World War I: The First Age Of Globalization

The First World War fought from 1914 to 1918 was one of the largest and most brutal catastrophes fought in the 20th century. With nearly the entire European continent fighting a barbaric and everlasting war, the U.S. had eventually to get involved in order to reinitiate stability to Europe. Ultimately, the U.S. taking involvement in World War I had a profound political, economic, and social impact on the country. It increased government powers and solidified the nation’s leadership role in foreign politics. The U.S. emerged as the world 's greatest industrial power with increasing financial opportunities for minorities. At the same time anti-immigrant and anti- communist sentiments arose among many American citizens. And finally the war contributed to the massive migration of African Americans from the Southern to Northern states looking for employment and freedom and, first time allowed women to participate in jobs that were traditionally reserved for men.

In this week’s “Working with Evidence”, the primary focus was on globalization, which is the process of businesses or other organizations developing international influence or operations on an international scale, after World War II. Based on the provided six images and the text of Chapter 23, it presented different ways various groups of people experienced globalization since the end of World War II. To begin, visual source 23.1 (‘Globalization and Work’) shows a Chinese-owned company producing jeans in a small country in southern Africa called Lesotho - this image shows the economic benefits of globalization. Many companies in wealthier countries would often find advantages to build facilities in places where labor is less expensive or environmental regulations are less restrictive. However, some companies would abuse the process of economic globalization as shown in visual source 23.3 (‘Globalization and Protest’). Visual source 23.3 shows a protester in Sao Paulo, Brazil, holding up a sign that reads “A better world according to Monsanto is a world with more cancer.” The company Monsanto is a major producer of herbicides, genetically modified foods, and many highly controversial chemicals such as DDT, PCBs, Agent Orange, and bovine growth hormones. In dozens of developed/developing countries activists have demonstrated or riot against government policies that removed subsidies raised prices on essential products, frozen salaries, or cut back on social services. Although

With the onset of the war, the stability of the relationship between Britain, France, and Germany – which the Gold Standard was dependent on – crippled (lecture, 10/13). During the interwar period, 1914-1945, the lack of coordination between economies led to a liquidity shortage while the nations held a floating exchange rate. The interwar period saw a breakdown in international monetary coordination – proving that a floating economy was doomed for failure (FLB 264). Outside of the lack of international coordination, the Gold Standard had other downfalls leading to its demise. For example, national governments had no authority to stimulate their country’s economies in times of need. Moreover, the fixed economy limits foreign trade, hurting the country’s industries (lecture,

​Throughout the history of the United States, the American government has employed many propaganda techniques, usually during times of war and hardships, to evoke an intended reaction from Americans. "Propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist.” To control the public during difficult times, the government heavily utilized propaganda. The wars that propaganda was most prominently employed in were World War I and World War II. Propaganda, specifically in World War I and World War II, has had far more negative effects on American society than positive effects.

The Home Front is often overlooked when discussing the impact of World War One (WWI), as the impact is often less glorified when compared to the bloodshed of the battlefields. This exhibition looks at life in Australia during WWI and explores the experiences of those away from the actual fighting who are at home. By extensively using primary sources and brief profiles of both notable and everyday Australians during WWI, the exhibit gives a holistic view on life in Australia during the Great War. The exhibit focuses on the themes of the initial excitement of those in Australia when the war began, technology advancements, how the public received news of the war and their reaction to it, as well as the sense of growing disillusionment that developed as the war progressed. It comprehensively looks at these experiences and emotions and describes them with clarity.

MacKenzie discussed many impactful reasons concerning Imperialism. Firstly, capital exports from Europe played an important role during Europe’s relationship all throughout Europe, but significantly offered scarce help to the Partition of Africa and provided limited investment prior to the first world war. Secondly, trading industrial goods with other countries, such as, Italy, Germany, and France responded with new tariffs brought an shocking alarm to Britain and led Africa to want to open new markets and forbid any trading with

Throughout history the United States has been involved in many different wars. Their involvement has brought forth many significant events and changes that have affected the American way of life. I will briefly discuss the events and the United States involvement in World War I and World War II. I will give a brief overview of both wars and explain exactly how and why the United States joined in each.

The Federal Reserve was faced with the ultimatum of either preserving the gold standard currently in place, or to dent the depression as quickly as possible. Denting the depression would require much easier credit than the latter, but the “gold standard handcuffed governments around the world (econlib).” After Britain went off gold, higher interest rates initiated by the Federal Reserve followed to “stem gold outflows.” Once this happened, “the discount rate went from 1.5 to 3.5 percent,” which was a “huge increase” considering the current situation of the economy. Although the gold standard was not the sole cause of the depression, there is a trace amount of evidence suggesting that it helped foster the depression in that “once countries abandoned it” their “economies usually began to grow again (econlib).” Despite the fact that the actions of the Federal Reserve were not the leading causes of the Depression, it is important to note that the decision to increase interest rates only instigated the crash of 1929, while also highlighting the complications of the gold standard, which then led to its dismantlement and the initiation of slow but sure recovery.

World War I was without a doubt one of the defining event of the 20th century. It turned America into an industrial power, tore down the dying empires of Europe, and led the world into the Modern Age. One would think that this war, with how destructive it was, would be conventional in its declaration, or reasons for it, but this it was, in fact, very different from how and why wars now might be declared. The aging political, economic, and governmental systems of the time acted as a very intricately set chain of dominoes, set over hundreds, maybe even thousands of years of different leaders making the system more and more complicated. The leaders had to be capable enough to be able to navigate this system effectively, as the fate of their country was in their hands. With this increasingly complicated system, leaders’ occupations were becoming more and more difficult, and it only took a few chance events combined with leaders not as capable as their predecessors and the system’s intricately set chain of dominoes to set off the defining event of the 20th century: World War I.

World War II was a war that ended in much tragedy. There were over 60 million

World War I, also known as the Great War, started in 1914 when Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. This conflict was originally rather minor, but soon, a multitude of different nations were becoming involved. The reason for this was mainly because of the alliances that different countries had made with each other. These countries, such as Germany, Russia, Great Britain, and France quickly became involved in the war. Troops were sent off to fight on the western and eastern fronts of Germany and Austria-Hungary. Germany led very harsh attacks against the Allies and held the upper hand towards the beginning of the war. In 1917 the Allies (Russia, France, Great Britain, and Italy) gained vital countries, but unfortunately lost some in return. In 1917, Russia was taken out of the war by the Bolshevik Revolution, and the United States joined the fight against Germany. Originally the US had been a neutral nation, but after Germany began attacking US ships and submarines as well as making plans with Mexico against this neutral nation, they decided to join the Allies (Editor). After this point the war became increasingly intense for soldiers, as well as people at home. Soldiers tirelessly fought for their countries with an unyielding sense of patriotism and many sacrificed their life for their nation. During WWI, new technologies were introduced that made life for the soldiers increasingly more

World War I led to the deaths of over 70 million people in Europe, and destroyed the already weak infrastructure left from the imperialist age of the 19th century. During this time of rebuilding, Germany turned to people they believed would help them rebuild. The people who would rebuild would also destroy the freedoms of the German people through their aggressive takeover. This takeover by the German National Socialist Party, dubbed the Nazi Party by Bavarians, was defined for the brutality and the totalitarian government by which it ruled. So the question is, how did they take over? How did a party made from the hands of but 5 people manage to conquer all of Germany during the 1930s? This is due to the harsh stipulations enforced by the post-war efforts of the allied powers and the following collapse of many European countries.

World War I was the beginning of a new era in world history. It marked the downfall of empires and the growth of new democratic nations. Although it was a violent war and cost former empires in lives and resources, after the war the world saw more independent nations and, as the title of the Clements text says, “The Emergence of the Americas” (Clements). Although each nation had different paths to, during, and after the war, in general the nations of the Americas benefit greatly while those in Europe had to deal with its consequences. Due the various paths each nation took, the various sources (Clements, Oxford, Zinn, Jackson, and Keylor) also reflect this divergence in consistency of WWI accounts and effects. The five sources can be compared

During the 20th century, the U.S found themselves involved in several global conflicts, such as the two major World Wars. Ultimately, these conflicts led to social introspection and laid the foundation for drastic social change. There was an altering in ethnic relations, migration settlements, and women rights.

One of the characteristics of gold standard defined by Temin is that the adjustment mechanism for a trade deficit country was deflation rather than devaluation, that is, a change in domestic prices instead of a change in the exchange rate. In the event of a balance-of-payment deficit, countries on the gold standard could not devalue their currencies or expand the money supply to stimulate domestic demand, because by doing so would push up good prices, encourage more gold exports, and weaken the currency. Instead, they could only tighten monetary conditions with the goal of reducing domestic prices and costs until international balance was restored. “Critical to this process was the effort to reduce wages, the largest element in costs.” That is to say, the gold standard system must be maintained at the expense of the welfare of ordinary people, which they must either experienced wages fall or unemployment. This mechanism worked well to facilitate trade and exchange before the First World War, the reason,