I.  Opening Vignette

A.  The discussion of Barbie and Ken dolls shows the power of global commerce today.

1.  but it also shows reaction to the values portrayed by Barbie/Ken elsewhere in the world, e.g., Iran

2.  Iran created new dolls (Sara and Dara) that displayed Iranian Muslim values and practices

3.  but the Sara/Dara dolls and the Barbie/Ken dolls were all made in China

1.  by the 1990s, this process of accelerating engagement was known as globalization

2.  globalization has a long history upon which twentieth-century globalization was built

3.  pace of globalization increased rapidly after World War II

II. Global Interaction and the Transformation of the World Economy

A.  Most commonly, “globalization” refers to international economic transactions.

1.  has come to seem inevitable to many since 1950

2.  global economic linkages contracted significantly in the first half of the twentieth century, especially between the two world wars

3.  the capitalist winners of WWII were determined not to repeat the Great Depression

4.  1970s: major capitalist countries dropped many controls on economic activity; increasingly viewed the world as a single market

B.  Reglobalization

1.  global economic transactions quickened dramatically after WWII

2.  world trade skyrocketed ($57 billion in 1947; over $7 trillion in 2001)

3.  money became highly mobile globally

4.  central to the process are transnational corporations (TNCs), huge global businesses that operate in many countries simultaneously

5.  large numbers of workers, both laborers and professionals, have moved all over the world from poor countries to richer ones

1.  economic globalization accompanied, and maybe helped generate, the greatest economic growth spurt in world history; immense creation of wealth

2.  massive chasm has developed between rich industrialized countries and everyone else

3.  growing economic inequality within individual states, both rich and poor

4.  growing popular movement against globalization emerged in the 1990s

D.  Globalization and an American Empire

1.  for many, opposition to corporate free-trade globalization = opposition to growing U.S. power and influence in the world

2.  the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war left the United States without any equivalent power in opposition

3.  the United States has faced growing international economic competition since about 1975

4.  armed struggle against U.S. intervention in Vietnam, Cuba, Iraq, etc.

5.  the global exercise of American power has also caused controversy within the United States

III. The Globalization of Liberation: Comparing Feminist Movements

A.  The idea of liberation traveled around the world in the twentieth century.

1.  the 1960s in particular saw a convergence of protest movements around the world, suggesting a new global culture of liberation

d.  China: Cultural Revolution

2.  development of the idea of a third world

3.  among all the liberation movements, feminism had the most profound potential for change

B.  Feminism in the West

1.  organized feminism revived in the West (1960s) with a new agenda

2.  “women’s liberation”: broad attack on patriarchy as a system of domination

3.  black women emphasized solidarity with black men, not separation from them

C.  Feminism in the Global South

1.  women had been welcomed in communist and revolutionary movements but were sidelined after movements’ success

2.  many African feminists (1970s) thought Western feminists were too individualistic and too focused on sex

3.  not all women’s movements dealt explicitly with gender

D.  International Feminism

1.  the “woman question” became a global issue in the twentieth century

2.  sharp divisions within global feminism

3.  global backlash against feminism

IV. Religion and Global Modernity

A.  Modernity presented a challenge to the world’s religions.

1.  “advanced” thinkers of the eighteenth–twentieth centuries believed that supernatural religion was headed for extinction

2.  sharp decline in religious belief and practice in some places

3.  spread of scientific culture convinced small minorities that the only realities worth considering were those that could be measured scientifically

4.  but the most prominent trends of the last century have been the further spread of major world religions, their resurgence in new forms, and their attacks on elements of a secular and global modernity

5.  Buddhist ideas and practices were well received in the West

B.  Fundamentalism on a Global Scale

1.  “fundamentalism” is a major reaction against modernization and globalization

2.  many features of the modern world appear threatening to established religion

3.  fundamentalists have responded with selective rejection of modernity

4.  the term “fundamentalism” comes from U.S. religious conservatives in the early twentieth century; called for a return to the fundamentals of Christianity

5.  another fundamentalism, called Hindutva (Hindu nationalism), developed in India in the 1980s

C.  Creating Islamic Societies: Resistance and Renewal in the World of Islam

1.  Islamic fundamentalism is the most prominent fundamentalism of the late twentieth century

2.  great disappointments in the Muslim world by the 1970s

3.  growing attraction of an Islamic alternative to Western models

4.  penetration of fundamentalist thought in the Islamic world

5.  some groups sought overthrow of compromised regimes

6.  attacks on hostile foreign powers

D.  Religious Alternatives to Fundamentalism

1.  militancy isn’t the only religious response to modernity

2.  considerable debate within the Islamic world

3.  other religious traditions responded to global modernity

4.  World Peace Summit (2000): more than 1,000 religious and spiritual leaders explored how to confront conflicts in the world

V. The World’s Environment and the Globalization of Environmentalism

A.  The Global Environment Transformed

1.  three factors have magnified the human impact on the earth

2.  uneven spread of all three over the world

3.  human environmental disruptions are now of global proportions

B.  Green and Global

1.  environmentalism began in the nineteenth century as a response to the Industrial Revolution but did not draw a mass following

2.  environmentalism only became a global phenomenon in the second half of the twentieth century

3.  environmentalism took root in developing countries in 1970s–1980s

4.  environmentalism became a matter of global concern by end of twentieth century

5.  sharp conflicts between the Global North and South

6.  nonetheless, global environmentalism has come to symbolize focus on the plight of all humankind

VI. Final Reflections: Pondering the Uses of History

A.  What’s the good of studying history?

1.  many have used history to explore the significance of human experience

1.  growing populations, linked to greater control over the environment

2.  growing complexity of human societies

3.  increasing pace of change

C.  But human changes didn’t happen smoothly, evenly, or everywhere.

1.  numerous ups and downs, reversals, and variations

2.  “direction” is an observation; “progress” is a judgment

D.  Political authorities have used the past to inculcate national, religious, civic, patriotic, or other values.

E.  Studying history is a way to ponder matters of the heart and spirit.

1.  e.g., history provides vast evidence of human suffering

2.  perhaps historical study can foster compassion

3.  the historical record offers encouragement, with examples of those who have fought to rectify injustice, sometimes successfully

F.  Studying history helps prevent insularity.