Chapter 13

The Rise of Totalitarianism1919-1939

Background from Ch. 12• Nationalism and Revolution Around the World

– Latin America• Mexican Revolution• Increased nationalism and independence• Led to improved relations between US and Latin America

– Africa and the Middle East• Africans resist colonial rule, “Africa for Africans”• Egypt gains independence• Turkey and Persia modernize• Arab Nationalism – oil!!! [Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco]• Beginning of the Israel-Palestine conflict

– India• Sought self rule and independence• Gandhi

– China• Struggles with new ideas, tries to strengthen itself• Accepts help from Soviet Union, embraces Communism• Japanese invasion, Pearl Harbor, allies with US

– Japan• Growth and expansion after WW1• Liberalism spreads, but the peasants were still poor, leading to Marxist ideas• Tries to gain power and control in China, allies with Germany and Italy• 1940 – signs alliance, leads to WW2

13-1: Post War Social Changes• Changes in Society after WW1

• Optimism has been shattered all over the world• Modern technology helped unify people

– The Roaring Twenties• Introduction of jazz, US experienced a boom time while

Europe recovered from the war, “flappers”

– Women’s Lives• Despite the existence of flappers, women saw limited

progress. A few elected to office, technology helped with housework, women pursued careers outside the home

– Reactions to the Jazz Age• Not everyone was a fan, “prohibition” and 18th

Amendment led to “speakeasies” and organized crime• Christian Fundamentalism/Scopes Trial

The New Literature• Chart on page 422• A Loss of Faith– Many writers saw the war as a moral breakdown, and

moved away (mostly to Paris), the “lost generation” – T.S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald

• Literature of the Inner Mind– Writers experiment with stream of consciousness –

Virginia Woolf, James Joyce• The “Harlem Renaissance”– African American writers (including Zora Neale Hurston

and Langston Hughes) and artists express pride in their unique culture

New Scientific Theories• Marie Curie and Radioactivity– Early 1900s

• Einstein’s Theory of Relativity (1905 and 1916)– Used to create the atomic bomb (by Enrico Fermi, J. Robert

Oppenheimer, Edward Teller)– Einstein argued that the measurements of time and space

were not absolute• Fleming Discovers Penicillin– 1928 – accidentally discovered a mold that killed bacteria, and

his work led to modern antibiotics• Freud Probes the Mind– Challenged faith in reason– Sigmund Freud pioneered “psychoanalysis”

Modern Art and Architecture

• New Directions in Painting– Many Western artists rejected traditional/realistic

styles• Introduction of “abstract” (no recognizable subject

matter), “dada” (rejects all traditional conventions, and “surrealism” (rejects rational thought)• Picasso pg. 426

• New Styles of Architecture– Bauhaus School in Germany– Frank Lloyd Wright in the US

Looking Ahead

• “Stunned by the trauma of World War I, many people sought to change the way they thought and acted during the turbulent 1920s. As nations recovered from the war, people began to feel hope rising out of their disillusionment. But soon, the “lost generation” would face a new crisis—this one economic—that would revive many old problems and spark new conflicts.”