Setting the Stage for the Cold War and Decolonization - AP World History

SECTION 1

Historical Context & Motivation

The decades between 1900 and 1950 witnessed a dramatic reconfiguration of global power that laid the groundwork for both the Cold War and the massive wave of decolonization that transformed the political map of the world. Two devastating world wars weakened European imperial powers economically and morally, while simultaneously elevating the United States and the Soviet Union to superpower status. The ideological rivalry between American liberal capitalism and Soviet communism did not emerge overnight; rather, it was the product of decades of competing visions for modernity, governance, and economic organization that crystallized during and after World War II. Understanding the origins of the Cold War and decolonization requires tracing the interplay between imperial decline, nationalist awakening, wartime mobilization, and the emergence of new international institutions that sought—often unsuccessfully—to impose order on a rapidly changing world.

1914–1918 • World War I and Imperial Strain

The Great War shattered the Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and German empires, created the League of Nations mandate system, and introduced colonial subjects to rhetoric about self-determination—even as European powers tightened control over their colonies.

1917 • The Russian Revolution

The Bolshevik seizure of power established the world's first communist state. Soviet anti-imperialist rhetoric and support for national liberation movements inspired colonial intellectuals from India to Vietnam.

1919 • Treaty of Versailles and Wilsonian Idealism

Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points championed self-determination, but the mandate system applied the principle selectively—primarily to European nations while consigning African and Asian territories to continued foreign rule.

1939–1945 • World War II Accelerates Change

The war devastated European economies, exposed the vulnerability of colonial empires (e.g., the fall of Singapore to Japan), and mobilized millions of colonial subjects who returned home with heightened political consciousness and military experience.

1945–1947 • Postwar Partition of Power

The Yalta and Potsdam conferences divided Europe into spheres of influence; the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan formalized containment; and Indian and Pakistani independence in 1947 signaled that the age of European empire was ending.

These converging developments raise a central question for this unit: How did the collapse of European imperial power and the rise of two rival superpowers create the conditions for both the Cold War and decolonization, and in what ways were these two phenomena interconnected? The sections that follow examine the structural, ideological, and geopolitical forces that made the post-1945 world possible.

SECTION 2

Core Principles & Definitions

Before analyzing the specific events that produced the Cold War and decolonization, it is essential to establish the foundational concepts that frame this era. These principles recur throughout AP World History Unit 8 and provide the analytical vocabulary necessary for interpreting primary sources, crafting document-based essays, and making thematic comparisons across regions and time periods.

Bipolarity

The postwar international system was structured around two dominant powers—the United States and the Soviet Union—each leading a bloc of allied states. Unlike the multipolar balance-of-power system of the 19th century, bipolarity concentrated military, economic, and ideological rivalry into a single axis of competition.

Containment vs. Liberation

The U.S. strategy of containment sought to prevent the expansion of Soviet influence, while the USSR promoted socialist revolution and national liberation to weaken Western capitalism. Both superpowers used economic aid, military alliances, and proxy conflicts to advance their goals.

Self-Determination & Nationalism

Colonial peoples drew on Enlightenment principles, Marxist critiques of imperialism, and wartime promises to demand sovereignty. Nationalism served as the primary mobilizing ideology for independence movements, though its specific forms varied widely across Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean.

The Non-Aligned Movement

Newly independent nations such as India, Egypt, and Indonesia sought a third path between American capitalism and Soviet communism. The 1955 Bandung Conference formalized this aspiration, although Cold War pressures often forced non-aligned states into pragmatic accommodations with one or both superpowers.

Neocolonialism

Even after formal independence, many former colonies remained economically dependent on their former metropoles or on superpower patrons. Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana coined the term 'neocolonialism' to describe how political sovereignty did not necessarily translate into economic autonomy.

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KEY TAKEAWAY

Think of the post-1945 world as a building whose old structural beams—European empires—had cracked under the weight of two world wars. Two new architects, the United States and the Soviet Union, rushed in with competing blueprints for reconstruction, while the residents of the building's many rooms—colonized peoples in Asia, Africa, and Latin America—seized the chaos as an opportunity to redesign their own living spaces. The Cold War and decolonization were not separate events but parallel and interlocking processes driven by the same structural crisis of global order.

SECTION 3

Visual Explanation — The Architecture of Cold War & Decolonization

This flowchart illustrates how the structural consequences of the world wars—imperial decline, nationalist mobilization, and superpower emergence—fed into three interrelated post-1945 phenomena: decolonization movements, the Non-Aligned Movement, and the Cold War rivalry. Dashed lines emphasize the mutual influence between these processes.

The diagram above makes visible the causal chain that AP World History students must internalize: the world wars did not merely reshuffle European borders but fundamentally undermined the legitimacy and material capacity of European imperialism. The resulting power vacuum was filled simultaneously from above—by American and Soviet geopolitical competition—and from below—by nationalist leaders who seized the moment to press independence claims. Critically, the dashed connections between the Cold War and decolonization boxes remind us that these were not parallel tracks running in isolation. The superpowers frequently intervened in decolonization struggles, sometimes supporting and sometimes subverting independence movements depending on ideological alignment, as occurred in Vietnam, the Congo, and Iran.

SECTION 4

How the Stage Was Set — Key Mechanisms of Change

Economic Exhaustion of European Empires

The most tangible mechanism linking the world wars to the Cold War and decolonization was the economic devastation of Western European powers. Britain, once the world's largest creditor nation, emerged from World War II deeply indebted to the United States, making the maintenance of a global empire financially untenable. France had been occupied for four years, its industrial base shattered; the Netherlands, Belgium, and Portugal were similarly weakened. The Marshall Plan (1948) channeled American capital into European recovery, but the implicit bargain required European states to focus resources on domestic reconstruction rather than imperial policing. Meanwhile, the costs of suppressing colonial revolts—as France discovered in Indochina and Algeria—proved politically and financially unsustainable.

Ideological Mobilization and Anti-Colonial Thought

Intellectual currents also played a decisive role. Thinkers such as Frantz Fanon, Aimé Césaire, and Mohandas Gandhi articulated powerful critiques of colonialism that drew on diverse intellectual traditions—Marxism, liberalism, Pan-Africanism, and religious philosophy. The Atlantic Charter of 1941, in which Roosevelt and Churchill affirmed the right of peoples to choose their own government, provided colonial nationalists with a powerful rhetorical weapon, even though Churchill privately insisted it applied only to European nations under Nazi occupation. The contradiction between wartime rhetoric about freedom and the reality of continued colonial rule energized independence movements worldwide.

Wartime Mobilization of Colonial Subjects

Both world wars required European empires to mobilize colonial populations on a massive scale. Over 1.3 million Indian soldiers served in World War I, and nearly 2.5 million served in World War II; hundreds of thousands of West Africans fought for France in both conflicts. This military service had profound consequences: soldiers gained organizational skills, exposure to global political ideas, and a sense of entitlement to political rights. When colonial authorities failed to deliver promised reforms after the wars—as in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919 or the suppression of the Sétif massacre in Algeria in 1945—disillusionment fueled radicalization and mass participation in independence movements.

Superpower Competition and Its Consequences

The emergence of a bipolar world order shaped decolonization in complex ways. The United States, despite its own history of imperialism in the Philippines and Latin America, positioned itself as a champion of self-determination when it served geopolitical interests—pressuring the Dutch to grant Indonesian independence in 1949, for example. The Soviet Union provided ideological support, military aid, and diplomatic recognition to liberation movements from Vietnam to Angola. However, superpower involvement also distorted decolonization, as newly independent states were drawn into Cold War proxy conflicts that often prolonged violence and instability. The Truman Doctrine (1947) and the Soviet support for communist insurgencies created a framework in which local struggles for self-governance were inevitably filtered through the lens of East-West competition.

SECTION 5

Regional Paths to Decolonization

While the structural causes of decolonization were global, the specific paths to independence varied dramatically by region. The table below compares key features of decolonization in South Asia, Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East/North Africa—four regions that the AP World History exam frequently addresses.

This timeline visualizes the geographic sequence of decolonization. Note how South Asian independence came earliest (1947), followed by Southeast Asian and MENA struggles in the 1950s, with the bulk of Sub-Saharan African independence occurring between 1957 and 1975. Circle size loosely indicates scale of the independence event.

Region	Colonial Power(s)	Path to Independence	Cold War Involvement
South Asia	Britain	Mass nonviolent resistance (Indian National Congress, Muslim League); negotiated partition (1947)	India pursued non-alignment; Pakistan aligned with the U.S. via SEATO and CENTO
Southeast Asia	France, Netherlands, Britain, Japan (wartime)	Mix of armed revolution (Vietnam, Indonesia) and negotiated transfer; Japanese occupation shattered colonial prestige	Vietnam became a major Cold War proxy conflict; U.S. supported anti-communist regimes across the region
Sub-Saharan Africa	Britain, France, Belgium, Portugal	Ranged from negotiated transition (Ghana, 1957) to prolonged war (Algeria, Congo, Angola, Mozambique)	Congo crisis drew direct superpower intervention; Soviet and Cuban support in Angola and Mozambique; U.S. backed anti-communist leaders
MENA	Britain, France (mandate system)	Arab nationalism (Nasser in Egypt); revolutionary war (Algeria, 1954−1962); oil wealth as leverage	Suez Crisis (1956) marked shift from European to superpower dominance; U.S.−Soviet competition over Egypt, Iraq, and Iran

Comparative Decolonization by Region

SECTION 6

Worked Example — Analyzing a Document on Cold War and Decolonization

The AP World History exam frequently requires students to analyze primary sources that reveal the interplay between Cold War dynamics and decolonization. The following worked example walks through the process of analyzing a hypothetical excerpt from Kwame Nkrumah's Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism (1965) for a Short-Answer Question (SAQ).

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SAMPLE SOURCE

"The essence of neo-colonialism is that the State which is subject to it is, in theory, independent and has all the outward trappings of international sovereignty. In reality its economic system and thus its political policy is directed from outside… The result of neo-colonialism is that foreign capital is used for the exploitation rather than for the development of the less developed parts of the world." — Kwame Nkrumah, 1965

SAQ: Identify, Explain, Compare

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Step 1 — Identify the Historical Context

Begin by situating the source in its historical moment. Nkrumah wrote in 1965, eight years after Ghana became the first Sub-Saharan African nation to gain independence. By this point, the initial optimism of independence had given way to frustration as former colonial powers and Cold War superpowers exerted economic influence over newly sovereign states. This context explains Nkrumah's focus on the gap between formal sovereignty and genuine autonomy.

Context: Post-independence disillusionment as former colonies discovered that political sovereignty did not guarantee economic independence.
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Step 2 — Explain the Author's Argument

Nkrumah argues that neocolonialism represents a new form of imperialism in which foreign capital and external political influence replace direct colonial rule. The key analytical move here is to connect Nkrumah's argument to broader patterns: multinational corporations, Cold War aid packages with strings attached, and the structural legacies of colonial economic systems (monoculture exports, underdeveloped infrastructure) all perpetuated dependency.

Argument: Formal independence is insufficient; economic dependence on foreign capital constitutes a continuation of imperial exploitation.
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Step 3 — Connect to Cold War Dynamics

To earn full credit, link Nkrumah's critique to the Cold War. Both superpowers used economic aid and military assistance as tools of influence in the developing world. The United States offered development loans through institutions like the World Bank and the IMF, while the Soviet Union provided military hardware and technical advisers. Nkrumah's analysis implicitly challenges both blocs: whether the capital was American or Soviet, the effect was to limit genuine self-determination. This connection demonstrates the interplay between Cold War competition and the limitations of decolonization.

Connection: Superpower economic intervention in newly independent states illustrates how Cold War competition perpetuated dependency and complicated genuine decolonization.

SECTION 7

Comparing Superpower Strategies

A nuanced understanding of how the Cold War intersected with decolonization requires comparing the strategies the United States and the Soviet Union employed to win influence in the developing world. While both superpowers framed their interventions in universalist ideological terms—freedom and democracy versus socialist liberation—their methods, motivations, and consequences differed in important ways and shifted over time.

Dimension	United States	Soviet Union
Ideological Appeal	Liberal democracy, free markets, individual rights; invoked the American Revolution as a model for national liberation	Marxism-Leninism, anti-imperialism, collective ownership; framed colonialism as the highest stage of capitalism (per Lenin)
Economic Tools	Marshall Plan, World Bank/IMF loans, bilateral aid tied to market reforms, investment by multinational corporations	State-to-state aid, technical advisers, subsidized trade agreements, infrastructure projects (e.g., Aswan Dam funding offer)
Military Tools	NATO, SEATO, CENTO alliances; covert CIA operations (Iran 1953, Guatemala 1954, Congo 1960); direct military intervention (Korea, Vietnam)	Warsaw Pact; arms supplies to liberation movements (Vietnam, Angola, Cuba); military advisers; occasional direct intervention (Afghanistan 1979)
Cultural Tools	Voice of America, Hollywood, educational exchanges (Fulbright), modernization theory	Radio Moscow, Patrice Lumumba University, promotion of socialist realism and anti-colonial literature
Key Contradiction	Championed freedom while supporting authoritarian regimes (e.g., Mobutu in Congo, the Shah in Iran) and maintaining racial segregation domestically	Championed liberation while suppressing self-determination within its own sphere (e.g., Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968) and imposing centralized planning

Comparing U.S. and Soviet Cold War Strategies in the Developing World

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KEY TAKEAWAY

Imagine two rival construction firms bidding to rebuild a neighborhood after a natural disaster. Both promise to serve the residents' interests, but each has its own architectural philosophy and profit motive. The residents may prefer one firm's designs, negotiate between both, or try to build on their own—but they cannot escape the fact that both firms control the supply of materials. Similarly, newly independent nations navigated a world in which both superpowers offered resources but demanded alignment, making genuine non-alignment exceptionally difficult in practice.

SECTION 8

Legacy & Connections to Later Developments

The dynamics established in the early Cold War period reverberated through the remainder of the twentieth century and continue to shape the contemporary world. Understanding how the stage was set for the Cold War and decolonization is not merely an exercise in recovering the past; it is essential for comprehending the economic inequalities, political instabilities, and cultural tensions that define the present global order. The AP exam frequently asks students to draw connections between the post-1945 era and developments in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

Post-1945 Foundation	Later Development (1970s–Present)
Bipolar superpower rivalry and nuclear deterrence	Détente (1970s), end of the Cold War (1989−1991), emergence of U.S. unipolarity, and subsequent challenges from China and Russia
Proxy wars in decolonizing nations (Vietnam, Korea, Congo)	Failed states, civil wars, and humanitarian crises in regions destabilized by Cold War interventions (Afghanistan, Somalia, Central America)
Non-Aligned Movement and Third World solidarity	Rise of the Global South as a political concept; BRICS coalition; G-77 advocacy at the UN for a New International Economic Order
Neocolonial economic dependency after independence	Structural adjustment programs (1980s−1990s), ongoing debates about globalization, debt relief movements, and Chinese Belt and Road Initiative
Mandate system and UN trusteeship model	UN peacekeeping operations, international humanitarian law, debates over sovereignty vs. intervention (e.g., Responsibility to Protect doctrine)

Connections Between Post-1945 Foundations and Later Developments

As you continue through Unit 8 and beyond, keep in mind that the AP exam rewards students who can demonstrate continuity and change over time—one of the course's key historical thinking skills. The structures established at the Cold War's outset did not remain static; they evolved through détente, the oil shocks of the 1970s, the debt crises of the 1980s, and ultimately the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991. Similarly, decolonization was not a single event but an ongoing process of negotiation, conflict, and reimagination that continues in debates over reparations, land rights, and cultural heritage repatriation today.

SECTION 9

Practice Problems

Question 1: CONCEPTUAL

Which of the following best explains why World War II was a more immediate catalyst for decolonization than World War I?

A. World War II resulted in the creation of the United Nations, which immediately granted independence to all colonial territories.
B. World War II weakened European imperial powers more severely, while simultaneously empowering colonial nationalist movements through wartime mobilization and ideological contradictions.
C. World War I had no effect on colonial territories because it was fought entirely in Europe.
D. World War II was the first conflict in which colonial subjects participated in military service.

Show answer (B)

B is correct. World War II devastated European economies more thoroughly than WWI, Japan's conquests in Asia shattered the myth of European invincibility, and colonial soldiers returned home with heightened political consciousness. A is incorrect because the UN did not grant immediate independence; it established a trusteeship system that still managed former colonies. C is incorrect because WWI involved colonial territories extensively—campaigns occurred in East Africa, the Middle East, and the Pacific, and over a million Indian soldiers served. D is incorrect because colonial subjects had served in World War I as well, though the scale was smaller.

Question 2: BASIC APPLICATION

The 1955 Bandung Conference is most significant in the context of Cold War history because it

A. established NATO as the primary military alliance against Soviet expansion.
B. marked the formal beginning of the Korean War.
C. represented newly independent Asian and African nations' attempt to chart a course independent of both superpower blocs.
D. resulted in all attending nations aligning with the Soviet Union against Western imperialism.

Show answer (C)

C is correct. The Bandung Conference brought together 29 Asian and African nations and laid the groundwork for the Non-Aligned Movement, emphasizing sovereignty, anti-colonialism, and resistance to being absorbed into either Cold War bloc. A is incorrect because NATO was established in 1949 by Western powers, not at Bandung. B is incorrect because the Korean War began in 1950, five years before Bandung. D is incorrect because the conference's central purpose was non-alignment, not Soviet alignment; attendees included nations with diverse political orientations.

Question 3: INTERMEDIATE

3 pts

a) Identify ONE way in which World War II undermined the legitimacy of European colonialism. b) Explain how the Truman Doctrine (1947) connected the Cold War to developments in the decolonizing world. c) Explain how the concept of neocolonialism, as articulated by leaders like Kwame Nkrumah, challenged the assumption that political independence meant genuine sovereignty.

Show answer

Point 1 (1 pt) — Identify: Acceptable responses include: the Atlantic Charter's promise of self-determination contradicted continued colonialism; Japan's rapid conquests in Southeast Asia shattered the myth of European military invincibility; the economic devastation of European powers made maintaining empires financially untenable; or colonial soldiers who fought for freedom abroad returned home demanding freedom at home. Point 2 (1 pt) — Explain Truman Doctrine connection: The Truman Doctrine committed the U.S. to supporting "free peoples" resisting communist subversion, which created a framework for American intervention in decolonizing regions. It meant that local independence struggles were increasingly interpreted through a Cold War lens—nationalist movements with socialist elements (e.g., Vietnam, Guatemala) were treated as Soviet proxies, leading the U.S. to support colonial or authoritarian forces to contain communism. Point 3 (1 pt) — Explain neocolonialism: Nkrumah argued that even after formal independence, newly sovereign states remained economically dependent on former colonial powers and superpower patrons through mechanisms such as unfavorable trade terms, foreign corporate control of key resources, conditional development loans, and military aid that came with political strings. This critique challenged the narrative that decolonization had achieved genuine liberation, revealing that economic structures of exploitation could persist without direct political control.

Question 4: APPLIED

4 pts

Using the following two documents, answer parts (a) through (c). Document 1: Excerpt from the Atlantic Charter (1941): "[The United States and the United Kingdom] respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them." Document 2: Excerpt from Ho Chi Minh's Declaration of Independence of Vietnam (1945): "All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness… The whole Vietnamese people, animated by a common purpose, are determined to fight to the bitter end against any attempt by the French colonialists to reconquer their country." a) Identify a similarity in the arguments made in Documents 1 and 2. b) Explain how the historical context of World War II shaped the purpose of EACH document. c) Explain how ONE development in the period 1945–1975 complicated the principles expressed in Document 1.

Show answer

Point 1 (1 pt) — Similarity: Both documents invoke the principle of self-determination—the right of peoples to choose their own government. The Atlantic Charter frames it as a wartime aspiration of the Allied powers, while Ho Chi Minh applies it specifically to justify Vietnamese independence from France. Both draw on Enlightenment ideals of sovereignty and natural rights. Point 2 (1 pt) — Context of Document 1: The Atlantic Charter was issued in 1941 as the U.S. and Britain sought to articulate the moral purpose of the Allied war effort against fascism. Roosevelt needed to justify potential American entry into the war to a skeptical public, while Churchill sought to maintain the Anglo-American alliance. The document's language about self-determination was primarily intended to apply to European nations under Nazi occupation, though colonial leaders later used it to press their own claims. Point 3 (1 pt) — Context of Document 2: Ho Chi Minh issued his declaration in September 1945, immediately after Japan's surrender. The Japanese occupation of Vietnam had destroyed French colonial authority, and Ho deliberately echoed both the American Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man to appeal to Western democratic values and embarrass France into recognizing Vietnamese sovereignty. The timing—at the end of WWII—was strategic, as Ho hoped the United States would support decolonization consistent with its own stated principles. Point 4 (1 pt) — Complicating development: The U.S. decision to support France's attempt to reconquer Indochina (and later to intervene directly in Vietnam) contradicted the Atlantic Charter's stated commitment to self-determination. Cold War containment doctrine led the United States to prioritize preventing communist expansion over honoring the principle of self-governance, resulting in a devastating conflict that killed millions. Similarly, CIA-backed coups in Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), and the Congo (1960) demonstrated that the Western powers were willing to override self-determination when it conflicted with geopolitical interests.

Question 5: CRITICAL THINKING

6 pts

Evaluate the extent to which the Cold War hindered, rather than helped, the process of decolonization in the period 1945–1975. In your response, develop an argument supported by specific historical evidence from at least TWO different world regions.

Show answer

Point 1 — Thesis (1 pt): A strong thesis might argue: "While the Cold War occasionally facilitated decolonization by providing newly independent nations with alternative sources of support, on balance it hindered genuine self-determination by transforming local independence struggles into proxy conflicts, perpetuating economic dependency through conditional aid, and legitimizing authoritarian governance in the name of anti-communism or anti-capitalism." Point 2 — Contextualization (1 pt): Establish that the end of WWII created a power vacuum as European empires collapsed. The rise of the U.S. and USSR to superpower status meant that decolonization occurred within a bipolar international system in which both powers sought to extend their influence. This context shaped whether independence movements received support or suppression. Points 3–4 — Evidence (2 pts, 1 per region): Region 1 (Southeast Asia): In Vietnam, the Cold War transformed a colonial liberation struggle into a decades-long proxy war. Ho Chi Minh initially sought American support, but Cold War logic led the U.S. to back France and later intervene directly, resulting in millions of casualties and delayed genuine sovereignty. Region 2 (Sub-Saharan Africa): In the Congo, Patrice Lumumba's democratically expressed vision for an independent Congo was subverted when the CIA and Belgian interests conspired in his assassination (1961), installing Mobutu Sese Seko whose authoritarian, kleptocratic regime served Western Cold War interests for decades while impoverishing the Congolese people. Point 5 — Analysis/Reasoning (1 pt): Explain the causal mechanism: both superpowers prioritized ideological alignment over democratic self-governance, meaning that independence movements were supported or suppressed based on their perceived Cold War alignment rather than their popular legitimacy. This dynamic imposed external agendas on local struggles, distorted postcolonial state-building, and created legacies of instability. Point 6 — Complexity (1 pt): Acknowledge the counterargument: the Cold War also provided opportunities. Nations like India leveraged non-alignment to extract aid from both superpowers, and Soviet support was critical for liberation movements in Angola and Mozambique. However, even in these cases, the long-term consequences—militarization, debt, ideological rigidity—often undermined the quality of independence achieved.

SUMMARY

Summary — Setting the Stage for the Cold War and Decolonization

Summary

The post-1945 world was shaped by the convergence of three structural forces rooted in the world wars: the economic and moral collapse of European empires, the rise of nationalist movements fueled by wartime mobilization and anti-colonial ideology, and the emergence of a bipolar superpower system in which the United States and the Soviet Union competed for global influence. The Cold War and decolonization were not separate phenomena but deeply interconnected processes: superpower rivalry shaped the conditions under which independence was achieved, while decolonization created new arenas of Cold War competition.

Key concepts for the AP exam include bipolarity, containment, self-determination, the Non-Aligned Movement, and neocolonialism. Regional paths to independence varied—from Gandhi's nonviolent resistance in South Asia to armed revolution in Vietnam and Algeria—but all were shaped by the structural conditions established in the first half of the twentieth century. Mastering this material means understanding not just what happened, but why it happened and how these forces continue to reverberate in the contemporary world.