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Course: World History Project AP® > Unit 7
Lesson 1: 7.0—Shifting Power after 1900READ: Global Shifts in Power
With the twentieth century, we can see three big shifts in power both within and among societies. What caused these transformations, and how should we understand them?
The article below uses “Three Close Reads”. If you want to learn more about this strategy, click here.
First read: preview and skimming for gist
Before you read the article, you should skim it first. The skim should be very quick and give you the gist (general idea) of what the article is about. You should be looking at the title, author, headings, pictures, and opening sentences of paragraphs for the gist.
Second read: key ideas and understanding content
Now that you’ve skimmed the article, you should preview the questions you will be answering. These questions will help you get a better understanding of the concepts and arguments that are presented in the article. Keep in mind that when you read the article, it is a good idea to write down any vocab you see in the article that is unfamiliar to you.
By the end of the second close read, you should be able to answer the following questions:
- In this article, how are “power” and being “powerful” defined? What are some of the sources of power the author identifies?
- What is the economic-military cycle of power described in this article, and how does it work?
- In what specific ways does the article show challenges to power within a state?
- What were some important differences between socialism and fascism described in the article?
- What challenges to global power structures emerged after the Second World War?
Third read: evaluating and corroborating
Finally, here are some questions that will help you focus on why this article matters and how it connects to other content you’ve studied.
At the end of the third read, you should be able to respond to these questions:
- Using evidence from the article, explain the most significant causes of political change after 1900.
- How do the power shifts outlined in this article help you respond to the Unit Problem: “What were the causes of global conflict from c. 1900 to the present?”
Now that you know what to look for, it’s time to read! Remember to return to these questions once you’ve finished reading.
Global Shifts in Power
By Trevor Getz
With the twentieth century, we can see three big shifts in power both within and among societies. What caused these transformations, and how should we understand them?
What is power?
Who are the “powerful,” and how do they get to be in charge and to shape the world? It’s a question we ask today, but also something historians ask about nearly every society they study. It’s really about causation—because it asks how things get to be the way they are.
“Powerful” has many definitions, but in this context, it generally means the ability to shape the world around you to your liking. Power can come from a lot of different sources. Tradition and social status often determine a person’s power within a society. In many societies, the ability to exercise coercive power—forcing people to do what you want—has empowered states for millennia. But by the turn of the century, some important changes in power relations were taking place—both within and among states. Some of these changes gave the powerful even more power. Others brought new challenges to authority and power structures.
In every society, power structures give some groups of people power over others. Before 1750, power was often held by monarchs—hereditary rulers like kings, shahs, emirs, and such. Alongside the monarchs, a class of aristocrats and wealthy land-owners exercised local power. In 1900, this class of people still held power in many societies, but they were joined by new groups as well. Liberal revolutions replaced monarchies—or limited them—with new forms of representative government. Also, capitalism had made new groups of people wealthy, and we know wealth usually equals power. Indeed, these groups often bought or forced their way into government. Workers and farmers—meaning most of the people on the planet—were nearly powerless in the liberal capitalist system. But class and wealth have not been the only factors determining power. There is also gender. In 1900, political power was generally held by men, not women. And the ideologies of racism and imperialism also supported unequal power structures in this period.
Power was unevenly distributed within societies, but there were also disparities in power between different societies. For example, colonialism was an expression of power. By 1900, many of the world’s societies were colonized by imperialist states. Empires exercised many forms of coercive power over their colonial subjects. Even among independent states, some were more powerful than others, and in 1900 the most powerful state was clearly Great Britain. Using the wealth of the British Empire and industrialization, this state maintained a pre-eminent position in global affairs. But other industrial empires like Germany, France, the United States, and Japan were quickly catching up to Britain.
Industrialized power
Industrialization and empire were the most important keys to international power for any state in this period. Powerful states required professional armies and modern weapons, in particular new steam-powered warships. In this brutal, competitive era, these weapons allowed states to pursue their economic goals, which were to gain access to resources and open up foreign markets to their companies. But building modern, high-tech weapons and maintaining armies cost a fortune. This created a vicious cycle where big economies required military muscle, but muscular militaries required lots of money, pushing powerful, wealthy states to become more powerful and more wealthy. Enough was never enough.
This economic-military cycle can help us understand why some states were more successful than others in their pursuit of power. Reflect back on the last few units of this course, and you will see what we mean. For example, the earliest states to industrialize—especially Great Britain, and later the United States, Japan, and other European nations—had a big advantage. They made money quickly, built up economies that could support expensive military forces, and used their power to prevent other countries from industrializing by forcing them to accept unequal trade treaties.
States that were building industrial economies needed access to a lot of resources. The states that had easiest access to more resources were those with large territories—or, even better, overseas empires. So, many states sought to expand their territory. For the United States, this meant seizing new territories in the American west, the Caribbean, and the Pacific Ocean. For European states, this mainly meant conquering and exploiting overseas colonies in Africa, Australia and the Pacific, and Southeast Asia. For Japan, the need for raw materials provided an incentive to conquer Pacific islands and invade Korea.
Finally, changing patterns of world trade helped some states, and hurt others. The opening of the Suez Canal, for example, helped Britain to dominate trade routes between Western Europe and East Asia, but pulled that trade away from the land-routes of the Ottoman Empire.
Of course, the economic-military cycle meant that states constantly had to improve and expand their militaries and military technologies in order to compete for more power and territory. This brought powerful states into conflict with one another, and they used diplomacy to resolve them ... for a while. But by 1914, the tensions of this system reached a breaking point and helped cause the First World War (1914–1918).
Challenging power within the state
States have been competing with each other for thousands of years, and power disparities have existed in human societies for much longer. But by 1900, new power struggles were simmering within societies. In each state, the powerful—monarchs, aristocrats, and the wealthy—mostly made the decisions and got what they wanted. Meanwhile, those who worked in factories and homes, served in the military, and harvested or mined the raw materials often found themselves poor, powerless, and oppressed. This was true even in supposedly democratic states.
Well before the First World War, groups of workers and farmers challenged the power of state governments. These kinds of challenges drove the Atlantic Revolutions, the Revolutions of 1848, the Taiping Rebellion, the Indian Mutiny, and a host of other upheavals. Not to mention the many socialist challenges of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, especially in Europe and Mexico.
But as you will see in this unit, the First World War helped spark new revolutions in which workers challenged the power of the ruling class. This global war slaughtered a generation of young men and devastated many societies. The long, horrific conflict caused more and more people to call for real change in government. The most significant example was the Russian Revolution, which toppled the tsar and swept a communist government into power. Similar socialist or communist movements emerged in many other parts of Europe. In the Interwar Period (roughly 1918–1939), these movements challenged liberal, capitalist systems of government and called instead for a “dictatorship of the masses” and international solidarity among workers. Although intended as a democracy, the Russian Revolution morphed into an authoritarian system.
In the same period, many liberal governments were also challenged by fascist movements. Unlike the socialist movements that called for rule by the masses, fascists were explicitly authoritarian from the beginning. They wanted a leader whose power was unquestioned, but who could “get things done.” And unlike socialists, fascists embraced nationalism rather than calling for international solidarity. These two systems represented very different approaches to governing. But one thing they certainly had in common was their rejection of the existing power structures that had helped cause the First World War.
Struggling to define the post-war world order
The Second World War (1939–1945) partially restored the liberal, capitalist global political system that had existed before the First World War. The main fascist states were defeated. But socialist and communist states still existed, in particular the Soviet Union. The struggle between communism and liberal capitalism would define the post-war struggle for power that was the Cold War. But another challenge loomed. Just as the First World War had weakened power structures within states, the Second World War eroded the power that empires held over their colonies.
The Second World War devastated many imperial powers such as Britain, France, Italy, and Japan. These empires had funded and fought their war in part with millions of troops and laborers not from their own states, but from their colonies abroad. After the war, hundreds of millions of colonial subjects understandably asked: Why did I just fight a war for my colonizers that didn’t result in my own liberation? Over the next half-century, most of the colonized communities in the world would demand—and achieve—independence.
What causes shifts in power?
The story told above is one that looks at three big changes in global power:
- the rise of industrialized empires before the First World War
- challenges to the liberal capitalist system between the First and Second World Wars
- challenges to empire after the Second World War
In each case, some causes are suggested for those changes. But as you will see in this unit, the causes of big changes are complex, and often debated, so please debate them! What additional explanations for these changes will you find?
Author bio
Trevor Getz is a professor of African and world history at San Francisco State University. He has been the author or editor of 11 books, including the award-winning graphic history Abina and the Important Men, and has coproduced several prize-winning documentaries. Trevor is also the author of A Primer for Teaching African History, which explores questions about how we should teach the history of Africa in high school and university classes.
Want to join the conversation?
I love World War 2 it is great too learn how our grandfathers did in the war it is very sad once you hear it but still it's a great story like a 5yr old listening to a picture book(1 vote)
too true mate, too true. WW2 veterans are also rapidly dwindling. We must treasure these first-hand accounts while we can(1 vote)
Is there something wrong with the PDF(1 vote)- No. You should be able to access the document through the Khan Academy website.(1 vote)