Global Historical Developments

📋 Course Outline

1. Great Depression Origins and Spread
2. New Deal and State Intervention
3. Maritime Globalization and Containerization
4. Maritime Routes and Sea Law
5. Global Cities and Core-Periphery
6. Totalitarian Expansion and War
7. Appeasement and Democratic Weakness
8. Occupation, Genocide, and Resistance
9. Special Economic Zones in China
10. Liberation and the Fourth Republic
11. Fifth Republic and Algerian War
12. Thatcherism and Neoliberal Reform

📖 1. Great Depression Origins and Spread

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Great Depression: The Great Depression was a worldwide, severe, prolonged downturn in economic activity that began in 1929 and reshaped international relations in the 1930s.
• Wall Street crash: The Wall Street crash was the October 1929 collapse of the US stock market that triggered the wider economic crisis.
• Stock margin: Stock margin is a practice where investors buy shares by borrowing money, which increases risk when stock prices fall.
• Gold standard: The gold standard is a monetary system that restricts how freely governments can adjust policy by anchoring currency value to gold reserves.
• Hawley-Smoot tariff act: The Hawley-Smoot tariff act is a US move to raise tariffs on imported goods, especially agricultural imports, to protect domestic producers.

📝 Essential Points