Science and Technology for Today’s World

By the 1990s, computers had become commonplace in developed countries, though fears about their potential impact on privacy grew with the rise of the internet and social media. Easy access to social media over smartphones helped young protestors in Tunisia and Egypt organize to challenge their governments. The movement spread across the Middle East in the form of the Arab Spring. Some nations such as China have since blocked the use of many social media platforms.         

Medical scientists have made great strides in curing and preventing diseases. Vaccines eliminated smallpox around the world and came close to eliminating polio. But new illnesses arose, including Ebola virus and HIV/AIDS. Since it was identified in the 1980s, treatments have emerged to make it a manageable disease for many rather than a lethal one, though in the developing world, it is still a huge problem. The most recent challenge to world health, the COVID-19 pandemic that began in December 2019, demonstrates how both globalization and technological developments affect life in the twenty-first century.            

All images referenced in this podcast can be found at https://openstax.org/books/world-history-volume-2/pages/15-3-science-and-technology-for-todays-world            

Welcome to A Journey into Human History.    

This podcast will attempt to tell the whole human story.       

The content contained in this podcast was produced by OpenStax and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.     

Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/world-history-volume-2/pages/1-introduction    

Podcast produced by Miranda Casturo as a Creative Common Sense production.

Om Podcasten

Welcome to a journey into human history. This podcast will attempt to tell the whole human story. You may be asking yourself what is history? Is it simply a record of things people have done? Is it what writer Maya Angelou suggested—a way to meet the pain of the past and overcome it? Or is it, as Winston Churchill said, a chronicle by the victors, an interpretation by those who write it? History is all this and more. Above all else, it is a path to knowing why we are the way we are—all our greatness, all our faults—and therefore a means for us to understand ourselves and change for the better. But history serves this function only if it is a true reflection of the past. It cannot be a way to mask the darker parts of human nature, nor a way to justify acts of previous generations. It is the historian’s task to paint as clear a picture as sources will allow. Will history ever be a perfect telling of the human tale? No. There are voices we may never hear. Yet each new history book written and each new source uncovered reveal an ever more precise record of events around the world. You are about to take a journey into human history. The content contained in this podcast was produced by OpenStax and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License. For more information please review the links and resources in the description. Podcast produced by Miranda Casturo as a creative common sense production.