World History: Revolutions, Global War and the Postwar Order
World History
The World History domain tests causal analysis of revolutions, industrialization, global conflict and the postwar order. You should be able to explain change over time, compare ideologies, and distinguish long-term pressures from immediate triggers.
Core rules and concepts
- Enlightenment and revolution - natural rights, consent and separation of powers shaped the American and French revolutions; fiscal crisis and social inequality were immediate French triggers.
- Industrial Revolution - began in Britain around 1750–1800, driven by coal, steam, capital, empire and agricultural productivity; it transformed class relations and urban life.
- World War I - alliance blocs, militarism, imperial rivalry and the July Crisis produced war in 1914; the Treaty of Versailles (1919) imposed reparations and territorial losses on Germany.
- Interwar and World War II - depression, fascism and appeasement undermined the League of Nations; the war ended in 1945.
- Cold War - US–Soviet rivalry was fought through alliances, proxy wars, nuclear deterrence and ideology; it ended with the USSR’s dissolution in 1991.
- United Nations - founded in 1945 to preserve peace and promote cooperation; unlike the League, it included major wartime victors and permitted great-power vetoes.
Worked example
Question: Why did the French Revolution begin in 1789? Reasoning: combine structural causes (rigid estates, tax exemptions, food prices) with immediate triggers (fiscal collapse, calling of the Estates-General, Bastille). Avoid saying the poor revolted without naming bourgeois and peasant participation and the fiscal crisis.
Traps
Do not equate the League of Nations with the UN; do not treat Versailles as the sole cause of WWII; do not describe the Cold War as a direct US–Soviet war.