More and more often, the turn global village is used to describe the world and its people. In a typical village, however, everyone knows everyone else and the people face the same kinds of problems. How can the world be a village, when it is home to almost 6 billion people? Political and technological changes in the past century have made the global village possible.
Political changes the years following World War II seemed to promise peace and more equality among people. For example, the United Nations was founded in 1945 to help countries resolve disputes peacefully. This promise was soon shattered, however, by the Cold War – tension between the United States and the Soviet Union. These two superpowers engaged in an arms race, spending huge sums of money on weapons. The other nations of the world were split into two “sides,” and the world was frozen in a perpetual state of hostility, seemingly on the brink of destruction.
It was not until the collapse of communist governments in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe between 1989 and 1991 that the Cold War ended and the political climate changed. The end of Cold War tension made the global village more politically possible by opening new channels of communication between nations.
Technological changes Technologically, the greatest contributor to the global village is the microchip-an electronic circuit on a tiny chip. The microchip has made satellites and computers possible. These forms of high-tech communications allow news and ideas to travel guicklyform country to country, making people a wary of their neighbors around the globe in dramatic new ways. Through the internet, we can get information from computers anywhere and carry on electronic conversations with people everywhere. Through television programs transmitted by satellite, we are exposed to manycultures. What will happen as we move into the twenty –first century and beyond ? Almost certainly the development of the global village will continue. Not only is this possible, but the challenges that the world faces-for example, pollution, population growth, and conflicts among peoples-will make it necessary.