Two conflicts dominated the latter half of the twentieth century: decolonization and the Cold War. Two superpowers emerged from the destruction of World War II: the US and Soviet Union. They each sought influence around the world during the ideological conflict known as the Cold War. Meanwhile, colonized peoples everywhere fought for their independence. The US and Soviet Union wanted allies and influence among newly independent states. Often, both superpowers supported different factions, resulting in several “hot” wars in the decolonizing world. The battle of Cuito Cuanavale is one example of the linkages between the Cold War and decolonization.

This video gives you an overview of the content and themes you’ll explore in Unit 8. The evidence presented in the video will help you assess the causes and effects of the Cold War and decolonization from c. 1900 to the present. You’ll also evaluate this era by examining the impact the world’s superpowers had on newly independent states using the themes of governance, cultural developments and interactions, humans and the environment, social interactions and organization, and economic systems.

Preview – Skimming for Gist

As a reminder, open and skim the transcript, and read the questions before you watch the video.

Key Ideas – Understanding Content

Think about the following questions as you watch this video.

1. How did the Cold War impact the city of Cuito Cuanavale?
2. What nations became superpowers after World War II?
3. Why did many formerly colonized regions demand independence after World War II?
4. How can the Cold War be described in relation to the themes of governance, economics, cultural developments and interactions, and social interactions and organization?
5. Why didn’t the US and USSR engage each other in a “hot” war, or direct conflict, during this period?
6. How did soldiers from Cuba and South Africa end up fighting in the Angolan Civil War?

Evaluating and Corroborating

1. In the video, John Arthur states that the “Cold War and decolonization were both continuations of some of the trends you saw at the end of Unit 7”. What continuities from Unit 7 (Global Conflict) can be seen in Unit 8 (Cold War and Decolonization)?

The Second World War left Europe devastated, and although it recovered gradually, the focus of world events had shifted elsewhere. The Soviet Union and the United States were now the world’s great superpowers, locked in conflict with each other. Meanwhile, decolonization struggles gave new hope to people across Asia, the Caribbean, Africa, and the Pacific, while China emerged as a rising power. But decolonization and the Cold War were not two separate conflicts. They were entangled as the two superpowers competed with each other to gain influence and allies in decolonizing nations.

This article provides an introduction to Unit 8, which covers the entangled trends of the Cold War and decolonization. By introducing these as connected conflicts, this article prepares you to compare the causes and effects of decolonization in different parts of the world and explain how developments in the Cold War shaped the course of decolonization in different contexts.

Read 1—Skimming for Gist

Fill out the Skimming section of the Three Close Reads worksheet as you complete your first close read. As a reminder, this should be a quick process!

Read 2—Understanding Content

For this reading, you should be looking for unfamiliar vocabulary words, the major claim and key supporting details, and analysis and evidence. By the end of the second close read, you should be able to answer the following questions:

1. How did the Second World War reshape global power structures?
2. Why were some conflicts during this period described in different ways (Cold War struggles vs. decolonization) depending on one’s perspective?
3. How was the Cold War an ideological struggle?
4. According to the author, what changes in the world today came about as a result of political independence and decolonization?

Read 3—Evaluating and Corroborating

At the end of the third close read, respond to the following questions:

1. How do the ideological differences between the Soviet Union and the United States relate to the theme of cultural developments and interactions? How do they relate to economic systems?
2. How do you think the events of the Cold War and/or decolonization might have affected people in your family?

The Second World War ended in 1945, and the victorious allies reforged the world—creating the United Nations in the hope of never repeating the horrors they had just experienced. But the world had not seen the end of global conflict. Not long after the war ended, the United States and the Soviet Union faced off in the global conflict of the Cold War. At the same time, colonized peoples around the world began asserting their own independence in a process called decolonization. In this unit, you will explore the ways that these conflicts were entangled. In this mapping exercise you will identify several states and colonies as they emerged from the peace process in 1945 and make some predictions about how things will change in the decades that followed.

You’ll begin this activity by identifying several states and empires in the world of 1945, after the post-war peace process. You will locate these communities on a blank map and then make some guesses and predictions about how they will change in the decades that follow.

Step 1

Remember, this activity is intended to introduce you to geography in this unit. You aren’t expected to have all the answers.

With your teacher, brainstorm some of the ways the end of World War II changed global politics. Who emerged strongest from the war? Which parts of the world were weaker? How did the war change the relationship between empires and their colonies?

Step 2

In small groups, identify the 10 states listed and also select one empire from the list of empires. You should then shade in all the territory controlled by that empire in 1945 on the blank map.

Step 3

Examine the 1945 Blank Map that you just labelled and the 1945 Political Map. Make two predictions by further annotating your blank map. You should shade in one color all the countries that you think will join the American side of the Cold War and in another all the countries that you think will join the Soviet side. Next, you should place an X on five colonies that you think will gain independence by 1960 and circle five colonies you think will gain independence between 1960 and 1975.

This repeated activity should help you become familiar with a process for understanding unfamiliar words any time you encounter them in the course.

Take out your vocab tracker and be sure to record new and unfamiliar words on it according to your teacher’s instructions.

Understanding vocabulary helps you access course content and become a better reader, a better writer, and a better communicator. This word wall activity will help you begin to learn some of the key vocabulary from the unit.

In this activity, you’ll work with your class to create a word wall using the Unit 8 vocabulary.

Your teacher will assign a vocab card to each of you. Once you get yours, take a few minutes to look it up in the Vocab Guide and then examine the unit itself (click around and quickly skim the content) to see where in the unit your word might be most applicable. Then, add as many antonyms to your card for your word as possible. Be careful if you decide to use the “related words” section from the vocab guide – it doesn’t distinguish between synonyms and antonyms. Your teacher will give you a limited amount of time to write antonyms. Then, the people with the most correct antonyms at the end of the time will put their words on the word wall first.

Your teacher may add some fun twists to this assignment, so be sure to listen closely for directions!

Following the Russian Revolution, industrialized Europe managed to contain the spread of communist revolutions, but communism appeared more successful in agrarian societies around the world. China and Latin America offer two contrasting stories of the global spread of communism during the interwar period.

This unit asks you to look at the Cold War and decolonization as trends that together shaped the world after the Second World War. In order to understand these trends, however, you will need to know how communism spread during the early twentieth century. This article will provide you with evidence to explain how communism spread beyond the Russia Revolution and set the stage for many Cold War conflicts in Asia and Latin America.

Think about the following question as you read the article: How does this article explain the causes and consequences of why some nations adopted communism? Write this question at the top of the Three Close Reads worksheet. You will be asked to respond to this question again after the third read in the Evaluating and Corroborating section of the worksheet.

Read 1—Skimming for Gist

Fill out the Skimming section of the Three Close Reads worksheet as you complete your first close read. As a reminder, this should be a quick process!

Read 2—Understanding Content

For this reading, you should be looking for unfamiliar vocabulary words, the major claim and key supporting details, and analysis and evidence. By the end of the second close read, you should be able to answer the following questions:

1. Why, according to the author, did communism appeal to many people in China and Latin America in the period between the First and Second World Wars?
2. Who were the Guomindang (GMD) and how did they come to power in 1911?
3. Why did the communist party led by Mao Zedong win the civil war in China?
4. What caused communism and other radical ideas to grow in Latin America in the early twentieth century?
5. What was US policy in Latin America in the 1910s and 1920s, and how did it change in the 1930s?
6. Who were the populists in Latin America in the 1930s, and what happened to them?

Read 3—Evaluating and Corroborating

At the end of the third close read, respond to the following questions:

1. How does this article explain the causes and consequences of why some nations adopted communism?
2. From this article, what elements of the story of communism seem to be similar in China and Latin America in the first half of the twentieth century? What elements seem to be different?

World War II killed millions of people and destroyed whole cities. Many nations that fought in the war saw their economies and infrastructure destroyed. The United States and Soviet Union emerged from the war as superpowers, and each had their own vision for rebuilding the world. This article examines how these different ideas collided and how people in decolonizing nations pushed back against economic control by the two superpowers. As the world rebuilt, old inequalities persisted between and within nations.

This article provides you with evidence at the global level to understand how the Cold War and decolonization both played a part in the global recovery following World War II. The shape of this global recovery is an important context for understanding how decolonization and the Cold War emerged and how they affected different regions in different ways.

Think about the following question as you read the article: Using evidence from this article, explain the historical context of the Cold War after 1945. Write this question at the top of the Three Close Reads worksheet. You will be asked to respond to this question again after the third read in the Evaluating and Corroborating section of the worksheet.

Read 1—Skimming for Gist

Fill out the Skimming for Gist section of the Three Close Reads worksheet as you complete your first close read. As a reminder, this should be a quick process!

Read 2—Understanding Content

For this reading, you should be looking for unfamiliar vocabulary words, the major claim and key supporting details, and analysis and evidence. By the end of the second close read, you should be able to answer the following questions:

1. Why did the United States launch the Marshall Plan?
2. The article cites two arguments about the “economic miracles” in Germany and Japan. What are the two arguments?
3. Why were wealthy nations able to continue to exploit their former colonies even after they had gained independence?
4. How did some African and Asian leaders fight back against this sort of dependency?
5. Who did not share in the new economic prosperity in the United States?

Read 3—Evaluating and Corroborating

At the end of the third close read, respond to the following questions:

1. Using evidence from this article, explain the historical context of the Cold War after 1945.
2. Why is it helpful to contextualize the Cold War and decolonization in the economic situation at the end of the Second World War and in the decade that followed?

The World History Project AP (WHP AP) curriculum asks you to visit and revisit the AP themes throughout the course. The aim of the Themes Notebook is to keep you connected to the core themes of each unit. In Part 1 of the Themes Notebook, which you’ll complete early in each unit, you will evaluate each of the statements on the worksheet based on what you currently know. In Part 2, which comes later in each unit, the statements appear as questions. You will respond to these questions as you revise and refine your initial understanding of the unit’s themes. In both parts of this activity, you should focus on concepts rather than formal writing. The primary purpose of the Themes Notebook is to help you assess how your thinking is progressing, where you’re gaining mastery, and where you might need additional instruction.

Although it might seem that you haven’t learned enough yet to respond to the prompts, that’s OK! This activity is meant to help you think about what you might already know about the ideas and concepts of the unit. You’ll revisit the prompts at the end of the unit (although this time they’ll appear as questions), and you’ll get to see how much you’ve learned! This activity will also give you a preview of what’s to come, as you’re learning which themes you should pay attention to as you learn new content.

Note: Since you’ll be revisiting this worksheet at the end of the unit, be sure you hold onto it! If your teacher offers to collect your class’s worksheets, that’s probably your best bet.

Use the Themes Notebook worksheet to respond to the Part 1 prompts as best as you can. Be prepared to talk about these ideas with your class.

Open these three charts in your internet browser:

• Chart 1 – Global Income Distribution in 1800, 1975, and 2010: https://ourworldindata.org/global-economic-inequality#global-divergence-followed-by-convergence
• Charts 2 and 3 – The Global Income Distribution in 2003 and 2013: https://ourworldindata.org/global-economic-inequality#global-income-inequality-is-very-high-and-will-stay-very-high-for-a-long-time

Though incomes have improved for many people around the world in the last century, inequality between nations and people remains a feature of our world. Economists and historians often talk about the transition from a “two-hump” to a “one-hump” world. As more and more people escape extreme poverty, inequality might be declining. However, the ways in which we present data on inequality can drastically change the way we perceive it. Is inequality really falling? How should we measure inequality?

People create charts, and they make decisions about how to display data. Slight changes in variables, range, or presentation can entirely change the meaning of a chart, even when two charts are created by the same person using the exact same data. This is an important part of data literacy, and if you learn to notice these choices, you will be one step closer to understanding how to evaluate the arguments contained in charts. The charts in this exploration will help you identify at least one way that data can be skewed to change meaning.

Your teacher will let you know if there is an overall question to hold in your mind as complete your three reads of the article.

Preview—What Do We Have?

Fill out the Read 1: Preview section of the Three Close Reads for Data worksheet as you complete your first close read. Remember—this should be a quick process!

Key Ideas—What Do We Know?

For this read, your goal is to understand the “story” the chart is telling by identifying its arguments and evaluating its presentation of data. You will decide what claim or claims this chart is making and what evidence is being used to support those claims. Do you think the data is reliable? Is the chart misleading in any way? By the end of this read, you should be able to answer the following questions:

1. How does Chart 1 provide evidence for the argument that inequality is decreasing?
2. According to Chart 1, which region of the globe has seen the least improvement in income? Which has seen the most improvement?
3. What are some historical explanations for the shift from a two-hump (1975) to a one-hump (2015) world?
4. What argument is Chart 2 making? How did the creator of the chart want you to feel about inequality?
5. Chart 2 and 3 show the exact same data, but Chart 3 is represented differently. The effect is a drastic difference between the two charts. Why do they look so different, and how did the creator of Chart 3 want you to feel about inequality?
6. Charts 2 and 3 provide an example of how a chart can be skewed to change the way you understand it. Does Chart 1 do something similar? If so, what? What is the effect?

Making Connections—What Does This Tell Us?

The third read is really about why the chart is important, what it can tell us about the past, and how it can help us think about the future. At the end of this read, respond to the following questions:

1. All three of these charts use the international poverty line of $1.90/day (just under $700/year) as their measurement of people living in extreme poverty. Do you think this is an appropriate measurement for poverty? Does it help us understand inequality? Why or why not?
2. Using these charts, make one prediction about how income inequality will change in your lifetime. What evidence from the charts supports your prediction? What evidence challenges it?

Access to Our World in Data website: https://ourworldindata.org/

Access the World History Project courses: Origins, 1200, or 1750 https://www.oerproject.com/

By now, you have selected a research topic and practiced making predictions using data. In this activity, it’s time for you to start the hard work of collecting and analyzing evidence to support the predictions you will make in your final presentation. You will need evidence to support your prediction and to build a historical narrative about your topic. In addition to providing you with a place to record useful sources, this simple activity can serve as a model for future research projects.

In this activity, you will build an archive of sources from two websites. You will explore the Our World in Data (OWID) website and the WHP website as you search for sources to use in your final project. You will keep a log of your sources and record how you intend to use them in your project. You should continue to add to these lists as you work!

Before beginning this activity, familiarize yourself with the OWID and WHP websites. All of your pieces of evidence from this activity should come from OWID and WHP. However, you may seek out other sources of evidence for your final project. You should spend the most time answering the “What is it?” and “How will you use this chart?” portions of the Project X Final Project—Research worksheet.

If you haven’t already done so, begin by making a prediction about your topic of choice. You are not stuck with the prediction that you make at this point; you can change or update it as you gather more information.

Start on your subtopic page on OWID. Most of the charts you gather should be from your subtopic page; however, you should also explore other, related pages. For example, if you are researching the “Urbanization” subtopic in the “Demographic Change” section, you might also find useful resources in the “Land Use” subtopic in the “Food and Agriculture” section. Identify four charts that you will use as evidence in your final presentation.

Once you have identified your four charts, identify them in the Source column of the Step 1 table of the Project X Final Project—Research worksheet. Use the other two columns of the table to describe the charts and explain how you will use them to support your prediction. Next, search for articles, videos, or primary sources from the WHP course that are related in some way to your topic and the four charts you have identified. Once you have identified four WHP sources, fill out the table in Step 2 of the worksheet. In the “How will you use this source?” column, focus on how these sources will help you create a history of your topic to support the prediction you make.

Once you have completed the worksheet, your teacher will divide your class into groups based on the topic you chose. Share your findings with your group, making sure to explain how each source will be used to support your prediction.

Be sure to continue updating this list with new charts and resources you collect from OWID, WHP, and elsewhere.