I. Unit Framing: The World Maria Lives In
Unit 10.9 is different from the previous units in one important respect: it covers the world Maria actually lives in. The other units have been historical. This one covers the present and the recent past, from roughly 1991 (the end of the Cold War, where Unit 10.6 left off) to the 2020s. The unit's task is to help Maria recognize that the world she experiences as natural was built by particular historical processes that are still ongoing. Globalization, climate change, the digital revolution, and the resulting backlashes are all stories whose endings have not yet been written.
The concept that organizes this unit is globalization. The word entered widespread use in the 1990s to describe the accelerating economic, technological, cultural, and political integration of the world. The Soviet Union had collapsed. The Cold War's bipolar division had ended. A new global economic and political order, dominated by liberal democratic capitalism and American power, seemed to be establishing itself. Technological developments (the internet, mobile telephones, container shipping, satellite communications) connected previously separated places at unprecedented speed and scale. This was the period sometimes called the "end of history" by overly optimistic commentators who assumed that liberal democracy and free markets had won permanently.
The 2000s and 2010s qualified that optimism substantially. The September 11 attacks, the resulting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the 2008 financial crisis, the rise of China as an economic superpower, the Russian return to authoritarian and aggressive politics, the populist backlash in Western democracies, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the accelerating climate crisis have all complicated the simple globalization story. Maria's world is one of intensely connected but increasingly contested globalization.
Strategic insight: Maria should approach this unit by thinking of globalization as a set of processes (economic, technological, cultural, political, environmental) that have produced both benefits and discontents. The Regents tests this unit by asking about specific developments (the rise of the internet, the spread of multinational corporations, the impact of climate change, the role of international organizations) and by asking Maria to evaluate the broader pattern. Strong answers acknowledge that globalization has produced economic growth, technological advances, and cultural exchange while also producing inequality, environmental damage, and political reactions.
Essential question for this unit: How has globalization changed the world since the end of the Cold War, what tensions has it produced, and how is the global environment changing?