Themes of World History

Themes
The AP World History course requires students to engage with the dynamics of continuity and change across the historical periods that are included in the course. Students should be taught to analyze the processes and causes involved in these continuities and changes. In order to do so, students and teachers should focus on FIVE overarching themes which serve throughout the course as unifying threads, helping students to put what is particular about each period or society into a larger framework. The themes also provide ways to make comparisons over time and facilitate cross-period questions. Each theme should receive approximately equal attention over the course of the year.

1. Interaction between humans and the environment
Demography and disease
Migration
Patterns of settlement
Technology

2. Development and interaction of cultures
Religions
Belief systems, philosophies, and ideologies
Science and technology
The arts and architecture

3. State-building, expansion, and conflict
Political structures and forms of governance
Empires
Nations and nationalism
Revolts and revolutions
Regional, transregional, and global structures and organizations

4. Creation, expansion, and interaction of economic systems
Agricultural and pastoral production
Trade and commerce
Labor systems
Industrialization
Capitalism and socialism

5. Development and transformation of social structures
Gender roles and relations
Family and kinship
Racial and ethnic constructions
Social and economic classes