WW Ch 20 & 21

The most recent Century is filled with significant conflicts which had long-term effects. The long-term outcomes of WWI are;

 1) It caused “disillusionment among intellectuals with their own civilization…The war seemed to mock the Enlightenment values of progress, tolerance, and rationality “(988), I guess war can do that.

 2) It “promoted social mobility, allowing the less exalted to move into positions previously dominated by the upper classes. As the war ended, suffrage movements revived and women received the right to vote in a number of countries” (988) finally something positive from war.

 3) The idea of “national self-determination” (988) the free will of a nation to determine political structure, a concept that nations are still fighting over.

4) Treaty of Versailles in which “Germany lost its colonial empire and 15 percent of its European territory, was required to pay heavy reparations to the winners, had its military forces severely restricted and had to accept sole responsibility for the outbreak of the war” (988) many experts believe this effect was a major one that lead to WWII.

 5) “The final decline of the Ottoman Empire, creating the modern map of the Middle East” (989) the reshaping of the global map.

6) It ”brought the United States to center stage as a global power….turned the United States from a debtor nation into Europe’s creditor” (989) does not seem to be the case these days.

The fascist Mussolini stated “the state of conscious entity with ““a will and personality”” which represents the ““spirit of the nation”” (996) and Hitler’s message of intense German nationalism cast in term of racial superiority” (997) brought further a time of genocide that would forever be remembered. The Communist movements also took hold during this time change global relations for decades. Russia and China both underwent an industrialization period, with ideas of education and women’s right yet fell short on most. Decisions that these powers that be think were good for the peoples cost millions of lives, devastated economies and destroyed the trust among nations. One may say that we are not any closer to global understanding, global communication, global trust, we still have a ways to go in many aspect of global peace if that can truly exist.

Adam Gopnik sums it up best ““The First teaches us never to rush into a fight, the Second never to back down from a bully”” (1016) yet we have not learned from past conflicts.