World History, 1900-1945

HIST 100 World History, 1900-1945 introduces students to key issues and events in the first half of the twentieth century. The course will ground students’ understanding of those decades as ones of profound change and contestation, the oftentimes global dimensions of which were expressed through multiple imperial, national, local, regional, and indigenous contexts. Topics typically addressed in the course include the evolution of empires and nations; processes of colonization and decolonization; the First and Second World Wars; Capitalism, Communism, and Fascism as competing political and economic ideologies; democratic and authoritarian systems of governance; political revolutions; developments in the arts and sciences; technological change; human interactions with the environment; tensions and developments in areas of human rights, indigenous, racialized, ethnic, and gender identities; and efforts toward the establishment of international networks and institutions. Upon the course’s conclusion, students will be able to identify and understand the significance of key issues and events from this period and to consider their role in shaping the world in the decades that followed.