Muslim nation as a counter to the federal idea of the Indian National Congress; became the first leader of Pakistan after partition.
Indian/Pakistan Partition: Creation of Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority India after Great Britain granted India independence in 1947; led to mass migration, a refugee crisis, and hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths.
Algeria: Former French colony and the largest nation in Northwest Africa; gained independence in 1962; still closely connected with France economically and culturally.
Ho Chi Minh: Vietnamese nationalist leader who fought against the Japanese during the Axis occupation of French Indochina in World War II, then fought the French after the war, then fought the American-supported regime in South Vietnam to create a unified communist Vietnam in 1975.
Political Reform and Economic Changes
Deng Xiaoping: Leader of communist China from Mao Zedong’s death in 1976 to his own death in 1997; instituted the Four Modernizations to introduce capitalist reform in China.
Tiananmen Square: Large public square in Beijing, China. Site of a 1989 conflict between students protesting for democratic reform and the Chinese military defending the leadership of Deng Xiaoping.
Technology, Populations, and the Environment
Green Revolution: Technological movement in the 1960s and 70s that introduced new agricultural techniques and high-yield seed strains in an attempt to boost food production in developing countries.
Cholera: Acute bacterial infection of the small intestine associated with inadequate sanitation and unsanitary drinking water; associated with poverty and developing nations.
Social and Cultural Changes
Liberation theology in Latin America: Movement in the Roman Catholic Church that argued for Church attention to focus on world issues of poverty, human rights, and economic justice.
