Ch+27+and+Ch+28

= Chapters 27 and 28: The Age of Anxiety 1900 to 1945 =



Chapter Overview
In addition to political, social and military transformations underway during World War I, there were also significant intellectual and artistic changes that reflected the common feelings of anxiety, continual crisis, and the search for meaning. Britain, France and Germany restored domestic and international stability after a crisis in 1923, leading to a short period of optimism ended by social dislocation and even despair when the Great Depression hit Europe in 1930. Governments tried to solve the economic and social problems caused by deflation and mass unemployment. This made people more willing to accept greater government control over their lives and prepared the way for dictatorships in the 1930’s.

During the 1920s and 1930s, the general crisis in Europe led to criticisms of democracy, replaced in one country after another by authoritarian or fascist dictatorships. Democratic governments survived only in Great Britain, France, Scandinavia, the Netherlands and Switzerland. Fascism was a new political system created first in Italy by the dictator Mussolini. The idea spread throughout Europe, but in its Nazi form, it reached its peak in Germany. Fascism was totalitarian, as was Stalinism in communist Russia. Although they disagreed about the nature of capitalism, both governments used similar techniques to control every aspect of the lives of their citizens. Using brutal but effective techniques, both regimes led to the death of millions of civilians in German death camps and Russian slave labor camps. ( //Fast Track to a Five//, pp.357 and 377)