Collapse at the Center

First World War

• 1900- Europeans control most others
• Accident waiting to happen
• German/Italian unification 1870
• MAIN/Assassination
• Triple Alliance/Triple Entente

WWI

• expected to be quick (1914-1918)
• war of attrition
• Total War
• expansion of government, propaganda
• women, labor unions

Effects of WWI

• disillutionment
• superiority of the West?

Social Change

• casualties- social mobility
• women's rights
• sexual conventions
• consumerism
• radio and movies- popular culture

New map of europe

• Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia
• Ethnic minorities
• Russian Bolshevik Revolution (1917)

Treaty of versailles

• Germany lost territory- home and abroad
• German reparations ($33 Billion)
• restriction of military forces
• War Guilt Clause
• German resentment

Dissolution of ottoman

• Armenian Genocide
• new Arab states
• British promises to both Jews and Arabs

Asia and Africa

• military skills/political awareness
• self-government in India
• Japan strengthened
• China turns further from the West

United States

• Important in the defeat of Germany
• became Europe's creditor
• Woodrow Wilson's ideas

Great Depression

European Economy

• industrial capitalism failing?
• individualist materialism
• enormous social inequalities
• instability causing anxiety

Great Depression

• began in 1929
• dropping stock prices wiped out fortunes
• lost life savings
• world trade dropped 62%
• unemployment soared- 30% in Germany and US

Causes

• 1920's boom in US- overproduction
• Europe impoverished by WWI
• European recovery buying their own goods
• Speculative stock market- artificially high

Global problem

• Worldwide empires
• single-export countries hit hard
• tensions in L.A. resulted in:  
• military takeovers, interventionist govs
• substitution industrialization, authoritarian/populism

Challenge to governments

• capitalists- invisible hand
• Soviet economy grew through the 30's
• "democratic socialism"
• Nazi Germany and Japan coped the best

The New Deal

• FDR
• John Maynard Keynes
• changed the government
• successful?

Democracy Denied

Democracy challenged after WWI

• Communism
• authoritarian, nationalist, anti-communist
• Italy, Germany, Japan alliance

Fascist alternative

• intensely nationalistic/conservative/traditional values
• action over reflection
• charismatic leadership
• against individualism, liberalism, feminism, democracy, communism
• determined to overthrow existing regimes

Fascist Appeal

• dissatisfied people in all social classes
• devastation of WWI
• many Western European lands
• important in Austria, Hungary, Romania, Spain
• major power in Italy and Germany

Fascism developed in Italy

• social tensions- economic crisis
• Benito Mussolini- Black Shirts
• ancient Roman symbols
• Mussolini embraced Catholic culture
• Invaded Ethiopia- "New Roman Empire"

Hitler and the Nazis

• collapse of German imperial state
• Weimar Republic negotiated peace
• traditional elites disgraced 
• Germany didn't really lose WWI- betrayed
• Freikorps- assassinated Weimar supporters

Growth of Nazis

• 37% of vote by 1932
• suppressed other political parties
• majority support by late 30's
• traditional rural values

Nazi beliefs

• Jews as ultimate scapegoat
• deeply anti-feminist
• moral collapse of the West
• use of modern science

Japanese Authoritarianism

• newcomer to "great power" status
• territorial expansion
• minimal role in WWI
• at Versailles on winning side

1920's Japan

• moving toward democracy
• expansion of education
• urban consumer society
• individual freedom, including women
• lower-class movements for equality

tensions of modernization

• Rice Riot of 1918
• union membership tripled in 1920s
• tenant unions in countryside
• women's movement
• socialist and communist parties growing

Reactions

• Elite alarmed- activists arrested
• depression led to doubt of gov's power
• Radical Nationalism
• power to military elites
• free expression limited

World War II

Road to war in Asia

• Japanese imperialism
• 1931- seized Manchuria
• withdrew from League of Nations
• 1936- allied with Germany/Italy
• 1937- major attack on China

Japanese feel threatened

• international opinion against Japan
• not accepted as equal- racism?
• heavily dependent on foreign goods
• imperialists controlled Southeast Asia
• Soviet Union controlled northern Asia

Japanese Expansion

• launched conquest of European colonies
• Indochina, Malaya, Burma, Indonesia, Philippines
• liberators of fellow Asians
• highly brutal rule by Japanese
• December 1941- attack on Pearl Harbor

Road to war in Europe

• Nazis- injustices of Versailles
• unwilling to confront German aggression
• "living space"
• rearmament began in 1935
• 1938- annexation of Austria and Sudetenland

Course of war

• 1939- attack on Poland
• blitzkrieg
• Germany quickly gained control of Europe
• air war against Britain/invasion of USSR
• Germans defeated in May 1945

Outcomes

• 60 million dead- more than half civilians
• 40%- USSR
• Rape of Nanjing
• Bombing Raids
• Larger government moblilization/women

Holocaust

• 6 million Jews killed
• millions of others also killed
• questioning of western values
• migration of European Jews to Israel
• resistors/collaborators

Legacies

• Europe impoverished
• millions homeless/displaced
• couldn't hold colonies
• expanded the Communist world

International systems

• United Nations 1945
• World Bank/IMF 1945
• United States as global superpower

Recovery of Europe

• Economies and governments rebuilt
• US assumed a dominant role
• US not physically damaged
• accounted for 50% of world production

Marshall Plan

• required cooperation among Europeans
• very successful
• Euro Coal and Steel/Euro Econ. Community
• 1994- EEC became European Union
• vs. USSR

Japanese Recovery

• US occupation 1945-1952
• remarkable growth for 20 years
• forbidden to have a military