The 1920s was a boomtime for western culture. This was when revolutionary technologies came to widespread adoption, notably automobiles, airplanes, and radio.
It was a time of wonder, inspiration, and sometimes brazen optimism. The optimism may have been primarily within the United States.
Products became futuristic, streamlined things evocative of the contemporary Schneider Cup racing airplanes.
Art deco architecture took inspiration from cubist painters. Jazz music resounded from phonographs. The Great Gatsby was written in and of this era,
and captured the wealth and glamor of the Roaring '20s.
While England's empire was falling apart, Germany's economy was in shambles, and Russia underwent a civil war and then virtually became a vast police state under Stalin. The disparity of the world's situations still does not detract from the accomplishments of this decade.
Nazism propounded a hatred of communism, fierce nationalism, and the expansion of the German state. Germany was hobbled and humiliated by the Versailles treaty.
People wanted answers to how such a proud nation could lose the Great War and allow such draconian reparations. The Nazi Party offered answers.
Not just answers, but enemies and a purpose. Germany was printing money to pay down the indemnity, mostly to France, to the point where the money was
no longer useful. Hitler represented an opportunity to return a sense of pride to the German people, to express an indignance toward the Weimar government,
and to get out of the economic doldrums. Hitler used tactics earlier employed by the Italian fascist regime of Mussolini, intimidating people into voting for
Hitler and his supporters, and then using alarmist reasonings to expand his power in government.
Stalin knew well that for Russia to keep her worldwide communist aspirations alive, she would first have to be able to defend herself.
To be strong enough to stave off aggression from historical foes the likes of Germany, the Russians had to modernize and keep up with western Europe.
To bring Russia into the 20th Century, Stalin was intent on mechanizing and centralizing agriculture, as industry can flourish if the workforce is less tied up with the land.
Industry, like an army, needs to be fed before it can fight. Stalin hoped that by making agriculture efficient,
vastly expanding the electrical grid, and building many government-owned factories,
he would be able to increase Russia's industrial and therefore military might.
A centralized, industrialized nation was seen as the only way to stay relevant and credible on the world stage by this point.
The stock market crash in 1929 signaled the end of halcyon days in North America. The repercussions gave indication of the new-found interconnectedness of the global economy.
By the time of the crash, the economic system was dependent on hugely leveraged positions where vast sums of money could be conjured from thin air, borrowed against a mere promise.
When the reality struck that this was too good to be true, it came to light that American money, though much of it imaginary, was supporting entire economies overseas.
Loans to Germany were suddenly unavailable. Trade between the US and Japan virtually ceased, bringing the restless nation to take its aggression to its neighbors.
Public works projects in the US, such as those taken on by the Tennessee Valley Authority, were suggested as a means to reestablish an economic base.
The Communist party even attracted some followers within the US, such was the desperation of the situation.