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AP World History: Modern

College-level world history covering global developments from c. 1200 CE to the present. Aligned to the College Board AP World History: Modern Course and Exam Description. Emphasizes historical thinking skills and document analysis.

14 Units

45-60 minutes per unit

What You Will Learn

College Board Aligned

All nine AP World History periods — from post-classical civilizations through globalization.

Document-Based Analysis

Practice with primary sources, DBQ strategies, and AP-style historical argumentation.

College Credit Potential

A qualifying AP exam score can earn 3-6 college credits at most universities.

All Units

The Global Tapestry (c. 1200-1450)

Examines state-building, cultural developments, and the structures of power across Afro-Eurasia between 1200 and 1450.

•Explain how and why states in Africa, Asia, and Europe developed and changed between 1200 and 1450.
•Analyze the role of religion, trade, and technology in shaping political and cultural life across world regions.
•Compare the political structures of the Mongol Empire with those of other major states of the era.
+1 more objectives

Networks of Exchange (c. 1200-1450)

Explores the Silk Roads, Indian Ocean trade network, trans-Saharan routes, and the movement of goods, ideas, and diseases across Afro-Eurasia.

•Identify the major trade networks of c. 1200-1450 and explain what goods, ideas, and peoples moved along them.
•Analyze how trade networks facilitated the spread of religions, technologies, and diseases.
•Evaluate the role of geography and political stability in enabling or disrupting long-distance trade.
+1 more objectives

Land-Based Empires (c. 1450-1750)

Examines the rise and consolidation of the Ottoman, Safavid, Mughal, Ming/Qing, and Russian empires and the common methods through which they built and maintained power.

•Identify the major land-based empires of c. 1450-1750 and explain how each built and consolidated power.
•Analyze the methods empires used to administer diverse populations, including bureaucracy, military force, and religious legitimacy.
•Compare the political structures and ideological justifications of at least two major empires of the period.
+1 more objectives

Transoceanic Connections (c. 1450-1750)

Examines European maritime expansion, the Columbian Exchange, the development of colonial systems, and the transformation of global commerce between 1450 and 1750.

•Explain the causes and motivations behind European maritime exploration and expansion.
•Analyze the Columbian Exchange and its biological, demographic, and economic consequences for peoples on multiple continents.
•Evaluate the systems of coerced labor — encomienda, mita, chattel slavery — that European colonizers established in the Americas and Africa.
+1 more objectives

Revolutions (c. 1750-1900)

Examines the political revolutions of the late 18th and early 19th centuries — American, French, Haitian, and Latin American — and the Enlightenment ideas that inspired them.

•Explain how Enlightenment ideas about natural rights, popular sovereignty, and rational governance inspired political revolutions.
•Compare the causes, course, and outcomes of the American, French, Haitian, and Latin American revolutions.
•Analyze how the Haitian Revolution's outcome was shaped by race, slavery, and the limits of Enlightenment universalism.
+1 more objectives

Industrialization and Its Effects (c. 1750-1900)

Examines the origins and spread of industrialization, its economic and social transformations, and the rise of new ideologies responding to industrial capitalism.

•Explain why industrialization began in Britain and how it spread to other regions of the world.
•Analyze the social and economic consequences of industrialization for workers, women, children, and urban populations.
•Evaluate the new economic ideologies — liberalism, socialism, Marxism — that emerged in response to industrial capitalism.
+1 more objectives

Global Conflict and Its Consequences: Imperialism (c. 1750-1900)

Examines the New Imperialism of the 19th century, its economic and ideological drivers, its methods of control, and the resistance movements it generated.

•Explain the economic, political, and ideological motivations behind 19th-century European imperialism.
•Analyze the methods European powers used to establish and maintain control over colonial territories in Africa and Asia.
•Evaluate the role of Social Darwinism and racial ideology in justifying imperialism.
+1 more objectives

Global Conflict: World War I (c. 1900-Present)

Examines the causes, conduct, and consequences of World War I, including the role of nationalism, alliance systems, imperialism, and industrialized warfare.

•Analyze the long-term and immediate causes of World War I using the MAIN framework (Militarism, Alliances, Imperialism, Nationalism).
•Explain how industrial technology transformed the nature of warfare and produced unprecedented casualties.
•Evaluate the outcomes of World War I, including the Treaty of Versailles, and analyze its role in causing World War II.
+1 more objectives

The Interwar Period (c. 1900-Present)

Examines the interwar period (1919-1939), the rise of totalitarian regimes, the Great Depression's global impact, and the beginnings of anticolonial movements.

•Explain how the Great Depression destabilized democratic governments and created conditions for authoritarian regimes.
•Compare the ideologies and methods of fascism (Italy, Germany) and Stalinism (USSR) as responses to postwar instability.
•Analyze how the interwar period saw the expansion of anticolonial nationalism across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.
+1 more objectives

Global Conflict: World War II (c. 1900-Present)

Examines the causes, conduct, and consequences of World War II, including the Holocaust, the atomic bomb, and the postwar international order.

•Analyze the causes of World War II, including the failures of the interwar period and the specific decisions of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.
•Explain the Holocaust as a planned genocide enabled by modern state bureaucracy and ideology.
•Evaluate the moral dimensions of major wartime decisions, including the atomic bombing of Japan.
+1 more objectives

The Cold War (c. 1900-Present)

Examines the Cold War rivalry between the United States and Soviet Union, proxy conflicts, nuclear deterrence, and the Non-Aligned Movement.

•Explain the ideological, political, and economic foundations of the U.S.-Soviet Cold War rivalry.
•Analyze how the Cold War was fought through proxy conflicts, arms races, and ideological competition rather than direct military confrontation.
•Evaluate the Non-Aligned Movement as a Third World attempt to navigate superpower competition.
+1 more objectives

Decolonization and Independence (c. 1900-Present)

Examines independence movements across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, the varied paths to decolonization, and the challenges of postcolonial nation-building.

•Explain the factors that accelerated decolonization after World War II, including the war's impact on European colonial power and the emergence of the Cold War.
•Compare independence movements across different regions — India, Algeria, Kenya, Vietnam, Ghana — in terms of strategy, duration, and outcome.
•Analyze the challenges of postcolonial nation-building, including economic dependency, artificial borders, and ethnic conflict.
+1 more objectives

Globalization (c. 1900-Present)

Examines the acceleration of economic integration, technological revolution, cultural exchange, and resistance movements in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

•Explain the economic, technological, and political factors that accelerated globalization in the late 20th century.
•Analyze the unequal distribution of globalization's benefits and costs across different regions and populations.
•Evaluate the cultural dimensions of globalization — the spread of consumer culture and resistance to cultural homogenization.
+1 more objectives

Contemporary Challenges (c. 1900-Present)

Examines the defining challenges of the contemporary world — climate change, inequality, migration, and human rights — and their historical roots in processes studied throughout the course.

•Connect contemporary global challenges to the historical processes — industrialization, imperialism, globalization — that produced them.
•Analyze climate change as a global collective action problem with historical roots in industrial capitalism.
•Evaluate the relationship between global economic inequality and the historical patterns of colonialism and development.
+1 more objectives

AP World History: Modern. College-level course aligned to College Board CED. Replaces standard World History.