"Ways of the World"

Chapter Twenty: Collapse at the Center

World War, Depression, and the Re-balancing of Global Power

1914-1970's

Now, finally, we have made it to the more recent century which as a whole will cover from 1914-2012. From what the textbook is saying this time period as well was the beginning in a new chapter in world history sometime before or after the first World War. Strayer waste no time and jumps right into discussion of World War l "European Civilization in Crisis..." and I think I'm going to go about this blog by stating two things what I fond interesting and elaborating on why to keep it from getting to length.

 The first sentence that struck me appeared as follows: "Many men rushed to recruiting offices, fearing that the war might end before they could enlist" (984).

The reason this struck out to me was because I unconsciously started comparing that statement but in today's perspective and the way I know it to be in America. And my realization was that (at least as I know it to be true and where I am from) that spirit has died down. While I can not speak on it from a European perspective from what I have been educated on the United States of America was the same way during war. War was seen as a great thing the men willingly wanted to go and defend their homeland and the women and children supported every step of the way. But today there has been more and more discussions on how "bad" war is for everyone retrospectively, and that more young men do not want to enlist because of the uprising of protesting that the country is sending off the peoples sons and daughters to die.

The next thing I thought interesting was the photo below that can be found on page 991 captioned:

1937 Life magazine image by famed photographer Margaret Bourke-White shows black victims of a flood in Louisville, Kentucky, standing in a breadline during the Depression while behind them rises a billboard of a happy and prosperous white family...

I thought of this more as ironic because obviously there's a giant billboard of a white family living portrayed as living the life "the American Way" yet behind a continuous line of colored people with belongings waiting to get fed. And if that is not ironic enough the streamlined words across the top of the billboard reads "WORLD'S HIGHEST STANDARD OF LIVING" in front of a breadline. Doesn't get more ironic than that.