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Chapter 28 - Summary & Outline
Chapter 28 - Summary & Outline
Chapter 28 - Summary & Outline
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading and studying this chapter you should be able to:
1. discuss the impact of the “Lost Peace” of 1919.
2. explain the political climate in Germany during the 1920s.
3. discuss why people were alienated after the First World War and how the postwar alienation was reflected
in the arts, psychology, philosophy, and literature.
CHAPTER SUMMARY
The First World War and the revolutions in Russia and elsewhere shattered many traditional ideas, beliefs, and
institutions. As a result, many people of the postwar era found themselves living in an age of anxiety and
continuous crisis. Many developments in thought, science, and the arts after the war encouraged this crisis even
further.
The first half of this chapter deals with major changes in ideas and in culture that were connected to this age of
anxiety. Some of these changes began before 1900, but they became widespread only after the great upheaval of
the First World War affected millions of ordinary people and opened an era of uncertainty and searching.
People generally became less optimistic and had less faith in rational thinking. Radically new theories in physics
associated with Albert Einstein and Werner Heisenberg took form, while Sigmund Freud’s psychology gave a
new and disturbing interpretation of human behavior. Philosophy and literature developed in new ways, and
Christianity took on renewed meaning for thinking people. There was also great searching and experimentation
in architecture, painting, and music, all of which went in new directions. Much painting became abstract, as did
some music. Movies and radio programs, which offered entertainment and escape, gained enormous popularity
among the general public. In short, there were revolutionary changes in thought, art, and popular culture.
The second half of this chapter discusses efforts to re-establish real peace and political stability in the troubled
era after 1918. In 1923, hostility between France and Germany led to an undeclared war when French armies
occupied Germany’s industrial heartland, the Ruhr. This crisis was resolved, though, and followed by a period of
cautious hope in international politics between 1924 and 1929. The stock market crash in the United States in
1929, however, brought renewed economic and political crisis to the Western world. Attempts to meet this
crisis in the United States, Sweden, Britain, and France were only partly successful. Thus, economic and
political difficulties accompanied and reinforced the revolution in thought and culture. It was a hard time in
Western society.
STUDY OUTLINE
Use this outline to preview the chapter before you read a particular section in your textbook and then as a self –
check to test your reading comprehension after you have read the chapter section.