Tech Revolution and Connectivity (9.1)
This global communication network, developed in the late 20th century, revolutionized how people access and share information.
What is the internet?
This U.S.-based soft drink company became one of the world's first truly global brands, symbolizing Americanization and multinational capitalism.
What is Coca-Cola?
This hot commodity covers most of the Earth's surface, yet only 3% is drinkable, and roughly 70% of that is used by industrial-scale agriculture.
What is freshwater?
This South Korean pop music genre became a massive global phenomenon in the 21st century, representing non-Western cultural influence in a globalized world.
What is K-Pop?
Established in 1945 after WWII, this international organization was created to maintain peace, promote cooperation, and protect human rights globally.
What is the United Nations?
This innovation in shipping, a large metal box standardizing cargo, dramatically reduced the cost of global trade after WWII.
What is the shipping container?
This 1994 trade agreement between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico is a landmark example of economic liberalization in the Western Hemisphere.
What is NAFTA?
This process, accelerated by industrial agriculture and overgrazing, turns fertile land into desert, threatening food security across Africa and Asia.
What is desertification?
This term describes the spread of American cultural products, fast food, film, and music into other nations, often at the expense of local traditions.
What is Americanization (or cultural imperialism)?
Adopted by the UN in 1948, this foundational document declared that all humans are entitled to basic rights regardless of nationality, race, or religion.
What is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
The primary energy source used today, to power cars, planes, and industry while making nations like Saudi Arabia enormously wealthy.
What is petroleum (oil)?
This economic policy approach, promoted by the IMF and World Bank in the 1980s–90s, pushed developing nations to privatize industries, cut spending, and open markets. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were this movement's leaders
What is neoliberalism?
Slow government response, social stigma against gay men and intravenous drug users, and underfunding in its early years allowed this virus to spiral into a global pandemic
What is HIV/AIDS?
This national institution is responsible for managing the vast majority of international trade.
What is the WTO?
This leader established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission rather than pursuing mass prosecution of former oppressors despite being imprisoned for 27 years.
Who is Nelson Mandela?
This technology allowed wireless voice communication to spread rapidly across the developing world, often bypassing landline infrastructure entirely.
What is cellular/mobile phone technology?
This institution has been criticized for deepening poverty rather than relieving by employing predatory loans and requiring privatization of markets
What is the IMF?
Unlike natural climate cycles, this phenomenon suggests human industry, deforestation, and fossil fuels as the culprit behind accelerating global warming since the Industrial Revolution.
What is human driven climate change?
Producing more films annually than Hollywood, this industry challenges the notion that cultural globalization flows only from West to East
What is Bollywood?
This movement, which emerged in Latin America in the 1960s–70s, combined Catholic teachings with activism on behalf of the poor, challenging authoritarian governments and economic inequality.
What is liberation theology?
Critics like Joseph Stiglitz argued that this late 20th-century process, while promising prosperity for all, largely benefits wealthy nations and multinational corporations at the expense of the developing world
What is globalization?
This style of economy seen in the U.S. and Western Europe in the late 20th century, moves wealth creation away from factory production and toward industries like finance, technology, and information services.
What is a knowledge economy?
While infectious diseases declined in wealthier nations, these chronic conditions, including heart disease, diabetes, and obesity, became leading causes of death.
What are non-communicable diseases (or lifestyle diseases) (or diseases of longevity)?
This 1999 protest in a major U.S. city shut down a WTO ministerial conference, becoming a landmark moment of organized resistance against corporate-led globalization.
What is the Battle of Seattle?
This 1994 event, in which the international community failed to intervene as an estimated 800,000 people were killed in roughly 100 days, became a defining test of the UN's ability to protect human rights
What is the Rwandan Genocide?