Great Depression

1929-1939

• Began in USA > global crisis

  • massive unemployment rates

  • drop in manufactured goods

  • became a global crisis

    • links in international trade

    • USA as world’s largest creditor and financier during and after WWI

    • Euro powers admitted to not being able to repay war loan to USA

  • growing sense of anxiety

• Following WWI and the onset of the Great Depression, national governments took a more active role in the economic life of their nations

  • USA

  • Germany

    • fascism and militarism

    • propaganda by the Nazi Party to portray Adolf Hitler as a savior for Germany

    • State to guide society

    • government-directed military rearmament

      • Violating Treaty of Versailles

    • outlaw labor unions

    • totalitarian state

  • Soviet Union

    • free of influence from capitalist west

    • 5 year plan

    • collectivization of peasant farms under government control

    • profits shared by all farmers

  • Japan

    • nationalistic, militaristic, imperialistic

  • Mexico

    • Land reform: distribution of 40 million acres of land and communal farm creation