- the rise and rule of authoritarian regimes:
Sample topics:
- Chile and Pinochet
- Cambodia and Pol Pot
- Cuba and Castro
- Soviet Union from Lenin to Gorbachev
- North Korea and the Kim dynasty
- China and Mao
- Germany and Hitler
- Italy and Mussolini
- civil wars, independence movements, and revolution:
Sample topics:
- Soviet Union, 1917–21
- China, 1945–49
- decolonization
- Iranian Revolution
- guerilla warfare in Central and South America
- Vietnam, 1945–75
- human rights movements, including those of indigenous peoples:
Sample topics:
- women’s movement toward equality
- US civil rights movement (segregation and desegregation)
- struggle against apartheid
- Latin-American workers’ movements
- religious, ethnic, and/or cultural conflicts, including genocide:
Sample topics:
- cultural genocide of indigenous peoples
- genocide in Armenia, the Holocaust, in Cambodia, in Rwanda
- separatist movements (e.g., Quebec, Basque, Catalan, Ireland)
- global conflicts, including World War I, World War II, and the Cold War:
Sample topics:
- evolution of military technology (e.g., machine gun, to nuclear weapons, to drones)
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- arms race
- militarism
- espionage
- migrations, movements, and territorial boundaries:
Sample topics:
- post-World War I Middle East
- Palestine/Jewish settlement
- suburbanization of the United States and Canada
- interdependence and international co-operation:
Sample topic:
- UN peacekeeping missions
- social and cultural developments:
Sample topics:
- changing role of women:
- suffrage
- pay equity
- “second-wave” feminism of the 1960s
- consumerism/capitalism:
- 1920s boom
- 1950s suburbanization and car culture
- scarcity of goods in post-World War II Soviet satellite states
- globalization:
- change from nation state to internationalism
- European Union supranationalism
- free trade
- World Trade Organization
- communication and transportation technologies:
Sample topics:
- propaganda in democratic and totalitarian regimes
- social and cultural impact of the automobile
- role of media in shaping response to international conflicts