1.In 1972, President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania in East Africa spoke of the goals of struggling new nations.
2.The balance of world power changed dramatically after 1945.
3.European influence decline while the US and the Soviet Union emerged as superpowers locked in a tense Cold War.
The Great Liberation
1.The postwar decades brought a major turning point in world history when the colonial empires built by western powers during the Age of Imperialism crumbled.
2.Resistance to colonial rule had begun long before.
3.By the 1930s, nationalist movements had taken root in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.
The Cold War Goes Global
1.The new nations emerged into a world dominated and divided by the Cold War.
2.The United States and the Soviet Union competed for influence by offering economic and military aid to developing nations.
3.To avoid superpower rivalry, many new nations chose to remain nonaligned, that is, not allied to either side in the Cold War.
New Nations Seek Stability
1.While new nations had high hopes for the future, they faced immense problems.
2.In Africa, especially, nations inherited random colonial borders that mixed together people with different languages, religions, and ethnic identities.
3.The new nations wrote constitutions modeled on those of western democracies.
The Shrinking Globe
1.Since 1945, transportation and communications systems have made the world increasingly interdependent.
2.Interdependence of countries on goods, resources, and knowledge from other parts of the world.
3.Political, economic, cultural, and other links have created both problems and opportunities.
Enduring Issues
1.During the Cold War, efforts to curb the arms race had only limited success.
2.In 1968, a number of nations signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, agreeing to halt the spread of nuclear weapons.
3.As the treaty came up for renewal in the 1990s, though, some nations were unwilling to sign.
Global Economic Trends
1.In 1969, Pope Paul VI expressed what he saw as a troubling mix of successes and failures in the modern age.
2.As new nations won independence, they aspired to the high standard of living in the industrial world.
3.Since the 1950s, however, a growing gulf has divided the world into rich and poor nations.
The Global North and South: Two Worlds of Development
1.The global North includes the industrial nations of Western Europe and North America, as well as Japan and Australia.
2.Most are located in the temperate zone north of the Equator.
3.They control most of the world�s wealth.
Economic Interdependence
1.Huge multinational corporations, enterprises with branches in many countries, have invested in the developing world.
2.They bring new technology to mining, agriculture, transportation, and other industries.
3.Rich nations also provide aid, technical advisers.
Obstacles of Development
1.In parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin American, geography has posed and obstacle to progress.
2.For example, some newly created African countries are tiny and have few natural resources.
3.Difficult climates, uncertain rainfall, lack of good farmland, and disease have added to the problems of some nations.
Economic Development and the Environment
1.Gases from power plants and factories produced acid rain, a form of pollution in which toxic chemicals in the air come back to the Earth as rain, snow, or hail.
2.Acid rain damaged forests, lakes, and farmland, especially in industrial Europe and North America.
3.Some scientists warned of �global warming� caused by the increased emission of gases into the upper atmosphere.
Changing Patterns of Life
1.Urbanization had transformed the lives of people in the developing world just as it did in Europe during the Industrial Revolution.
2.First, though, we will look at how the village continues to shape the lives of millions of people.
3.In recent decades, hundreds of millions of people have migrated from rural villages to urban centers.
The Village: Continuity and Change
1.The village is close-set houses made of stones, clay bricks, or sticks plastered over with mud, roofed with thatch, palm leaves, tile, or tin. It is hard-packed earthen paths crossed by bare feet, sandals, or perhaps a bicycle or two.
2.It is water from a village well, vegetables from a back garden, chickens or goats in the yard.
3.It is dust, heat, and insects. It is also families, neighbors, and an enduring way of life.
Old Ways and New
1.In the western world, industrialization and urbanization began more than 200 years ago during the Industrial Revolution.
2.Since 1945, the rest of the world has experienced similar upheavals.
3.People in the developing world have flocked to the cities to find jobs and escape rural poverty.
New Rights and Role for Women
1.After 1945, women�s movements brought changes to both the western and developing worlds.
2.The UN Charter included a commitment to work for �equal rights for men and women.�
3.By 1950, women had won the right to vote in most European nations, as well as in Japan, China, Brazil, and other nations.
Science and Technology
1.Since 1945, technology has transformed human life and thought.
2.Instant communication via satellites has shrunk the globe.
3.New forms of energy, especially nuclear power, have been added to the steam power, electricity, and gasoline energy of the first industrial age.
A New International Culture
1.The driving force behind this new global culture had been the United States.
2.Since World War II, American fads, fashions, music, and entertainment have captured the world�s imagination.
3.American movies and television programs play to audiences in Moscow, Beijing, Buenos Aires, and Cairo.
Looking Ahead
1.Many current trends and issues emerged long before 1945 and will continue beyond 2000.
2.At the same time, new issues and conflicts will almost certainly take shape in the new millennium, or thousand-year period, that begins after the year 2000.
3.The next five chapters trace how the trends discussed in this chapter have affected different regions.
The Western World: An Overview
Western Europe rebounded out of the rubble or World War II.
During the postwar years, standards of living rose dramatically.
People earned higher wages, bought homes with centrel heating and running water, and enjoyed luxuries unheard of in earlier times.
The Cold War in Europe
For more than 40 years, the Cold War divided Europe into two hostile military alliances.
The communist nations of Eastern Europe, dominated by the Soviet Union, formed the Warsaw Pact.
The western democracies, led by the United States, formed NATO.
Recovery and Growth in Western Europe
A major goal of leftist parties was to extend the welfare state.
Under this system, a government keeps most features of a capitalist economy but takes greater responsibility for the social and economic needs of its people.
The welfare state had its roots in the late 1800s, when governments passed reforms to ease the hardships of the industrial age.
Toward European Unity
In 1957, the same six nations signed a treaty to form the European Community, or Common Market to expand free trade.
Over the next decades, the Common Market gradually ended tariffs on goods and allowed labor and capital to move freely across national borders.
It set up the European Parliament, a multinational body elected by citizens of the Common Market countries.
Social Trends
The pace of social change speeded up after 1945. Class lines blurred as prosperity spread.
For most of western history, a tiny wealthy class had dominated the majority of the people.
By the 1950s, more and more people in the West belonged to the middle class.
The Western European Democracies
In July 1994, an army of bicycles snaked through the English coutnrside, cheered on by a million spectators.
The event was the famous Tour de France bicycle race.
The cyclists had crossed from France through the new Channel tunnel, nicknamed Chunnel.
Britain: Government and the Economy
World War II left Britain physically battered and economically drained.
In 1945, voters put the Labour party in power.
The war had helped change old attitudes toward the working class.
France: Revival and Prosperity
Like Britain, France was greatly weakened by World War II.
The Fourth French Republic, set up in 1946, did little to renew confidence.
Ineffective cabinets drew criticism from both communists and conservatives.
Germany: Reunited at Last
As the Cold War began, the United States rushed aid to its former enemy.
It wanted to strengthen West Germany against the communist tide sweeping Eastern Europe.
From 1949 to 1963, West Germany was guided by a strong-minded chancellor, Konrad Adenauer.
Other Democratic Nations of the West
Postwar Italy was economically divided.
In the urban north, industries rebuilt and prospered.
In the rural south, that largely peasant population remained much poorer.
North American Prosperity
JFK made this vow when he became President in 1961.
In the postwar era, the US sought to contain communism, extend civil rights, and ensure economic prosperity.
To the north, Canada also built democracy and prosperity.
The United States and the Cold War
In 1945, the US was the world�s greatest military power and the only country with the atomic bomb.
Yet it felt threatened by communist expansion, especially after the Soviet Union developed its own atomic bomb.
For this and other reasons, the US gave up its tradition of avoiding foreign alliances.
Economy and the Role of Government
Unlike Europe, the US emerged from World War II with its cities and industries undamaged.
In 1945, its produced 50 percent of the world�s manufactured goods.
Factories soon shifted from tanks and bombers to peacetime production.
The Civil Rights Movement
Although African Americans had won freedom nearly a century before, many states, especially in the Sough, denied them equality.
Segregation was legal in education and housing.
African Americans also faced discrimination in jobs and voting.
The United States and the Global Economy
In the postwar decades, the US profited greatly from the growing global economy.
But interdependence also brought problems.
In the 1970s, OPEC price hikes fed inflation and shower how much Americans relied on imported oil.
Postwar Canada
Like the US, Canada was a nation shaped by immigrants.
After gaining independence, it charted its own course but still maintained links with Britain through the Commonwealth of Nations.
Canada ranked among the major democratic, industrial power.
The Soviet Union: Rise and Fall of a Superpower
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev�s statement of the Cold War was not a military threat.
He believed that capitalism was coomed and Soviet communism was the wave of the future.
Khrushchev�s prediction next came true.
Stalin�s Successors
The Soviet Union emerged from World War II a superpower.
Stalin forged a Soviet sohere of inluence from the Baltic to the Balkans.
Victory, however, brought few rewards to the Soviet people.
The Soviet Economy
In 1957, the Societs launched Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth.
Khrushchev trumpeted Sputnik as a victory in the propaganda war against the West.
The Soviets claimed other advantages as well.
Foreign Policy Issues
Stalin and his successors forcefully asserted Soviet control over Eastern Europe.
In 1955, Khrushchev set up the Warsaw Past, in theory to defend the communist bloc against NATO.
As nations emerged from colonial rule, the Soviet Union, like the US, supplied them with military and economic aid.
Collapse of the Soviet Empire
At home, Gorbachev launched a two-pronged effort at reform.
First, he called for glasnost, or openness.
He urged the restructuring of government and the economy (perestroika).
The Russian Republic
Russians approved a new constitution, but they had no democratic traditions.
In the 1990s, economic hardships and political turmoil increased.
Many Russians feared the growing chaos and longed for a return to order.
The Other Republics
Like Russia, the other former Soviet republics wanted to build stable governments and improve their standard of living.
They, too, faced unrest and divisions between the pro-communist and pro-democracy groups.
Ethnic violence erupted in republics that included a mix of national groups.
A New Era in Eastern Europe
For centuries, the people of Eastern Europe lived in the shadow of larger powers.
Before 1914, most of the region was divided up among the old German, Russian, Austrian, and Ottoman empires.
Many small nations gained independence after World War I, only to be overrun by the Nazis.
In the Soviet Orbit
In 1945, Soviet armies occupied much of Eastern Europe.
Backed by Soviet power, local Communist parties from Hungary to Bulgaria destroyed rival parties, silenced critics, censored the press, and campaigned against religion.
And in the Soviet Union, Communist leaders in Eastern Europe ended private ownership of businesses and turned to central economic planning.
Poland�s Struggle Toward Democracy
Poland was the Soviet Union�s most troublesome satellite.
Like Hungarians and Czechs, Polls wanted greater freedom within the Soviet
Stalin had clamped down hard on Poland.
Revolution and Freedom
By late 1989, a �democracy movement� was sweeping Eastern Europe.
Everywhere, people took to the streets, demanding reform.
One by one, communist governments fell.
Looking Ahead
In 1995, the United States finally brought the warring parties to Dayton, Ohio.
There, they hammered out a series of agreements, called the Dayton Accords.
NATO forces were sent to Bosnia to implement the agreements