Age of Global War: Ideology, Totalitarianism, and Resistance — Skinny¶

Standard: WH.6_12.2 — Explain historical changes related to religions and ideologies Era/Unit (if SS): Era 4 — Age of Global War and Globalization (~1900–present) ELA Crosswalk: 9-10.R.9 — Analyze informational/argumentative texts; 9-10.R.8 — Literary elements and author's craft NDSBL Target: 3.0 score Estimated Time: 60–90 minutes Subject: World History + ELA crosswalk

Official proficiency scale — the source of truth for scoring

Scoring follows the official NDSBL World History Proficiency Scales — not the examples on this page. Proficient (3.0) for Era 4: Age of Global War and Globalization means:

Analyze the causes and global effects of the world wars.
Explain how political or social ideologies shaped the 20th century.
Explain the social, cultural, or economic changes influenced by globalization.

What You Need to Know (Score 2.0)¶

Era 4 is the era of ideological warfare. Fascism, communism, liberal democracy, and religious nationalism competed violently for control of nations and peoples. Understanding this era means understanding these ideologies as systems — what they promised, who they appealed to, how they justified violence, and what happened when they gained state power.

Fascism: A far-right political ideology characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, ultranationalism, and often racial hierarchy. Mussolini's Italy (1922) and Hitler's Germany (1933) were fascist states. Fascism rejected both liberal democracy and communism.
Nazism (National Socialism): Hitler's specific form of fascism, characterized by extreme antisemitism, racial hierarchy (Aryan supremacy), territorial expansionism (Lebensraum), and the belief that Germany's defeat in WWI was caused by a Jewish "stab in the back." Nazism produced the Holocaust.
Communism: The ideology that private property and class distinctions should be abolished, with collective ownership of the means of production. Soviet communism under Stalin became a totalitarian system — the ideology of collective liberation was used to justify mass murder, forced labor camps (Gulag), and political terror.
Totalitarianism: A political system in which the state attempts to control all aspects of public and private life — not just government, but culture, religion, family, and thought. Both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia were totalitarian states.
Propaganda: Information, especially biased or misleading, used to promote a political ideology or cause. In Era 4, propaganda became a technological product — film, radio, and mass-produced print enabled governments to reach every citizen simultaneously.
Antisemitism: Hostility, prejudice, and discrimination against Jewish people. Long-standing in European history, antisemitism was systematized and weaponized by the Nazi regime into a program of genocide — the Holocaust.
Holocaust: The Nazi genocide of approximately 6 million Jewish people (and additional millions of Roma, disabled people, LGBTQ+ people, political prisoners, and others) between 1933 and 1945. The Holocaust was industrialized murder — organized, documented, and bureaucratically administered by the German state.
Liberation Theology / Religious Resistance: Movements that used religious belief as a basis for resisting oppression — e.g., Martin Luther King Jr.'s Christianity-grounded civil rights movement, and liberation theology in Latin America, which argued that faith required active opposition to poverty and injustice.

Basic Processes: - [ ] Define fascism, communism, and liberal democracy as ideological systems and identify what each rejects. - [ ] Explain what "totalitarianism" means and how it differs from ordinary authoritarian government. - [ ] Explain how propaganda functions — how governments use it to shape belief and suppress opposition. - [ ] Define the Holocaust and identify the specific ideology that produced it. - [ ] Distinguish between ideology as a belief system and ideology as a tool for state power.

A student who can score a 2.0: A student who can state that Hitler was a fascist who caused the Holocaust and that Stalin was a communist who killed millions — without yet analyzing how specific ideological beliefs enabled ordinary people to participate in mass murder, or why fascism appealed to large populations in the 1930s.

The Standard (Score 3.0)¶

WH.6_12.2 — Explain historical changes related to religions and ideologies (Era 4)

To meet this standard, you must explain how specific ideologies shaped people's choices and actions — not just what the ideologies were. In Era 4, the central analytical question is: how do ideologies justify violence, and why do ordinary people accept or participate in that justification?

3.0 Example: A student achieves a 3.0 by analyzing how Nazi ideology made the Holocaust possible — not just that Hitler gave orders, but that hundreds of thousands of ordinary Germans participated in killing, transportation, administration, and cover-up. The student uses historian Christopher Browning's work on "ordinary men" who became killers not out of ideological fanaticism but out of conformity, peer pressure, and career incentives. The student connects this to the ideology: Nazi propaganda had systematically dehumanized Jewish people for years before the killing began — and the ideology's specific claim that Germany was under existential threat from Jewish people gave participants a defensive justification. The student analyzes how ideology + propaganda + peer pressure + bureaucratic structure together explain mass participation in genocide — not individual evil alone.

The Difference: A 2.0 student knows Hitler and Nazi ideology caused the Holocaust. A 3.0 student analyzes the specific mechanisms by which ideology enabled ordinary people's participation in mass murder.

Going Further (Score 4.0)¶

To reach a 4.0, you must evaluate competing ideologies of Era 4 — assessing not just what they claimed but what they produced, and connecting them to contemporary ideological conflicts.

Transfer Tasks: 1. Ideology and genocide: The Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide (1994), and the Cambodian genocide under the Khmer Rouge (1975–79) all have ideological roots. Compare the ideological foundations of two of these genocides. What do they have in common? What was specific to each context? Is there a pattern that could serve as an early warning system? 2. Propaganda then and now: Nazi propaganda techniques (emotional manipulation, scapegoating, repetition, enemy creation) have been analyzed extensively. Evaluate: are these techniques present in contemporary political discourse? Use specific examples. Does identifying these techniques as "propaganda" require us to label all political persuasion as manipulation? 3. Religious resistance: MLK's civil rights movement and liberation theology both used religious ideology to resist oppression. How do these uses of religion compare to the way fascism or nationalism used religion as an ideological tool? Is religion inherently a force for justice, inherently a tool for power, or neither?

4.0 Example: A student argues that totalitarianism's defining feature — the attempt to control not just behavior but thought — explains why it always fails eventually, but not before causing enormous suffering. The student analyzes both Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia: both created elaborate systems (secret police, informants, propaganda, fear) to achieve ideological conformity; both produced massive resistance and eventual collapse; both left societies traumatized for generations. The student then evaluates: what does this tell us about human nature and the limits of ideological control? And what does it tell us about the societies that produced these regimes — what conditions made totalitarianism possible?

CrashCourse Connection¶

Video: World War I — CrashCourse WH #38 · Episode in reading library Also: WWII Part 1 — CrashCourse WH #40 · Episode in reading library Also: The Cold War — CrashCourse WH #42 · Episode in reading library

Watch Prompt (general): Track how different ideologies (fascism, communism, liberal democracy, religious nationalism) explain the same events differently. Who are the heroes and villains from each ideological perspective? What does each ideology blame for the world's problems, and what solution does each propose?

Reading Library Connection¶

Night — Elie Wiesel — Night is the primary source text for understanding what Nazi ideology produced at the human level. Read it not just as a survivor's account but as a document of how ideology dehumanizes people: what specific beliefs and systems had to be in place for Auschwitz to exist?
1984 — George Orwell — Orwell wrote 1984 in 1948 as a warning about totalitarianism based on what he observed in Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia. Read the "doublethink," "thoughtcrime," and "Two Minutes Hate" sections as analyses of how totalitarian ideology works — not just science fiction.
MLK — Letter from Birmingham Jail — MLK's letter demonstrates religious ideology as a tool of resistance and justice — compare to the use of ideology for oppression in this era.

Demonstration of Learning — Choose One¶

How will you show you know this standard? Pick one mode.

#	Mode	What You Do for This Specific Standard
1	Written Assessment	Write a 3-paragraph analysis of how ONE Era 4 ideology (fascism, communism, or liberation theology) changed what people believed about themselves, their enemies, and their government. Focus on the specific mechanisms — propaganda, dehumanization, martyrdom, or moral obligation — by which the ideology shaped behavior.
2	Extended Writing	Write a 400–600 word essay arguing: "Ideology made the Holocaust possible — not just Hitler." Use evidence from Night, historical research on ordinary perpetrators, and analysis of Nazi propaganda to support your argument.
3	Verbal Conversation	Record a 3-minute analysis: (1) What is totalitarianism and how does it differ from ordinary dictatorship? (2) How did Nazi ideology enable ordinary people's participation in the Holocaust? (3) What does Orwell's 1984 tell us about how totalitarian ideology works?
4	Visual/Creative	Create an "Ideology Comparison Chart" for three Era 4 ideologies (fascism, communism, and religious resistance). For each: what problem does it claim to solve? Who is the enemy? What sacrifice does it demand? What does it promise? What did it actually produce?
5	Multimedia/Performance	Create a 2–3 minute "Propaganda Analysis" video. Find two pieces of propaganda from different Era 4 ideologies (Nazi, Soviet, or Allied). Analyze each using the same framework: What claim is it making? What emotion is it targeting? What evidence does it omit? Whose perspective is it centering?
6	Portfolio Annotation	Select a previous project about Era 4. Write a 200-word reflection: How did ideology shape the events you studied? Did your original work analyze how specific beliefs enabled specific actions — or did it treat ideology as background?

Deliverable Ideas (Your Studio Product)¶

These are NOT the demonstration of learning. These are PBL artifact ideas.

"Ordinary Men": Why People Participate in Genocide — Research the historiography of perpetrator studies (Browning, Goldhagen, Arendt's "banality of evil"). Write a 1-page analysis: What psychological, social, and ideological mechanisms enabled ordinary people to participate in the Holocaust? What does this tell us about human nature and the importance of resisting ideological dehumanization?
Propaganda: Then and Now — Select three Nazi propaganda techniques (scapegoating, false urgency, enemy creation, repetition, etc.). For each, find a contemporary example from any political context (anywhere in the world, any side of any debate). Write a 1-page analysis: Are these the same techniques? What does their persistence tell us about propaganda's effectiveness?
Liberation Theology: Faith as Resistance — Research liberation theology in Latin America (1960s–1990s). Analyze how religious ideology was used to resist authoritarian governments backed by the United States. Write a 1-page argument: Is using religion to justify resistance fundamentally different from using religion to justify oppression?

Scale Tasks¶

[ ] 2.0 task: Define three Era 4 ideologies (fascism, communism, liberal democracy). For each: what does it value, what does it reject, and what political system does it prefer?
[ ] 3.0 task: Write a paragraph explaining how one Era 4 ideology enabled specific historical actions — not just what people believed, but how those beliefs justified specific behaviors or policies.
[ ] 4.0 task: Write a 200-word argument evaluating whether contemporary political discourse contains elements of totalitarian or propaganda techniques from Era 4. Use specific evidence. Be precise about what qualifies and what doesn't.