Chapter 21

Chapter 21 discussed major events such as World War I, World War II, The Great Depression, and the beginning of the Holocaust.


WWI or the Great War was from 1914- 1918. This war is said to be the start of the Great Depression by the rise of Nazi and the horror of the Holocaust. The Great War was "a European civil war with a global reach". Alliances we formed, Triple Alliance consisted of Germany, Austria, and Italy, and Triple Entente consisted of Russia, France, and Britain. By the creation of these alliances, it created WWI or the Great War. Some factors of what contributed to the outbreak of the war were popular nationalism, industrial millitarism, and Europe's colonial empires. It was expected to be a quick war and Germany was defeated in November 1918. The war left disillusionment among intellectuals leading to questionings of the Enlightenment values and the superiority of the West and its science. The Great Depression was hit in 1929. It caused the contracting of stock prices to wipe out paper fortunes, many lose their life savings, the world trade dropped 62% within just a few years, and unemployment soared reaching 30% in Germany and the US. The Great Depression in the US was caused from the factories and farms making more goods than can actually be sold, the impoverishment of Europe by WWI caused Europe not purchasing American products, and Europe was recovering and producing more of their own goods, thus not exporting items. The Depression also created challenges for the governments because capitalist governments had thought that the economy would regulate itself, the Soviet Union's economy had grown throughout the 1930s and some states turned to "democratic socialism" with greater regulation of the economy and more equal distribution of wealth. The Holocaust took shape in 1889-1945 under the rule of Hitler.