Enduring Issues Essay Setup

Suggested issue: Cultural diffusion

Sample document set: (1) Shah's White Revolution reforms, (2) Khomeini speech or Islamic Republic policies, (3) Atatürk's reforms in Turkey, (4) Saudi Arabia maintaining tradition with oil wealth, (5) a later document for continuity

Thesis template: "Cultural diffusion is an enduring issue because throughout history ideas, technologies, and practices have spread between societies in ways that have produced both adoption and resistance. The spread of modernization globally has provoked complex responses, from Atatürk's aggressive Westernization of Turkey, to the Iranian Revolution's rejection of Western models, to Saudi Arabia's selective adoption of modern technology while preserving religious tradition. These different responses show that cultural diffusion is rarely a one-way process and that societies actively choose which elements to embrace, adapt, or reject."

Extemp parallel: Maria should approach this as a three-minute extemp on "How have societies responded to modernization?" Body points on aggressive top-down modernization (Atatürk), reaction against modernization (Iran), and selective adaptation (Saudi Arabia, China). Close with continuity to contemporary debates about technology, identity, and globalization.

Second essay setup, alternative issue: Conflict. Document set could focus on conflicts produced by tradition-modernization tensions, including the Iranian Revolution, Hindu-Muslim violence over Ayodhya, conflicts in Afghanistan, the rise of Islamist terrorism. The thesis would argue that the tension between modernization and traditional cultures has been one of the most persistent sources of political and military conflict in the past century.