Page 109 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol I - Abraham to Coal

this fleeting world / our world: the modern era tfw-49

Hegel says somewhere that all great events and personalities in world
history reappear in one fashion or another. He forgot to add: the first
time as tragedy, the second as farce. • KARL MARX (1818–1883)

where necessary. For a time people thought the new sys- were enhanced by the incorporation of much of eastern
tem might match the economic and military power of the Europe and by the emergence in 1949 of a Communist-
major capitalist states. During the 1930s and again dur- dominated China led by Mao Zedong (1893–1976). By
ing the 1950s rates of economic growth were more 1950 almost one-third of the world’s population lived
rapid in the Soviet Union than elsewhere (although the under Communist governments.Throughout this period
lack of market prices in the Soviet command economy economic growth was more rapid outside of Europe, par-
makes monetary comparisons difficult). ticularly in the United States, the Soviet Union, and
Japan, but also in regions such as Latin America.
Rearmament The emergence of powerful anticolonial movements in
During the 1930s, in an international climate of increas- southeastern Asia, India, Africa, and elsewhere marked
ing tension, all the major powers began to rearm.World the beginning of the end of European imperialism. In
War II began with attempts by Japan and Germany to India the Indian National Congress, established in 1885,
create their own land empires. Japan invaded Manchuria became a powerful supporter of independence, and in
in 1931 and China proper in 1937; Germany’s expan- Mohandas Gandhi (1869–1948) it found an inspira-
sionist drive led to war in Europe in 1939 after Germany tional and creative leader whose nonviolent protests
invaded Poland. In 1941 the United States, now the forced Britain to grant independence to the newly created
largest economic power in the world, entered the war states of India and Pakistan in 1947.
after Japan’s preemptive attack on Pearl Harbor, and the Despite the crises of the early twentieth century, social-
Soviet Union entered the war after being invaded by Ger- ist predictions of the death of capitalism were premature.
many.WorldWar II was fought in the Pacific and in east- Technological innovation was rapid throughout the
ern and southeastern Asia as much as in Europe, but period; the internal combustion engine entered mass pro-
eventually the economic and military power of the United duction, aviation emerged (first as a weapon of war and
States and the colossal mobilizational efforts of the Soviet then as a new form of commercial and personal trans-
Union helped turn the tide against the Axis powers (Ger- portation), and chemical substitutes for textiles and rub-
many, Japan, and Italy). World War II was even crueler ber were first produced.This was also the era of sonar, of
than World War I. Sixty million people may have died— nuclear power, and of oil. It also was an era of funda-
about 3 percent of the world’s population at the time. mental scientific breakthroughs, particularly in physics.
The war ended with the use of the most terrible Other developments helped ensure that the capitalist
weapon yet invented—the atomic bomb.The first atomic engine of growth would revive and that the frenetic pace
bombs were dropped by the United States on the Japan- of economic growth of the nineteenth century would even-
ese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. tually be resumed.The managerial principles that would
Most of the casualties of World War II were civilians as help revive growth first became apparent in the United
the aerial bombing of cities became, for the first time, a States. Two developments were particularly important:
recognized weapon of modern warfare.The extreme bru- mass production on assembly lines, pioneered by Henry
tality of the war found its most potent symbol in the sys- Ford (1863–1947) in 1913, and mass consumerism, a
tematic murder by Hitler’s Nazi Party of almost 6 million phenomenon whose importance first became apparent
Jews in what has come to be known as the “Holocaust.” during the 1920s as ordinary people began to gain access
By the end of the war Europe no longer dominated the to modern goods such as cars, telephones, and radios.
global economic system.The new superpowers were the
United States and the Soviet Union. Each had its own Buying into Consumerism
allies and clients, and each represented a different path to Mass consumerism eventually provided a solution to the
modernity. The size and power of the Communist bloc fundamental problem of underconsumption, which had