Running head: GLOBAL INTERRELATEDNESS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Final Paper: Global Interrelatedness in the 20th Century

Samantha Bautista
Ottawa University

GLOBAL INTERRELATEDNESS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Global Interrelatedness in the 20th Century

The 20th century can be characterized by the culmination of events in response from the
disintegration of the European-based world system. Various events during the 20th century
illustrate the interrelatedness of the various regions of the world. Beginning with World War I,
because of the previous world system set up, the war touched far off places away from Europe,
and subsequently affected the relationship countries and regions had with each other for the rest
of the 20th century.
Great Depression
The Great Depression of the 1930s greatly emphasizes the global interrelatedness and
tightening of the global economy. World War I had changed the world. There was wartime
demands everywhere for both industrial and agricultural products and after the end of the war,
there was expanded capacity for both, causing drops in prices and goods to be unsold (Findley &
Rothney, 2011). A precarious system of debt and credit was kept up by fragile economic
foundations and the world-system that was rocked by World War I was dismantled further. As
Carter Vaughn Findley and John Alexander Murray Rothney (2011) state, the Great Depression
shows how the economic crisis affected and impacted countries and people all over the world.
European nations were unable to cope with war time debts in addition to dealing with the United
States desire to remain out of European problems (Findley & Rothney, 2011). Furthermore,
colonies and independent nations alike were unable to combat the Depression because many
developing nations economies were integrated into the larger European based global system
(Findley & Rothney, 2011). Nations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America were dependent on the
sales of agricultural and mineral products to Europe and the United States (Findley & Rothney,
2011). For countries, such as Brazil, the Depression demonstrated the economic well-being of a

GLOBAL INTERRELATEDNESS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

country was at the mercy of prices set in markets it did not control (Findley & Rothney, 2011,
p. 105). At the time, the Great Depression hindered globalization greatly. As evidenced by the
United States implementation of the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act, early on it was every country for
itself (Findley & Rothney, 2011). The tariff was put into place to protect American farmers from
foreign competition, but it proved to be disastrous as foreign governments implemented tariffs
of their own to keep out American goods (Murrin et al, 2012). However, effects of the
Depression can be seen in the years to come and even today. Greater economic cooperation and
an end to the ideal that every country was on its own was dismantled after the Depression, and
subsequently after World War II. Economic partnerships and other coalitions, such as the
European Union in Europe and the World Trade Organization, were founded. In addition,
democratic socialism became an alternative to the economic liberalism of the time period.
Although it failed in some countries, in others the balance between democracy and socialism had
succeeded (Findley & Rothney, 2011).
World War II
The second European civil war fully destroyed the European global system, as two
opposing forces fought for dominance and empires. World War II was a violent and bloody and
introduced new forms of warfare and destruction, such as the usage of the atomic bomb. Both
Germany and Japan showed new forms of brutality. Both Germany and Japan were pushed to
expand and create their respective empires because of post-World War I and Great Depression
conditions (Findley & Rothney, 2011). Most importantly, after dismantling the global system, the
world after World War II would be affected by the changing world economy, the transformation
of their societies, including the powers of their government (Findley & Rothney, 2011). After
World War II, Western Europe understood that to recover they would have to cooperate, not try

GLOBAL INTERRELATEDNESS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

to reassert their dominance (Findley & Rothney, 2011). Thus, World War II did not necessarily
hinder globalization, but did eventually help foster a sense of cooperation between nations.
Although, for the nations who came out on top and those that emerged into the third world, their
actions and policies became more intertwined. World War II stimulated the creation of new
technologies and changed the way governments functioned on the domestic and foreign level, all
the while, tightening the relationship between nations.

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