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History and Social SciencesWorld History

AP World History: Modern

Investigate how states, societies, economies, belief systems, and technologies interacted across regions from c. 1200 to the present, using evidence to explain comparison, causation, and change over time.

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Unit 1The Global Tapestry7 topics

Compare how major states and societies across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas developed and exercised power from c. 1200 to c. 1450.

  1. 1.1Developments in East Asia from c. 1200 to c. 1450
  2. 1.2Developments in Dar al-Islam from c. 1200 to c. 1450
  3. 1.3Developments in South and Southeast Asia from c. 1200 to c. 1450
  4. 1.4State Building in the Americas
  5. 1.5State Building in Africa
  6. 1.6Developments in Europe from c. 1200 to c. 1450
  7. 1.7Comparison in the Period from c. 1200 to c. 1450

Unit 2Networks of Exchange7 topics

Explain how expanding land and sea routes moved goods, people, technologies, beliefs, and diseases while reshaping societies and environments from c. 1200 to c. 1450.

  1. 2.1The Silk Roads
  2. 2.2The Mongol Empire and the Making of the Modern World
  3. 2.3Exchange in the Indian Ocean
  4. 2.4Trans-Saharan Trade Routes
  5. 2.5Cultural Consequences of Connectivity
  6. 2.6Environmental Consequences of Connectivity
  7. 2.7Comparison of Economic Exchange

Unit 3Land-Based Empires4 topics

Analyze how land-based empires expanded, governed diverse populations, used belief systems, and developed comparable strategies of rule from 1450 to 1750.

  1. 3.1Empires Expand
  2. 3.2Empires: Administration
  3. 3.3Empires: Belief Systems
  4. 3.4Comparison in Land-Based Empires

Unit 4Transoceanic Interconnections8 topics

Trace how maritime technology and exploration created new oceanic empires, exchanges, labor systems, social hierarchies, and resistance from 1450 to 1750.

  1. 4.1Technological Innovations from 1450 to 1750
  2. 4.2Exploration: Causes and Events from 1450 to 1750
  3. 4.3Columbian Exchange
  4. 4.4Maritime Empires Established
  5. 4.5Maritime Empires Maintained and Developed
  6. 4.6Internal and External Challenges to State Power from 1450 to 1750
  7. 4.7Changing Social Hierarchies from 1450 to 1750
  8. 4.8Continuity and Change from 1450 to 1750

Unit 5Revolutions10 topics

Connect Enlightenment ideas, political revolutions, nationalism, industrialization, economic change, and new social responses across the period from 1750 to 1900.

  1. 5.1The Enlightenment
  2. 5.2Nationalism and Revolutions in the Period from 1750 to 1900
  3. 5.3Industrial Revolution Begins
  4. 5.4Industrialization Spreads in the Period from 1750 to 1900
  5. 5.5Technology of the Industrial Age
  6. 5.6Industrialization: Government’s Role from 1750 to 1900
  7. 5.7Economic Developments and Innovations in the Industrial Age
  8. 5.8Reactions to the Industrial Economy from 1750 to 1900
  9. 5.9Society and the Industrial Age
  10. 5.10Continuity and Change in the Industrial Age

Unit 6Consequences of Industrialization8 topics

Evaluate the motives, methods, and consequences of imperial expansion, global economic control, Indigenous resistance, and mass migration from 1750 to 1900.

  1. 6.1Rationales for Imperialism from 1750 to 1900
  2. 6.2State Expansion from 1750 to 1900
  3. 6.3Indigenous Responses to State Expansion from 1750 to 1900
  4. 6.4Global Economic Development from 1750 to 1900
  5. 6.5Economic Imperialism from 1750 to 1900
  6. 6.6Causes of Migration in an Interconnected World
  7. 6.7Effects of Migration
  8. 6.8Causation in the Imperial Age

Unit 7Global Conflict9 topics

Explain how shifting power, total war, economic crisis, unresolved tensions, and mass atrocities produced and shaped global conflict after 1900.

  1. 7.1Shifting Power After 1900
  2. 7.2Causes of World War I
  3. 7.3Conducting World War I
  4. 7.4Economy in the Interwar Period
  5. 7.5Unresolved Tensions After World War I
  6. 7.6Causes of World War II
  7. 7.7Conducting World War II
  8. 7.8Mass Atrocities After 1900
  9. 7.9Causation in Global Conflict

Unit 8Cold War and Decolonization9 topics

Analyze how ideological rivalry, proxy conflicts, communist revolutions, decolonization, new states, resistance movements, and reform transformed the postwar world.

  1. 8.1Setting the Stage for the Cold War and Decolonization
  2. 8.2The Cold War
  3. 8.3Effects of the Cold War
  4. 8.4Spread of Communism After 1900
  5. 8.5Decolonization After 1900
  6. 8.6Newly Independent States
  7. 8.7Global Resistance to Established Power Structures After 1900
  8. 8.8End of the Cold War
  9. 8.9Causation in the Age of the Cold War and Decolonization

Unit 9Globalization9 topics

Assess how technology, disease, environmental debate, economic integration, culture, reform movements, resistance, and international institutions have shaped globalization since 1900.

  1. 9.1Advances in Technology and Exchange After 1900
  2. 9.2Technological Advances and Limitations After 1900: Disease
  3. 9.3Technological Advances: Debates About the Environment After 1900
  4. 9.4Economics in the Global Age
  5. 9.5Calls for Reform and Responses After 1900
  6. 9.6Globalized Culture After 1900
  7. 9.7Resistance to Globalization After 1900
  8. 9.8Institutions Developing in a Globalized World
  9. 9.9Continuity and Change in a Globalized World