At the dawn of the 20th century, a few Western powers dominated global politics. Within only 50 years, that order was remade by two world wars of unprecedented scale. Industrial technology that had built railways and factories now produced machine guns, poison gas, warplanes, and finally the atomic bomb, while governments mobilised whole populations through propaganda and intensified nationalism – both at home and across their colonies. The land empires of the Ottomans, Russia, and the Qing dynasty collapsed. Revolution brought communism to power in Russia, and the unresolved settlement after the First World War helped bring fascist and totalitarian regimes to power, causing the Second World War. It was in this period that states turned the machinery of the modern world against civilian populations, from the Armenian genocide to the Holocaust.
This collection collates articles, definitions, and maps covering Unit 7: Global Conflict of the AP® World History: Modern curriculum, which accounts for 8–10% of the exam and around 9–12 class periods. It offers an overview for teachers and students alike, providing the materials needed to explore how industrial power, ideology, and empire combined to produce conflict on a global scale.
Unit 7 covers nine topics: 7.1 Shifting Power After 1900 · 7.2 Causes of World War I · 7.3 Conducting World War I · 7.4 Economy in the Interwar Period · 7.5 Unresolved Tensions After World War I · 7.6 Causes of World War II · 7.7 Conducting World War II · 7.8 Mass Atrocities After 1900 · 7.9 Causation in Global Conflict
Our encyclopedia's current coverage is strongest on the two world wars and the Russian Revolution. We are still expanding our articles on the Chinese and Mexican revolutions, the economics of the interwar years, and mass atrocities beyond the Holocaust.
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Ideas for Teachers
- Alliances turn to war: Have students read The Pre-WWI Alliance System and Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand articles, alongside the Map of Europe on the Eve of World War I. Then ask them to explain how the assassination of one man in Sarajevo drew in powers with no direct stake in the quarrel.
- Evidence in an eyewitness account: Assign Eyewitness Accounts of WWI and have students identify what each account offers as evidence, and what it cannot tell us. Split your students into groups to discuss why soldiers' testimony and official dispatches frequently describe the same battle differently.
- Industrial weapons of destruction: Using The Terrors of Poison Gas in WWI and Trench Warfare on WWI's Western Front articles, alongside the Map of the Western Front in World War I, 1914-18, have students determine why and how new technologies produced stalemate rather than swift victory. Connect that stalemate to the casualty figures.
- Total war: Have students read The Home Fronts in World War I and Women in World War I articles. Then examine the Map of Africa in World War II. Finally, ask them to describe what "total war" demanded of people who never went to the frontline.
- (Un)sustainable peace: Working from the Treaty of Versailles, Paris Peace Conference, and League of Nations articles, ask your students to list the problems the 1919 settlement left unresolved. Then compare their list with the argument made in The Causes of WWII.
- Weighing a decision: Put the articles Why Were Hiroshima & Nagasaki Bombed in WWII? and The Bombing of Dresden in 1945 side by side. Ask students to identify the respective justifications offered at the time. Then have them assess to what extent the evidence in each article supports or undermines these justifications.
- Understanding the Holocaust: Ask your students to read the Eyewitness Accounts of the Holocaust article, with the Map of the Holocaust in Europe. Then have them explain how the rise of the regime described in our Causes of World War II article made the genocide possible.
Browse the collection below to find materials that fit your teaching style, and feel free to adapt them to your students. Note that our articles are print-friendly, and there is a PDF export button on each article page.
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