Photojournalism in an

This course will examine the 20th- and 21st-century geopolitical and historical forces that produced two world wars and smaller but deadly conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and the Middle East. It will pay particular attention to the ways these wars generated technological innovations that shaped civilian life after the conflicts ended.

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World War I produced the terrors of trench warfare and poison gas, but it also became a powerful engine of technological transformation. Innovations developed for military survival and victory, including advances in aviation, radio communication, surgery, prosthetics, motor transport, and industrial production, profoundly reshaped civilian life in the decades that followed.

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Amid unprecedented destruction and the horrors of the Holocaust, World War II accelerated technological innovation on a remarkable scale. Advances developed for war—radar, jet engines, computing, nuclear energy, antibiotics, mass production, telecommunications, and modern logistics—soon reshaped civilian life, medicine, transportation, and global commerce.

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During the Cold War and later conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East, and Afghanistan, superpower competition drove striking advances in science and technology. Innovations developed for defense and survival—satellites, GPS, jet travel, nuclear energy, computers, the internet, telecommunications, weather forecasting, and modern medical technologies—rapidly migrated into civilian life, reshaping commerce, transportation, communication, and global connectivity.

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Dilip Sundaram is a global executive and lifelong student of history, geopolitical conflict, and technological change. His career has spanned aerospace, automotive, and electric vehicles, including roles at Price Waterhouse, Pratt & Whitney, Otis Elevator, and Rockwell Automotive (Cummins). He teaches mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance, and restructuring at Georgetown University's business school. He holds a BS in economics from the University of Calcutta, an MBA from the Simon Business School at the University of Rochester, and advanced certificates in leadership and corporate strategy from Harvard Business School.