Post-Cold War and the Contemporary World

The smartphone sitting on your desk is the ultimate artifact of the post-Cold War era. Its raw materials were mined in Sub-Saharan Africa, its microchips were assembled in East Asia, and its software was coded in California. It connects to a decentralized web of global satellites, allowing you to instantly trade a currency that didn't exist thirty years ago, read news about a border conflict six thousand miles away, or watch a viral video created by a teenager in a different hemisphere. This device is impossible without the political, economic, and technological paradigm shift that began in the final decade of the twentieth century. To understand the contemporary world—and to teach it effectively to a generation of students who have never known a disconnected planet—we must map the invisible architecture that builds this phone, and the violent, profound societal fractures that occur when that architecture forces distinct human cultures into unprecedented proximity.