The Shaping of the Modern World

This episode introduces the case of decolonization in Algeria. I survey the situation in colonial Algeria before, during, and immediately after World War II.

In this episode, I talk about the second industrial revolution that began in the late 1800s.

In this short episode, I introduce the subject of climate change and how historians have been thinking the connections between the environment and human history.

In this episode, I introduce the Third Industrial Revolution and provide a brief history of the internet’s origins.

In this episode, I talk about the end of the second world war and the origins of decolonization.

In this episode, I talk about the rise and fall of fascist Italy’s, Nazi Germany’s, and imperial Japan’s empires in Africa, Europe, and Asia.

In this episode, I set the stage for a new period of global wars over empires.

In this episode, I describe the colonial wars of the mid 19th to early 20th centuries as a “world war.”

In this episode, I introduce the “new imperialism” of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

In this episode, I talk about the first industrial revolution that began in Great Britain in the mid 1700s.

In this episode, I briefly introduce the revolution in Haiti and the results in Latin America.

In this episode, I talk about the origins and course of the revolt by colonists in British North America and the revolution in France.

In this episode, I talk about developments within the world’s religious traditions, the “scientific acceleration” of the 17th Century, and the Enlightenment.

In this episode I introduce the transatlantic slave trade and talk about the longer-term legacies of slavery in the United States.

In this episode, I talk about the creation of new empires, the Columbian Exchange, and the “first globalization.”

In this episode, I briefly describe some of the central features of the world around the year 1400, emphasizing the “biological old regime” and the Black Death.

In this episode, I talk about the opposition that existed within Germany to Hitler and the Nazi regime, focusing on assassination attempts on his life and the White Rose group in Munich.

In this episode, I give a short introduction to Gillo Pontecorvo’s 1966 masterpiece, The Battle of Algiers.