Part VI: The Most Recent Century

As an introductory to chapter twenty, the words of Alfred Anderson stand out in my mind, he stated "I was told that I was fighting a war that would end all wars, but that wasn't the case". I feel that often when we are on the brink of war, we never seem to think that it will be a big war, we tend to see things in black and white, which limits our abilities to see beyond our blueprints. It seems that wars always last much longer than anticipated, and this was no different for WW1. According to Strayer, WW1 was an accident waiting to happen. Strayer points out that, "a system of alliances intended to keep peace created obligations that drew the Great Powers of Europe into a general war" (Strayer, pg. 983).

The Great Depression followed WW1 following the stock market crash of 1929. When reading about The Great Depression it really puts things into perspective for me. We talk about unemployment today and it impact within the United States when the reality is that our current unemployment rate is not even a third of what it was in 1932. Possibly the most interesting part of The Great Depression to me is the way in which different countries went about creating new jobs and putting an end to The Great Depression.

One of the most effective leaders during The Great Depression is also one of the most criticized leaders today, Adolf Hitler. If you take a look at the snapshot chart in chapter 20 page 933 of the new text, you can see the differences in the duration and extent of unemployment between the United States, Germany, and Great Britain, between the three countries the United States fared much worse. Roosevelt's New Deal was relatively ineffectual while Hitler's approach which featured extreme nationalism, a single party dictatorship, and an extreme socialism was highly effective in putting a stop to unemployment. While Hitler's approach was extremely devastating and detrimental I think his approach and leadership skills are something to study, because he was highly effective as a leader.

In our text Strayer reflects on the purpose and value of studying history. He claims that most students would state that the purpose of studying history is so that the people of the future do not repeat the same mistakes of the past. Strayer contradicts this statement pointing out that in many cases such as: the lessons of WWII and the unnecessary wars in Vietnam and Iraq, in Strayers opinion this is history repeated. He draws a conclusion that the wars of past centuries do share one broad similarity: “all of them led to unexpected consequences” (Strayer, pg. 1016), Strayer closes with the idea that “history repeats itself most certainly only in its unexpectedness” (Strayer, pg 1016). I would have to agree with this statement, history does repeat itself however it is disguised and almost indistinguishably similar, however the global impacts and implications are the same.