The Age of Anxiety summary study guide analysis

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The Age of Anxiety summary study guide analysis

Chapter 28: The Age of Anxiety

The dramatic changes brought about by the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the Spanish Influenza created a sense of anxiety as people searched for meaning in a world filled with uncertainty.

Pre-World War I: optimism
Reasons: a lot to be excited about

Nationalism

-Ideas of cultural identity, power, more pride in your nation

Imperialism

-Spreading European values and power

Scientific revolution

-encouraged the comfortable belief in the logical universe of Newton’s physics

Enlightenment ideas

-most people still believed in progress, logic, reason, and the rights of the individual
-humans are rational

People gaining more rights
Increase in education
Liberalism and socialism spread
More wealth and disposable income

-increase in standard of living

Industrial Revolution
Welfare state

-people taken care of by the state

Despite this general optimism, since the 1880s, there had been critics who rejected the general faith in progress and the power of the rational human mind

Post World War I: pessimism

Depression
Questioning the government

-Governments let us down: society was worse than before the war

Questioning God and his/her existence

-Some become less religious:
-how could God have let this happen?
-maybe God is evil?
-Some became more religious:
-Now we need God more than ever
-Maybe God saved me for a reason
Reasons:

Humans are still brutal, violent, irrational savages

-Humans are not rational enough to avoid war, as some enlightenment thinkers had suggested

Governments let us down: society was worse than before the war
These feelings of pessimism were especially present in the 1930s, during the rise of harsh dictatorships and the Great Depression

-Paul Valery: French poet and critic who spoke of this “cruelly injured mind”
-The general intellectual crisis of the 20th century = people are plagued with doubts and anxieties
-It touched almost every field of thought: philosophy, physics, psychology, and literature

Modern Philosophy:

The First World War spread the revolt against accepted philosophy, but the revolt went in 2 different ways: logical empiricism (positivism) and existentialism
In English-speaking countries, the study of philosophy focused on logical empiricism, while continental European countries embraced existentialism.

Existentialism

There’s no point to life because there is no god.
You just exist: you’re just here

-Human beings are terribly along, for there is no God to help them.
-They are weighed down with the despair and meaninglessness of life

But there is the potential to give meaning to life through actions, defining oneself through choices

-Human beings can overcome life’s absurdity

France: existentialism spread the most during and immediately after WW2

-the terrible conditions of the war reinforced this view of life
-each individual was defined by their choices: join the resistance against Hitler or submit to tyranny

Random people:

-Henri Bergson: French philosopher who said that intuition and experience are just as important as logic and reason
-Georges Sorel: French socialist who thought socialism would come to power through a great, general strike of all working people. He rejected democracy and thought that the masses should be controlled by an elite
-Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers: gained popularity in Germany
-Albert Camus: leading French existentialist

Nietzsche

Most famous existentialist

-Even though his ideas began in the mid 19th century, they were not popular until this age of anxiety (early 20th century) as he appealed to and echoed a lot of people’s feelings
-Especially popular with German radicals who were inspired by his attack on pre-1914 imperial Germany

“God is dead”

-He never really existed, but the idea of him that society holds is dead
-Science killed him
-Blames Socrates: by questioning things, you made people less religious

There is no meaning or purpose of life: you’re born and you’re here.
Nihilism: no heaven or hell

-no soul, nothing
-very troubling and upsetting

But there’s an opportunity to create your own meaning in life

-Idea that humans can to great things
-Not chained down by moral equality or religion
-dangerous because create your own ideas of right and wrong
-thinks Greek mythology is good because it teaches you about glory and action

Nietzsche claimed the West had overemphasized rationality and stifled human passion.
He was an elitist:

-He challenged all traditional values
-He prophesied that only a few superior individuals, who would accept life’s meaninglessness and declare a personal liberation, could save the West.

Attacks:
Christianity

-his father was a Lutheran minister
-thought Christianity embodied a “slave morality” that glorified weakness, envy, and mediocrity
-Ideas of Christianity: the meek inherit the earth, you should be humble, be concerned with the afterlife instead of the present life, everyone is equal
-He viewed morality, reason, democracy, and progress as outworn social bindings that make people not achieve glory in life

Democracy

-he believed that some people are better than others

Social Equality

-again, he thought people aren’t equal: some people are superior and some are inferior

Problem: with no morality what do you end up with? à People like Hitler

-Hitler likes his idea of the superman
-The superman: thinks outside of the box, questions values of society, realizes that the religious stuff isn’t true, and seizes the day
-The sheep: everyone else
-making fun of Christianity, where you’re supposed to be the sheep

He’s against anti-Semitism and racism

-Who’s to say who is better and who is worse?
-But doesn’t disapprove because it’s immoral

Logical Empiricism and Positivisim

In philosophy, we should only have philosophical discussions about things that can be proven with science or mathematical logic
Don’t waste time with opinions like: morality, freedom, religion and the existence of God, whether or not democracy is better than a king

-this is all nonsense and a waste of time
-Ludwig Wittgenstein: this outlook of logical empiricism started with him.

Relativism vs. Objectivism
Relativism:

The belief that there is not truths
You can NOT judge other cultures

-For example: you couldn’t make cannibals stop eating humans because you think it’s wrong. You might be wrong, and what they’re doing might be right. You don’t know.

If everyone has different ideas of the truth…then how does this work?

-relativists think they’re right
Objectivism:

There are overarching truths
Standards of good and evil on moral issues
Most religions follow this

The Revival of Christianity:

One reaction to the increased uncertainty in human reason and progress was a renewal of Christian faith.

-Before, Christianity and religion had been interpreted to fit with science and reason so that they would be accepted. The unscientific miraculous aspects were overlooked.

Especially after WW1, people began to revitalize the fundamentals of Christianity
Christian existentialists shared dismay over man’s condition with their atheistic counterparts but saw hope in faith and God’s forgiveness.

-They stressed human’s sinful nature, need for faith, and the mystery of god’s forgiveness
-They were strongly influenced by the rediscovered 19th century writings of Søren Kierkegaard

Major Christian existentialist thinkers included the Protestant Karl Barth and the Catholic Gabriel Marcel, both of whom contributed to religion, providing a relevant response in a time of despair.

-Barth: humans are imperfect, sinful creatures with flawed reason and will. So people should just accept God’s word and shouldn’t try to reason God and his laws
-Marcel: saw the Catholic Church as the answer to the postwar “broken world” and saw hope in it.

After 1914, religion became much more relevant and meaningful to thinking people than it had been before the war

-Many intellectuals turned to religion, like poets T.S. Eliot and W.H. Auden, novelists C.S. Lewis and Karl Stern, physicist Max Planck, and philosopher Cyril Joad
*Religion became an answer to terror and anxiety

The New Physics:

New scientific discoveries added to the uncertainty of the period.

-Before the war, science was one of the reasons for society’s optimism and rationalistic view of the world à constants in nature that were dependable and comforting
-Darwin’s evolution had been accepted
-People believed that science was based on hard facts and controlled experiments, with unchanging natural laws à all this was comforting
**But then this was all challenged by the new physics**

Scientists questioned everything: everything, even time and space, is relative.
The work of Marie and Pierre Curie and Max Planck disputed accepted distinctions between matter and energy.

-Marie and Pierre: new discoveries about atoms
-Planck: quanta of energy, matter vs. energy
-Old view of the atoms = badly shaken

Albert Einstein’s theories undermined Newtonian physics.

-Special relativity: time and space are relative to the observer
-Only the speed of light is constant
-Matter and energy are interchangeable; matter contains huge levels of energy

The 1920s opened the “heroic age of physics” as numerous breakthroughs followed, including Ernest Rutherford showing that the atom could be split and discovering the neutron.

These discoveries were unsettling to the layperson because relativism seemed to replace absolute scientific laws

-The new universe was strange and troubling. It lacked any objective reality, and everything was relative (dependent on the observer’s frame of reference).

The sciences no longer offered answers about the meaning of life.

-Physics no longer provided easy optimistic answers
Freudian Psychology

There were lots of questions about the power and potential of the human mind
Before Freud, most people assumed that the conscious processed sense experiences in a rational and logical way
Sigmund Freud’s discovery of the unconscious mind and its influence over humans’ behavior significantly contributed to the uncertainty of the era
According to Freud, human behavior is irrational

-The id is the irrational unconscious driven by sexual, aggressive, and pleasure-seeking desires; animal instinct
-the superego is how society wants us to behave
-the ego is the rational mediator that’s in between the id and superego
-These are all in conflict with one another, but the passionate id tends to win.
-Sometimes the rational part will repress desires too much though, making people paranoid and guilty

His most famous book = Interpretation of Dreams

-Was pre-WW1

After World War I, his ideas became popularized.

-His ideas had become an international movement by 1910, BUT it wasn’t till after 1918 that they received popular attention
-After the war, age of pessimism spread à only irrational people would enter this huge war
-Popular in U.S. and northern European Protestant countries
-This growing popularity reflected the growing sexual experiment, particularly among middle-class women

Freud’s psychology drastically undermined the old, easy optimism about the rational and progressive nature of the human mind

Twentieth-Century Literature:

Early twentieth-century literature reflects the spirit of uncertainty as writers, such as Marcel Proust, moved away from realism to focus on the individual, irrational human mind.

-Novelists developed new techniques to express new realities
-Before in 19th century: stories with all-knowing narrators, with realistic characters in an understandable society
-The 20th century change: limited point of view of a single individual that focused on the irrationality of the human mind

People looked at the subconscious, the human brain, and human thought

-More personal

Novelists employed the stream-of-consciousness technique to explore the human mind.

-Examples: Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner, and James Joyce

Other writers rejected progress with grim anti-utopian predictions of the future.

-Examples: Oswald Spengler, T. S. Eliot, Franz Kafka, and George Orwell (Orwell wrote 1984, about a terrifying future society. This book appealed to millions.)

Modern Art and Music:

Through twentieth-century modernism, artists rejected old forms to express themselves in new, experimental ways.
Modernism: constant experimentation and searching for new forms of expression

Architecture and Design:

Leading the way in modernism was a new principle in architecture known as functionalism, which stressed the utility of a structure.

-this idea stressed that buildings should be useful and should serve a purpose
-So architects and designers worked with engineers, town planners, and sanitation experts
-They had to throw away useless ornamentation and find beauty in clean efficient lines

American architects pioneered the movement in the United States

-Louis H. Sullivan: led a school that used steel, reinforced concrete, and electric elevators to build skyscrapers
-Frank Lloyd Wright: built very modern houses
-They both inspired Europeans

In Europe, Germany led the way in architecture until Hitler took power in 1933
German Walter Gropius merged schools of fine and applied arts at Weimar into an interdisciplinary approach centered on functionalism, known as the Bauhaus.

-brought many leading modern architects, designers, and theatrical innovators together
-they combined the study of fine art, such as painting and sculpture, with printing, weaving, and furniture making
-Throughout the 1920s, the Bauhaus stressed functionalism and attracted may students from all over the world. It had a great and continuing impact.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe: director of the Bauhaus who moved to America and built his classic Lake Shore Apartments in Chicago

Modern Painting:

Beginning in the 1890s, the postimpressionists or expressionists revolted against French impressionism.

Impressionism was like a kind of “super-realism”

-Impressionist artists = Monet, Renoir, and Pissarro

-These artists wanted to capture the overall feeling, or impression, of light falling on a real-life scene before their eyes à Things that the camera couldn’t capture

By 1890, postimpressionists were already striking out in new directions

By 1905, art was becoming increasingly abstract, a development that reached its high point after World War II
Post impressionists were united in their desire to know and depict worlds other than the realistic one à wanted to portray the unseen, inner worlds of emotion and imagination

-Unlike impressionists, they were often fascinated with form, not light

Artists:

Vincent van Gogh: painted Starry Night
Paul Gauguin: French painter who pioneered expressionist techniques
Paul Cézanne: committed to form and ordered design; painted 2D instead of 3D
Henri Matisse: painted extreme expressionism, primarily concerned with arrangements of color, line, and form

Cubism: complex geometry, with zigzagging lines and sharp angled, overturned planes

-Pablo Picasso founded cubism
-Wassily Kandinsky: turned away from nature completely

As WW1 was starting, extreme expressionism and abstract painting was quickly developing in France, Russia, and Germany

**Modern art had become international**

Art in the 1920s and 1930s

Dadaism:

-shows the uncertainty of the 1920s and 1930s
-attacked all accepted standards of art
-questioned art: What defines art exactly?
-most famous piece = Mona Lisa with a mustache

Surrealism:

-very influential
-fantastic depictions of wild dreams and complex symbols
-surrealists refused to depict reality and made powerful statements about the age of anxiety
-influenced by Freud
-Most famous artist = Salvador Dali
-famous painting =clocks melting

Modern Music

Composers also embraced expressionism, making developments in modern music strikingly parallel to those in painting

-Examples: Igor Stravinsky and Alban Berg

Music began to employ dissonant rhythms and abandon harmony and tonality
The new music often seemed harsh, abstract, and random
After the First World War, when humans seemed irrational and violent, expressionism in opera and ballet flourished
Yet, the new music received little popular acceptance with the audience before World War II.

-They were used to the harmonies of classical and romantic music and the structure of the symphony.

Movies and Radio

Until after World War II at the earliest, these revolutionary changes in art and music affected the elite, not the general public
The general population knew little of modern art, instead experiencing culture through movies and the radio.

-The first movie houses date back to 1902
-They quickly attracted large audiences and led to the production of short, silent films
Movies:

The United States dominated the silent movie industry

They used stars like Charlie Chaplin, who revealed that movies could be both entertaining and artistic.

-Charlie Chaplin = the king of the silver screen in the 1920s

The early 1920s were also the great age of German films

-Protected and developed during the war, the German studios only thrived for a short amount of time
-The main German talents were moving to America to go to Hollywood à leading even more to America’s domination of the industry
-Europeans were forced to book American films, which put Europeans at a huge disadvantage

The introduction of sound into the movie industry in the 1930s vitalized the European motion picture industry.
Movies were extremely popular and became the main entertainment of the masses until after World War II

-they offered people an escape from the harsh realities of daily life
-this appeal was even stronger during the Great Depression, as millions went to musical comedies to distract themselves from their own hard lives
Radio:

Public radio broadcasts began in 1920.

-Radio became possible with Guglielmo Marconi’s wireless communication and the development of the vacuum tube in 1904 à allowed the transmission of speech and music

Broadcasting networks were quickly established in every major country

-In America: networks were privately owned and financed by advertising
-Britain: Parliament set up an independent, public corpotation called the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
-Everywhere else: typically, direct control by government

Radio became both popular and a political tool.

-By late 1930s, 3 out of 4 households had radio
-Dictators like Hitler and Mussolini could reach enormous audiences

Radio and movies were both used as propaganda agents.

-Lenin encouraged movies that brilliantly dramatized the communist view of Russian history
-Hitler used Leni Riefenstahl’s movies as propaganda

The new media of mass culture were potentially dangerous instruments of political manipulation

-Allows the dictator to enter your home

Major Periods of Art

Renaissance: Italy
Renaissance: Europe
Baroque

-overdone and religious

Rococo

-baroque on steroids
-very gaudy

Pre-modern (1800-1880)

Neo-Classicism

-Simple elegance
-Respect for words historical figures and events, like the Greeks

Romanticism
Realism

-Reaction to romanticism
-Science
-critical society: looking at how society is, not how society should be
-Example: Dickens shines lights on problems (like orphans)

Impressionism (1860s, 1870s)

-Reaction to realism
-It wasn’t very well-received at first because realistic portraits were in
-Why a Change?
-starts in the 1890s
1) Less strict and more fluid view of the world
2) Reaction to the invention of the camera
-The camera captures everything real already- now artists want to capture things that the camera can’t, such as feelings and emotions
3) Invention of the paint tube
-now artists could paint on the spot
-now Monet could paint outside
-nude prostitute = time to break out of the box
-Monet
-There was a famous art exhibition in Pairs during Napoleon III’s rule
-Napoleon thought that impressionism wasn’t good enough to make it in
-So then, impressionists made their own exhibit called the Art of Refusal
-Art critics trashed it as garbage because it was over the top, risqué, and considered unacceptable

Modernism (1800-1945)

Post Impressionism

-More towards cubism, more unique, more dreamy, more color, more unrealistic
-Even further than impressionalism
-Pointalism
-Interests in the “noble savages”
-Reaction to imperialism: maybe Europe has been corrupted by industrialization
-The Tahitian women was often painted: maybe natives are the uncorrupt, pure part of society
-Van Gogh: painted over 1,000 but only sold 1

Expressionism

-Still dreamy
-Most famous = The Scream
-upset with society: what is he screaming about?

Cubism
Dada Art (early 1900s to 1920s)

-What is art?
-Kind of like anti-art: poking fun at art
-Examples:
-a toilet might be art?
-mona lisa with a moustache: is it still beautiful?
-questioning one of the most prized pieces in history

Bauhaus
Surrealism (1920s)

-Salvador Dali
-painting of melting clocks
-very weird and dreamlike
-influenced by Freud
-ship with a butterfly

Futurism

-extreme cubism
-futurists like industrialization: they like the pollution and the fastness of society
-questioning art, but embracing art instead of attacking it: How do you define art?
-Examples: guy on horse, Umburto Boccioni

The Search for Peace and Political Stability

Numerous factors complicated the pursuit for lasting peace, including:

-Germany’s hatred of the Treaty of Versailles
-French fear and isolationism
-Britain’s undependability
-the United States’ withdrawal from the world scene
-the unpredictable future of communist Russia
-a weak economy strained by war debts and disrupted trade.

Still, peace looked attainable in the late 1920s.

Germany and the Western Powers: Post-1918

The Treaty of Versailles did not break Germany, which despised the treaty, but it was not reconciliatory either.

-It was too harsh for peace of reconciliation, but too soft for peace of conquest

The French demanded massive reparations from Germany

-Most of the war had been fought on French soil, and France had HUGE costs of reconstruction (in addition to war debts that they owed America)
-So French politicians believed that war reparations from Germany were a necessity
-Many French also saw the Treaty of Versailles as France’s last best hope to reach its goal of security à But Britain and America weren’t interested in the treaty

The British hoped to revive trade with their former enemy.

-Prewar Germany had been Britain’s 2nd best market in the whole world
-Economist John Maynard Keyes denounced the Treaty of Versailles because it would impoverish Germany and increase economic hardship in all countries
-This attack became very influential, and many agreed
-It stirred deep guilt feelings about Germany in England
-The British were suspicious of France’s army
-It was the largest in Europe
-was allowed to occupy the German Rhineland till 1935 because of the Treaty of Versailles
-The British were also suspicious of France’s foreign policy
-France, rejected by Russia and the U.S., was desperate to make coalitions

Germany had the Weimar Republic as their government

-One of the most democratic governments that ever existed
-Wilhelm II was pushed out and forced to abdicate

Our winner-takes-all system vs. Germany’s proportional system:

Ours = the winner gets the whole win

-Example: Obama became president and McCain went back to being a senator

Germany: If each party (A, B, C, D, and E) had each voted percentage:

Then no party has a majority. So if 100 delegates could get elected to the Reichstag, then there would be: 20 from A, 10 from B, 20 from C, 25 from D, and 25 from E.
Because there’s no majority, a coalition government is formed

-you need some sort of majority to get things done
-For example: parties A, B, and D formed the BAD coalition

But this leads to problems:

Not as stable

*gaining democracy but losing efficiency
-not able to get much done
-Germany was in times of high inflation, high unemployment, strained resources, and war debt à a stable government was essential to fix things

Germany never had a democracy before

-After this government goes wrong, people think that maybe democracy is the problem
-But the problem is the people, not the system

Economic Problems that affected Germany

High Inflation

-in 1918: $1 worth 4.2 marks
-in 1923: $1 worth 4.2 trillion marks
-There was a story that a woman had a wheelbarrow of marks that she was taking to the market to buy some stuff. There was an accident and she helped a little boy get to a hospital. Then she remembered that she left her wheelbarrow with the marks. She goes back and the wheelbarrow was stolen but they left the money.
-The idea was that the wheelbarrow was worth more than the money because prices changed so much
-People would burn marks for warmth because it was cheaper to burn marks than buy firewood
-People who are paid per day would wait to collect their money till the end of the day because it could be worth double by the end.
**Inflation led to other problems:
-Savings worth less à people lose everything
-People with salaried jobs à get paid almost nothing à they striked

High unemployment
Strained resources
War debt
SO THE GERMAN ECONOMY WAS DESTROYED
When the Germans could not make the payments France demanded, a major international crisis ensued.

-In 1921, the Allied reparations commission demanded that Germany had to pay 132 billion gold marks ($33 billion) in installments of 2.5 billion marks
-The Weimar republic made its first payment in 1921
-But in 1922, the Weimar republic said that they were unable to make any more payments
-asked for an extension
-Britain agreed, but France did not

France was scared of German aggression and was desperate for protection

-So France formed the Little Entente with Czechoslovakia + Romania + Yugoslavia
-Yugoslavia = expanded Serbia
-France also signed a side agreement with Poland
-This wasn’t powerful at all, but it was better than nothing

In 1923: France invaded the Ruhr Valley

WHY: Germany wasn’t paying France

-France was the only country enforcing the Treaty of Versailles

French were led by Raymond Poincare, their prime minister.

-Ruhr Valley = heartland of industrial Germany
**Created the most serious international crisis of the 1920s**
-Eventually, America and Britain told France to get their troops out
-So from then on, France stopped enforcing the treaty
*This allowed Hitler to break it and nobody to stop him

The German government ordered the people of the Ruhr to stop working and start passively resisting the French occupation
Then the French sealed off the Ruhr and the entire Rhineland from the rest of Germany, letting in only enough food to prevent starvation
Tough situation: French occupation was paralyzing Germany and its economy and had turned high inflation into even higher inflation
Runaway inflation in Germany caused a socialist revolution and encouraged people to seek radical solutions.

-Many Germans felt betrayed as their savings were wiped out and inflation tore their lives apart.
-They blamed the Western governments, their own government, big business, the Jews, the workers, and the communists

Gustav Stresemann became the foreign minister of Germany.

-He realized that they needed to deal with France after their invasion in the Ruhr valley
-So he stopped the attack and called off passive German resistance
-Led to Dawes Plan
-He makes an agreement with France to pay reparations, but a reasonable sum
-Poincare agreed:
-his hard line was unpopular with French citizens
-it was hated in the U.S. and Britain

In 1923, leadership finally passed to moderates in both France and Germany, so they pursued compromise and cooperation.

The Dawes Plan (1924)

Charles Daw loaned $200 million American dollars to Germany

-Charles was an American banker
-Germany would get private loans from America to pay reparations to France and Britain à then those countries would be able to repay the large sums they owed the U.S.

He also created a fair payment schedule: re-examined reparations and then charged Germany what they’re capableof giving from what they have

-Germany’s yearly reparations were reduced and depended on the level of German economic prosperity

France agrees
Was very important:

-Pumps more money into Germany and allows the economy to do better
-Germany easily paid $1.3 billion in reparations in 1927 and 1928, allowing Britain and France to may America
-The Younges Plan: also involved America loaning money to Germany

The German economy and the world economy start to do better

Treaty of Rapollo (1922)

Between Germany and Russia
German agreed to supply Russia and in return, Russia would give them money
But Russia had no money, so it fell apart
Because it failed, Germany realized that they need more treaties and alliances with the West if they want to get out of their economic policy

Lacarno Treaty (1925)

France, Germany, and Belgium agreed to respect each other’s borders
Britain and Italy agreed to fight either France or Germany if one invaded the other
Stresemann also settled boundaries with Poland and Czechoslovakia, and France promised those countries military aid if Germany attacked them
Supposed to lead to peace and prevent war
People were excited and felt a sense of growing security and stability

1926: Germany joined the League of Nations

Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928)

15 countries signed, promising that they won’t use brinkmanship

-Basically condemning and renouncing war
-agreed to settle international disputes peacefully

Started by Briand (French prime minister) and Kellogg (U.S. secretary of state)
Again, people were excited and hopeful

*Fostered the cautious optimism of the late 1920s
-Encouraged the hope that the United States would accept its responsibilities as a great world power and contribute to European stability

1923: Beer Hall Putsch

Important government officials were meeting in Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, Germany
Hitler tried to take over the government

-This is where his brief “national socialist revolution” starts

He thought he would arrest the officials and people would join him à But it ended up being only him and his 3,000 members

-poorly organized and easily crushed

Led to him being sentenced to jail for 5 years à But he only served 9 months

-judge felt sorry for him because he agreed with him that the government was awful
*Shows that the government can’t enforce their laws*
-While in jail, Hitler outlined his theories and program in his book Mein Kampf (My Struggle)

Throughout the 1920s, Hitler’s National Socialist Party only attracted few supporters, like fanatical anti-Semites and nationalists

In spite of Adolf Hitler entering the German political scene, after 1923, democracy seemed to take root in Weimar Germany

The German coalition governments were convinced that good relations with Western Powers was necessary for economic prosperity, and they supported parliamentary government at home

-Coalition governments: usually dominated by moderate businessmen
-Stresemann himself pushed this
-Elections were held regularly and democracy appeared to have growing support among a majority of Germans

Still, varied political factions divided the country.

-nationalists and monarchists
-Members of the Communist Party hated the Social Democrats
-but a majority supported the socialist Social Democrats
France

In France, moderate coalition governments helped rebuild from the war and battled inflation.

*very similar to the situation in Germany:
-Communists and Socialists battled for the support of the workers
-After 1914, the government was controlled by coalitions of moderates and business interests were well-represented

France’s greatest accomplishment = rapid rebuilding of its war-torn northern region

-But this led to inflation and a large deficit
-The franc fell to 10% of its prewar value in 1926, causing sever crisis

Poincare was recalled to office, and he slashed spending and raised taxes, restoring confidence in the economy

*Good times prevailed until 1930

France attracted artists and writers from all around the world in the 1920s

-France appealed to foreigners
Britain

Britain too faced troubles after 1920

-Biggest problem = unemployment
-Many of Britain’s best markets had been lost during the war
-In 1921, 2.2 million were out of work and unemployment was at 12%

But Britain saw the growth of more social equality which helped maintain stability
The state took a greater role in providing relief for the unemployed

-They increased unemployment benefits, subsidized housing, medical aid, and old-age pensions
-These and other measures kept living standards from seriously declining and reduced class tensions
-Led to the establishment of a British welfare state after WW2

The Labour Party became increasingly important.

-It was committed to “revisionist” socialism and replaced the Liberal Party as the main opponents to the conservatives
-Their popularity reflected the decline of old liberal ideas of capitalism, limited government control, and individual responsibility
-Ramsay MacDonald led the Labour Party to govern the country with the support of the smaller Liberal Party.
-They moved towards socialism gradually and democratically, to not upset the moderates and middle classes

The Conservatives, led by Stanley Baldwin, were also very compromising
Despite an unsuccessful strike by coal miners in 1926, social unrest in Britain was limited in the 1920s and 1930s
In 1922, Britain granted southern, Catholic Ireland full autonomy after a bitter guerilla war à removed another source of prewar friction

Developments in both international relations and the domestic politics of the leading democracies gave cause for optimism in the late 1920s

The Great Depression (1929-1939)

The enormous severity of the worldwide Great Depression produced major social and political consequences and caused people to seek strong leaders.

The Economic Crisis:
The October 1929 crash of the United States stock market triggered the Great Depression.

The American economy had prospered in the late 1920s, but there were large inequalities in income. The value of shares soared from &27 billion to $87 billion, even though net investment in factories, famrs, etc. fell from $3.5 billion to $3.2 billion
Crash seemed inevitable, but many couldn’t see this

-Irving Fisher: one of America’s most brilliant economists who was highly optimistic in 1929, but then lost his whole fortune

Banks were unstable because the American stock boom was built on borrowed money

-loaned money to investors to buy stocks
-people bought shares on margin: only paying a small fraction and borrowing the rest
-The stock was going so well and kept going up and up and up, so the bank figured that they would get the money back soon

When stocks went down and the bank started to lose money:

-People ran to collect their money because they thought banks had ran out of money
-The margin-buyers had to put up more money or sell their shares to pay off their brokers

Stock market losses slowed buying as everyone tried to sell, which in turn produced record unemployment, thus launching a downward spiral.

-countless investors and speculators were wiped out in a matter of days or weeks
-battered investors and their fellow citizens bought less and less goods
-prices fell, production slowed, and unemployment rose
-Today: If you put money in the bank and the bank goes under, then you’re insured up to $100,000 à makes more people want to invest

Worldwide Depression

Financial panic in the United States triggered a worldwide financial crisis
American investors began calling in loans to other countries

-America had made lots of loans to European countries, such as England, Germany, and France
-Gold reserves began to flow out of the European countries to the U.S.

This led to the spread of the depression, falling world prices, and general financial chaos

-It became very hard for European business people to borrow money, and the public also panicked and withdrew savings from the banks
-led to the crash of the largest bank in Austria, and then general financial chaos

This also led to a drastic decline in production.

-Between 1929 and 1933, world output of goods fell by 38%

Economic nationalism and high protective tariffs intensified the impact.

-In 1931, Britain went off the gold standard, refusing to convert bank notes into gold, and reduced the value of its money
-Britain’s goal was to make its good cheaper and more affordable in the world market
-But as everyone began to go off the gold standard, few countries gained advantages
-Each country turned inward and passed high tariffs

Recovery finally began in 1933
Two factors probably best explain this economic turmoil
The international economy lacked a leadership that would have been able to maintain stability when crisis came

-The U.S. cut back its international lending and passed high tariffs

Almost every country had poor national economic policy

-Governments generally ct their budgets and reduced spending, when they should have run large deficits to stimulate their economies
-This policy was used after World War II, but not before

Mass Unemployment:

As financial crisis led to cuts in production, workers lost their jobs and had little money to buy goods

-In Britain, unemployment rose to 18% between 1930 and 1935. It was 12% in the 1920s.
-In the United States, unemployment rose to 33% - 14 million people

Poverty increased dramatically

-Millions lost their spirit and felt hopeless
-People postponed marriages and birthrates fell
-Increase in suicide and mental illness

Governments needed to increase spending to break the vicious downward spiral and alleviate the socioeconomic problems caused by massive unemployment.

Recovery in Great Britain

Britain was hit hard by Great Depression

-America was their 2nd leading trading partner

A coalition government was formed called the National Government

-Like in Germany: when there is no majority, parties join to form a coalition

They took several measures to help Britain recover:

High Tariffs: to help people who were unemployed

-forces people to buy British goods

Increased taxes
Regulated currency: to avoid high inflation
Lowered interest rates:

-more people could buy without worrying about paying a lot back

Led to housing boom
Encouraged companies to borrow money

Old industries, like textile and coal, were hurting
But new industries, automobile and electrical appliances, did better
Britain does better in 1932 than in the 1920s

-By 1937, total production was about 20% higher than in 1929

1931 ended the gold standard

-for every dollar you have, it’s backed up by gold

By late 1930s, there was a difference between the old, depressed industrial areas of the north and the new, growing areas of the south, encouraging Britain to focus on their own country

Recovery in France

France was less industrialized and more isolated from the world economy than England

-More self-sufficient and agrarian
-Relied less on foreign trade
*Because of this, the great depression hit them later, but harder
-It lasted a very long time, and declie was steady until 1935
-No stability in government

In just 1933, 5 coalition governments were formed and fell

-lots of political instability
-The French lost the unity that had made government instability bearable before 1914

In 1934, fascists and semi-fascists rioted and threatened to overthrow the government

-Communist Party and many workers: looking to Stalin’s Russia
-Fascists: looking to Mussolini’s Italy, and Hitler’s Germany for guidance
-a very tenuous time: all of these anti-democratic groups were threatening to take over, à democracy was almost taken over

By 1935, 1 million French were unemployed
In 1936, Popular Front was formed

-Socialists + Communists + Radicals (who were really moderates)
-Why it was formed? à Afraid of antidemocratic forces, especially fascists
-The communists especially were afraid of fascists
-Socialists became the strongest party, and communists in parliament jumped from 10 to 72
-But only the moderate Radicals didn’t gain much popularity

Blum’s Popular Front

-Inspired by FDR’s New Deal
-First and only real attempt to deal with the social and economic problems of the 1930s in France
-Created socialist work programs to try to make workers happy
-paid vacations and 40 hour work week
-encouraged the union movement
-this was very popular with workers and the lower middle class
-BUT reforms were destroyed by high inflation, upset companies, and cries for revolution by fascists

Blum forced to announce “breathing spell”

-The government officially backed off with their reforms
-All in all, they basically did nothing and France entered a severe financial crisis again

Trouble in Spain:

-Communists demaded that France support the Spanish republicans, while many French conservatives wanted to join Hitler and Mussolini in attacking the Spanish fascists
-Extremism grew, and France itself was within sight of civil war

In 1937, Blum was forced to resign and Popular Front collapses

France barely hangs on to democracy

*Don’t completely get out of the Great Depression
*Only the fear of Germany keeps them united enough to survive

The Scandinavian Response to the Depression

The Scandinavian countries, under Social Democratic leadership, responded most successfully to the challenge of the Great Depression

-The Social Democrats became the largest political party in Sweden and Norway after WW1

Scandinavian countries: Denmark, Sweden, Norway
Passed many social reforms for peasants and workers:

Massive Public Works

-Especially Sweden

Raised pensions for elderly and unemployment insurance
Housing subsidizes, maternity leave, and other welfare benefits

To do all this, they raised taxes

-Taxes were very, very high
-Different perspective on the quality of life
-This philosophy continues in these countries today: it’s hard to buy a house, but you’re taken care of when you’re sick

Scandinavian countries introduced a modified form of socialism, built on a traditional spirit of community cooperation and action.

-Labor leaders and capitalists worked together
-Individual peasant families joined together for everyone’s benefit

Even with a large bureaucracy and high taxes, private enterprise and democracy thrived.
Some saw Scandinavia’s welfare socialism as an appealing “middle way” between sick capitalism and cruel communism or fascism

The New Deal in the United States

The depression hit the United States the hardest, along with Germany.

-It was so traumatic because the 1920s had been a period of optimism

Herbert Hoover reacted to stocked market crash with dogged optimism and limited action

-But then people’s worst fears became reality as banks failed and unemployment soared
*Industrial production fell by about 50%

Beginning in 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt launched his New Deal, a program intended to reform capitalism.

-He rejected socialism and chose forceful government intervention

Agricultural recovery was top priority because famers were hit hard by the depression

-Roosevelt left the gold standard and devalued the dollar
-Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 raised prices and farm income
-These measures were successful and Roosevelt gained popularity and support from farmers
-the National Recovery Administration was an attempt to control and plan the government, but it was unsuccessful and declared unconstitutional

With massive intervention into the economy, the government instituted numerous programs to promote recovery and provide relief through jobs programs.

-The federal government accepted the responsibility of employing directly as many people possible à new agencies were created to carry out such projects
-Such jobs programs include the Works Progress Administration (WPA)

In doing so, the government assumed a new responsibility for its citizens’ welfare.

-This marked the shift from the stress on family support and community responsibility
-This shift in attitudes was embraced by a large majority in the 1930s, and is one of the New Deal’s greatest legacies

In 1935, the U.S. government established national social security system, with old age-pensions and unemployment benefits

-wanted to protect many workers against some of life’s uncertainties
-Union membership went from 4 million to 9 million in 1940
*In general, government rulings and social reforms chipped away at the privileges of the wealthy and tried to help ordinary people

Though failing to produce full recovery, New Deal reforms continue through today.

-In 1937, 7 million workers were still unemployed, which was down from the 15 million in 1933
-A recession in 1937 and 1938 worsened the economic situation, raising unemployment to 10 million when war broke out in 1939

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