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| The peace settlement of World War I left many nations
unhappy, and the League of Nations proved unable to deal with the crises
following the war. The brief period of prosperity that began in Europe
during the early 1920s ended in 1929 with the beginning of the Great Depression.
This economic collapse shook people’s confidence in political democracy
and paved the way for fear and the rise of extremist parties that offered
solutions to the hardships that many were enduring. |
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| After World War I, European democracy was under threat.
France and Britain remained democratic, but in Italy and Russia, a new
kind of dictatorship emerged with Mussolini’s fascist state in Italy and
Stalin’s totalitarian rule in Russia. Other Western states like Spain tried
to keep old elites in power with authoritarian regimes. |
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| Recovering from the humiliating loss of World War I and
from the Great Depression, Germans found extremist parties more attractive.
Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party promised to build a new Germany, and his party’s
propaganda appealed to the German sense of national honor. The new Germany
that Hitler envisioned did not include any group the Nazis considered inferior,
especially the Jewish people. |
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| Mass communications as a propaganda tool was born during
World War I as governments worked to win citizen support for the war. In
the 1920s and 1930s, people worldwide felt the effects of the Great Depression
and political instability. The arts and sciences reflected the changes
occurring in people’s ideas about the world. |
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| ENRICHMENT
EXCERCISE (.pdf)
Quiz 27:
Between the Wars
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