Archive for the 'AP Post AP Seminar' Category
Sunday, November 13th, 2011
Today, 27 million men, women and children are held, sold and trafficked as slaves throughout the world. In Slavery: A 21st Century Evil, Rageh Omaar embarks on a worldwide journey to uncover the truth about the flourishing 21st century slave trade. Episode by episode, his investigation will expose the brutal reality of modern slavery and unpick the reasons why this age-old evil persists.
Check out this series and the accompanying web archives from Al Jazeera
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Sunday, September 18th, 2011
In this RSA Animate, renowned academic David Harvey asks if it is time to look beyond capitalism towards a new social order that would allow us to live within a system that really could be responsible, just, and humane?
RSA Animate – Crises of Capitalism
Posted in AP Introductory Materials, AP Post AP Seminar, USH: Post AP Ideas, World Civ-Cold War in West, World Civ-Post Cold War | No Comments »
Tuesday, May 24th, 2011
Welcome to the new food economics of 2011: Prices are climbing, but the impact is not at all being felt equally. For Americans, who spend less than one-tenth of their income in the supermarket, the soaring food prices we’ve seen so far this year are an annoyance, not a calamity. But for the planet’s poorest 2 billion people, who spend 50 to 70 percent of their income on food, these soaring prices may mean going from two meals a day to one. Those who are barely hanging on to the lower rungs of the global economic ladder risk losing their grip entirely. This can contribute — and it has — to revolutions and upheaval.
Already in 2011, the U.N. Food Price Index has eclipsed its previous all-time global high; as of March it had climbed for eight consecutive months. With this year’s harvest predicted to fall short, with governments in the Middle East and Africa teetering as a result of the price spikes, and with anxious markets sustaining one shock after another, food has quickly become the hidden driver of world politics. And crises like these are going to become increasingly common. The new geopolitics of food looks a whole lot more volatile — and a whole lot more contentious — than it used to. Scarcity is the new norm.
Read more from Foreign Policy
Listen to the interview with Lester Brown on Fresh Air (optional)
Assignment for Grade 9 History Elective: Reading Responses
Assignment for APCG: write a thorough summary and analysis of Brown’s article. Refer to specific evidence in the article. Discuss the implications of Brown’s findings. Try to connect the article to themes in the APCG course. Most importantly, come prepared to discuss the article.
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Thursday, February 24th, 2011
The new country, which is likely to be called South Sudan, faces many hurdles. The biggest is a shocking lack of public services. At the moment southerners are loyal mostly to belligerent tribal chiefs, not the nascent government that led the fight for independence. That government will win the trust of its citizens, and with it permanent peace, only when it starts visibly caring for them. That will not be easy.
South Sudan occupies one of the least developed and most remote parts of Africa. Many of its 8m-14m inhabitants—nobody knows the exact number—live in unmapped lands. The whole region has perhaps 100km (62 miles) of paved roads, half in the capital, Juba, and the other half on Chinese-run oilfields. The few existing dirt roads between settlements are littered with potholes, some so big that cars disappear into them. Large parts of South Sudan can be reached only by helicopter—or on foot. As one official wonders, “How to administer a territory you cannot visit?”
Read more about this struggle
Posted in AP Post AP Seminar, World Civ-Dilemmas in Modern Africa | No Comments »
Thursday, December 23rd, 2010
four-part special report from the Economist, with a compelling conclusion
Posted in AP Post AP Seminar, World Civ-Modern Global Dilemmas | 1 Comment »
Friday, January 1st, 2010
For all the advances and wonders of our global era, Christians, Jews, and Muslims seem ever more locked in mortal combat. But history suggests a happier outcome for the Peoples of the Book. As technological evolution has brought communities, nations, and faiths into closer contact, it is the prophets of tolerance and love that have prospered, along with the religions they represent. Is globalization, in fact, God’s will?
Read on from The Nation
Posted in AP Post AP Seminar, USH: Imperialism, World Civ-Imperialism, World Civ-Modern Global Dilemmas | No Comments »
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009
In the 1990s and early 2000s, nations around the world witnessed the sweep of globalization–the growing integration of economies, societies, and political systems–and the democratization of trade, migration, technology, and information. In many developing nations, governments threw their countries’ agriculture, resources, and services open to global competition and slashed subsidies for their domestic producers to force them to compete in global markets. Many countries provided incentives for the poor to migrate from farms to cities, where they began to manufacture goods for export to the West.
Many economists believed this global integration had become so deeply rooted it could never be undone. They were wrong. As the global financial crisis deepens, the world is undergoing exactly the reverse of the 1990s–a wrenching period of deglobalization in which governments throw up new walls and the ties binding nations together rapidly unravel. Nations like the United States, Japan, and Germany may suffer, but they will survive, as will powerful developing nations like China or Brazil that have large cash reserves, diversified economies, and enough political clout to protect their industries. On the other hand, poor and trade-dependent countries that remade their whole economies to take advantage of globalization will be devastated. Having opened up, these nations are now highly vulnerable to global financial currents, without the cash on hand to weather the storm. Perhaps even worse, these financial shifts are likely to spark massive social unrest and could take down one government after the next. If you thought globalization was destabilizing, just wait to see what deglobalization will do.
More from the New Republic
Posted in AP Introductory Materials, AP Post AP Seminar, World Civ-Imperialism, World Civ-Modern Global Dilemmas | No Comments »
Saturday, May 30th, 2009
I am a teenager and often feel powerless when I see problems in the world. My monetary resources are limited, and I already volunteer one day a week at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. My social circle is broad but not numerous. I am schooled at home, so I can’t even talk to my classmates. Can you think of anything I can do to make a bigger difference?
Read responses
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Monday, March 30th, 2009
The militants are bad people and this is bad news. But the more difficult question is, what should we-the outside world-do about it? That we are utterly opposed to such people, and their ideas and practices, is obvious. But how exactly should we oppose them? In Pakistan and Afghanistan, we have done so in large measure by attacking them-directly with Western troops and Predator strikes, and indirectly in alliance with Pakistani and Afghan forces. Is the answer to pour in more of our troops, train more Afghan soldiers, ask that the Pakistani military deploy more battalions, and expand the Predator program to hit more of the bad guys? Perhaps-in some cases, emphatically yes-but I think it’s also worth stepping back and trying to understand the phenomenon of Islamic radicalism.
Read on from Fareed Zakaria and respond to these Qs
Posted in AP Post AP Seminar, World Civ-Middle East, World Civ-Modern Global Dilemmas | No Comments »
Sunday, March 8th, 2009
Listen to one of the the following This American Life programs which do a brilliant job of making the recent economic crisis comprehensible. Prepare 2+ pages of notes for submission (pause recording when necessary–this is complex stuff). Be prepared to present your findings in class.
The Giant Pool of Money
Another Frightening Show About the Economy
Bad Bank
The Watchmen
Questions to Consider:
- Why did the financial markets recede in the past couple of years? Whose fault is this? To what extent is the U.S. government to blame for the crash? To what extent are credit-crazy Americans to blame? How important is it to assign blame?
- Are we amidst an economic crisis, a financial crisis, both or neither?
- Many people blame George W. Bush for the crash. Are there valid reasons to do so?
- Some suggest that the greed inherent in Western cultures make such economic crashes inevitable. Is this a valid assertion?
- Are economic crises in capitalism “natural”? Was this crash a “necessary market correction” as some suggest?
- What types of changes do we need to make to minimize the deleterious impact of market crashes? Are fierce regulations enough or do we require for systemic solutions?
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