Dramatic economic change also followed the First World War. European economies struggled to cope with the toll that the war took on their public finances and physical resources, in addition to the human emotional and physical capital. During the war, demand in consumer goods increased greatly, causing shortages. Economies were working at full employment to cope with demand. Unprecedented demand and a scarcity of resources caused inflation rates to rise beyond any previous level. Those dependant on fixed incomes, such as the elderly or those surviving on subsidies from the government, were affected most by the inflation and were sent into poverty as their income did not correspond with the soaring cost of living. During the course of the war, Britain (and other states) borrowed vast amounts of money from the United States in order to finance the war. The world’s financial centre shifted from Britain to the United States, which became the unrivalled financial centre for the better part of the 20th century.
One of the greatest impacts from the war on society and politics, evident especially in Great Britain, was emerging equality between men and women. As men were enlisted into the military, labour forces significantly weakened and women were called upon to take men’s places. When the men returned from the trenches to reclaim their jobs, they met resistance from those women who relished their newfound roles and the resulting sexual equality. Increasing pressure from the suffragettes lead to the Representation of the People Act in 1918, which gave women who were both property owners and over the age of thirty the right to vote. In a society where women were, for decades, denied the right to participate in politics, this law represented a major change and signalled the beginning to advances in sexual equality.
In 1929 the world economy experienced a disaster on a scale so unprecedented that those subsequent years became known as the Great Depression. The stock market in the United States crashed on ‘Black Tuesday’, 29 October 1929. This sparked a massive sale of stocks and investment assets, and runs on banks. Many businesses were forced to make redundancies, and the unemployment rate in the United States went from 3% in 1929 to 25% in its highest 1933, translating to millions of Americans. What was notable about the Great Depression however was how it spread from the United States to other prominent international states, which highlighted how intertwined the international economy had become.
The Second World War, occurring despite grand hopes to keep together fragile European alliances, was even more devastating than the First World War. More lives were lost and more property destroyed than in any past war. It led to the fall of Western European states as great powers and to the rise of the new superpower, the Soviet Union, to rival the United States. After the Second World War many of the themes that emerged from the First World War were revisited, including democratisation, more thoroughly intertwined economies, and a greater reliance on international institutions. World War II also produced major technological developments, including atomic power and the nuclear bomb, which played a major role in global politics and the balance of power in the remainder of the 20th and into the 21st centuries. World War II will always be remembered as an extreme event of the 20th century, in part because of Nazism, but more because of the genocide committed under Adolf Hitler’s command. Baylis, Smith and Owens in The Globalization of World Politics describe the Holocaust as the ‘German treatment of civilian populations and prisoners of war [reflecting] the Nazi ideas of racial supremacy.’ Estimations of the death toll are at 11 million people, 6 million of which were Jewish. The Holocaust remains one of the worst genocides in history and led to a great number of significant events, including the foundation of Israel.
Continuing on from the legacy of the League of Nations, the United Nations was created after the war in an attempt to avoid conflict in the future and pool security resources into one collective unit. Today, the United Nations has a much larger role than protecting international security, in ‘developing friendly relations among nations and promoting social progress, better living standards and human rights.’ The rise of influence of international institutions can be compared to the fall in influence of the European Great powers, which were left destitute and destroyed after the war. At the same time, the United States and Soviet Union emerged as the new world superpowers, which were diametrically opposed in terms of state ideology and economic practice. This was the first time that the international system became bipolar, and the Cold War saw these two states pitted against each other in a battle of communism against capitalism. At the height of the Cold War the United States and Soviet Union were extremely close to initiating nuclear war and realising the dreaded Mutually Assured Destruction. Democracy was ultimately seen as the ideal political system, and very few states today practice communism.
Martin Gilbert, author of A History of the Twentieth Century, commented that ‘[no] year passed in the twentieth century in which death, conflict, turmoil and destruction were not in evidence in many parts of the globe. Yet at the same time, no year passed without efforts being made, and initiatives taken, to push ahead along a path of co-operation and mutual benefit.” This is a good summary of the 20th century, as outlined above—extremes of violence and destruction could be compared with collective peace efforts, the spread of democracy, and a greater emphasis on human rights. Economic despair occurred in the same century as an increase in wealth in many parts of the world. Strides in sexual equality can be compared with state-sponsored racist policies. There is today a greater emphasis on social and political structures that are aimed at reducing conflict while benefiting state development and well-being. As has been shown above, extreme events occurred throughout the 20th century which have had a lasting impact on international politics today, and which will continue to do so for some time to come.
Bibliography
Books:
John Baylis, Steve Smith and Patricia Owens, The Globalization of World Politics (2010).
Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (1994).
Martin Gilbert: A History of the Twentieth Century (1998).
U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1957 (, 1960).
Eric Hobsbawn, The Age of Extremes: A Short 20th Century 1914-1991 (1994).
Fritz Fischer, Germany’s Aims In the First World War (1967).
Websites:
http://www.un.org/en/aboutun/index.shtml.
Definition obtained from www.merriam-webster.com
Eric Hobsbawn, The Age of Extremes: A Short 20th Century 1914-1991 (1994).
Fritz Fischer, Germany’s Aims In the First World War (1967).
Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy , p. 19 (1994).
Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy , p. 19 (1994).
U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1957 (, 1960), p.70.
John Baylis, Steve Smith and Patricia Owens, The Globalization of World Politics (2010).
UN at a glance: http://www.un.org/en/aboutun/index.shtml.
Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, p. 750 (1994).
Martin Gilbert: A History of the Twentieth Century (1998).
