Key points

• The origins of the Second World War have been the subject of particular hlstoriographical contro­versy. Historians still dispute how far Hitler actu­ally planned the war; whether he foresaw the extent of the war that began in 1939; and how ambitious Nazi territorial expansionism actually was (European hegemony or world domination?).

• Fascism and Nazism, as practised in Italy and Germany, led to a complete reordering of those societies, eliminating any notion of a private sphere. In foreign policy terms, ambitious terri­torial plans were mapped which went far beyond the revision of aspects of the Treaty of Versailles.

• Confronted with numerous international crises— in China, Abyssinia, and Europe—policy-makers in Britain and France adopted a policy of appeasing Hitler.

• Once Germany occupied Prague in March 1939, appeasement was abandoned, and Britain and France declared war on Germany once it invaded Poland in September 1939.

Conclusion

This chapter has emphasized the protracted crisis which existed in Europe since the late nineteenth century, and which was manifest in the two Total Wars that engulfed Europe and the wider world in the first half of the twentieth century. The First World War left many European states economically mined, and with political structures weakened. Indeed, a number of empires based in Europe col­lapsed during the war—those of Austro-Hungary, Turkey, and Tsarist Russia. The war also profoundly disrupted the growth of an effectively functioning international capitalist economy. Although this consequence of the war was initially masked by the buoyancy of the American economy, when the latter collapsed in October 1929, a general Depression soon spread thereafter to all parts of the world which had been engaged in international trade. The Depression thus reveals not only the economic interconnectedness of the interwar world, but the degree to which the formerly predominant European economies (particularly Britain's) had been eclipsed by America.

But the threat to the primacy of Europe did not spring from American economic growth alone. Japan was an emergent force in East Asia, which had undergone rapid industrialization, and, by the 1930s, was embarking on a search for territory in China, and beyond. And within Europe, post-war conditions and popular dissatisfaction with the

Treaty of Versailles encouraged extremist political movements, most notably fascism in Italy (and Spain) and Nazism in Germany. Both Mussolini and Hitler set out to enlarge the boundaries of their states, and even if Hitler did not plan the type of war which ultimately broke out in September 1939, there is no doubt that he was prepared to risk war in order to achieve his ambitions.

The Second World War, as the next chapter explores, had profound global consequences. It saw an unlikely alliance of Britain, America, and the USSR come together to fight the Axis powers of Japan, Italy, and Germany. But this alliance was not to survive the onset of peace, and had shown signs of severe strain even as the war progressed. Indeed one might argue that the cold war was emerging while the World War was still being fought. Thus some revisionist historians, most notably the American Gar Alperovitz, suggest that America's dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was actually the first shot of the cold war—the bombs being aimed less at persuading Japan to surrender (which it was about to do in any case) than at intimidating the Soviet Union with a show of Ameri­can might. Whatever the merits of this argument, certainly the two superpowers, having emerged from their interwar isolationism, found it impossible to agree on the shape of the post-war world. America wanted a world based on free markets and liberalization. The Soviets wanted if not the spread of com­munism world wide, as many Americans feared, then at least a 'security zone' of satellite states in Eastern Europe. The post-war stalemate resulted in the division of Europe into two camps for the next forty-five years, and the temporary solution of the 'German problem' with the division of Germany into two separate states.

The war profoundly affected the map of Europe. It also radically reshaped Europe's position in the world. The two superpowers were now predominant, as was evident from the degree of physical and eco­nomic influence they exercised over their respective 'satellites', in Europe and beyond. Moreover, the war dramatically undercut the power and prestige of the European imperial powers in their colonies. In Asia, the British, French, and Dutch found many of their territories overrun by the Japanese, and the colonial powers' attempts to regain control after the war were largely short-lived. In a world dominated by two superpowers who professed anti-colonial creden­tials, and following a war that had encouraged nationalist movements, imperialism increasingly appeared anachronistic. The era of European domination of the world was over.

Viewed at such distance it is no surprise, then, that the first half of the last century should seem over­whelmingly fragmented and fissiparous: marked by imperial dissolutions, the emergence of violently exclusive nationalisms, and global economic col­lapse. Yet, in seeming paradox, these years also bear signs of increasing globalization, with the develop­ment of certain boundary-collapsing modes of communication, commerce and transport whose growth accelerated rapidly after 1945. By the end of the 1920s, the USSR had already pioneered inter­national radio broadcasting, soon to be joined by the BBC's External Services (later its World Service). While French companies pioneered the newsreel as a visual catalogue of current affairs and curios, Hollywood movies enjoyed growing popularity with European audiences—so much so that Hitler ultim­ately debarred them from German cinemas, while privately relishing screenings of Disney cartoons and Gone With the Wind. Likewise, certain states (notably the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany) took alarm at the enthusiasm with which their citizens greeted such racially and politically transgressive imports as American jazz and swing music.

The ability to traverse the globe with greater ease and speed was not confined to cultural and con­sumer products alone. Individuals with disposable income and surplus leisure time could themselves travel to foreign destinations ever more readily. Then as now, the world's shrinkage was most enthusiastically heralded by those enjoying expanded opportunities that let them experience globalization, first-hand, as time-saving and horizon-widening. Only in the latter part of the twentieth century did the processes of global inter-connectedness acquire a coinage, and more queru­lous critics. But such interconnectivity was certainly palpable during the twentieth century's earliest decades—whether to a bourgeois Briton enjoying one of Mr Thomas Cook's earliest package tours, or a Brazilian farmer struggling to cope with the collapsed price of coffee.