ESSAY CEMETERY

Video 1: Choosing Global War June 1940 - December 1941 During this period, WWII is transformed. In Europe, the dictators are winning. In Asia, the dictators are also winning. There are two separate wars and they merge. The US and Russia are pulled into the war. Fortunately for the democracies, the totalitarian regimes start fighting each other. Berlin Hitler has ideas about race and space, intending to create more space for the race, subjugating Slavs, killing Jews, and if necessary fighting the enemies in the West. In order to do this, they must defeat the British. Italy and Japan reach out to Hitler to form a coalition and parcel out the world. But this runs counter to Hitler's ideas about space and race. In the summer of 1940, the German army tries to assess whether the plan is feasible. They conclude they can beat the Soviets. They're a bit overconfident thanks to their victory against France. In addition, they conclude that contending with the Brits will be difficult: in o...

Video 1: Challenges to Capitalism and Collective Security Challenges to Capitalism Analyzing guns and money is a great way to start understanding what's happening in a given historical period. The amount of demand is linked to economic growth as well as the amount of money available. In a gold standard system, the amount of money is constant because there's only so much gold. This means that demand can't grow unless more gold is found. "Gold fetters". There are also efforts to raise the amount of money circulating using paper, but that's not our focus. The following countries are on the gold standard: Britain, the US, France, Germany. China uses silver. By the late 1920s, most of the countries are back on gold. When gold started running out of a certain country (meaning the country was buying more than it was selling), countries started raising interest rates (on what?) to bring in more gold. The US, Germany, and England are still recovering from the war econo...

Video 1: Total States WWI is an important event in world history because of how it changes the way modern societies are organized. There's a different feeling to warfare in WWI. The devastation is worse than ever before because of the technology that is able to ravage the land: create holes in the ground that are so big soldiers drown in them; eradicate whole forests; blind soldiers from poison gas. WWI sees the creation of "Total States": States are seeing themselves as large war-centric corporations Governments begin to control national money to make sure they have enough for warfare Government regulates staples The end of the gold standard -- self-reliance instead of international trade Conversion of plants and factories from civilian factories to war factories Creation of new factories for war supplies Governments take control of manpower and industrial resources, controlling which people and how many of them are allocated to factories, farming, and militaries. Libera...

Video 1: The Shock of 1914 Reasons for WWI International rivalry: WWI began in August 1914 and people didn't see it coming. The most common reason given for WWI is international rivalries in Europe: [The Central Powers: Germany and Austro-Hungary] against [the Entente: France and Russia]. GB didn't have a formal treaty with France so it wasn't part of the Entente but it did have friendly relations with France. After WWI began though GB joined the Entente. Militarism and arms race: lots of people were bulking up their armies Imperial rivalries Economic rivalries: Many empires were financially insecure. Businesspeople were loaning money internationally with low interest rates, which meant that they deemed its return highly probable. There was no indication in the bond markets in the summer of 1914 that war was coming. Why were so people surprised when it happened with so many reasons for war?  Why did so many expect peace? - Europe had been mostly peaceful for 40 years. Peace...