Impact of the Great Depression on the United States and Western Europe
Please read chapters 14 and 15. Please remember, I am looking for your main post to be a minimum of 400 words.
Option A: After analyzing the underlying or basic causes of the Great Depression beginning in 1929 in the United States and expanding into Europe, discuss the general impact of the Great Depression on the United States and Western Europe. Identify common problems faced by the nations due to the general collapse of the Western economies.
http://www.history.com/topics/great-depression (Links to an external site.)
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-us-history/period-7/apush-great-depression/a/the-great-depression (Links to an external site.)
Option B: Discuss the political and social causes of WWII in Europe. Be sure to discuss the Treaty of Versailles in your discussion.
https://www.historyonthenet.com/world-war-two-causes/ (Links to an external site.)
https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005425 (Links to an external site.)
https://www.thoughtco.com/world-war-ii-road-to-war-2361456 (Links to an external site.)
Option C: Discuss the causes of the outbreak of Europe’s war with Japan, its expansion, and analyze the reasons why Japan decided to attack the United States.
http://www.worldwar2history.info/Pacific/ (Links to an external site.)
http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/japan_1900_power.htm (Links to an external site.)
Option D: Discuss the anti-Jewish attitudes that Hitler and the Nazi Party used to attack Jews. What events preceded the Final Solution? What was the Final Solution?
https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005143 (Links to an external site.)
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/an-introductory-history-of-the-holocaust (Links to an external site.)
http://endgenocide.org/learn/past-genocides/the-holocaust/ (Links to an external site.)
You also respond to one other student during the same time period.The response should be a minimum of 150 words. I do not want you to simple agree or disagree, but rather comment on why you agree or disagree, raise more points, indicate commonalities or differences, discuss the issue in relation to our readings, and/or raise new questions about which we can all think.
Option A:
I am so excited to reach this point in the course where we are learning about one of the more intriguing, in my opinion, parts of history studying the Great Depression and World War II. I am majoring in American History and felt virtually obligated to answer Option D for this discussion. To begin, the ramifications of the Great Depression were felt internationally, especially in places that were more industrial and advanced. While it has its origins in America in 1929, the Great Depression was preceded by catastrophic financial events and rapid industrial growth as made evident in the Roaring Twenties. Throughout Chapter 14, Clements discusses these events in great detail, including the Stock Market Crash of 1929, which is believed to have begun the Depression. (Clements, Ch. 14, Sec. 3). Following America’s great collapse, European countries became more cautious and took measures to avoid a similar occasion. This actually led to European countries inadvertently closing themselves off to trade and lowering wages and raised taxes thus providing less purchasing power to consumers. Western European countries suffered from America not being able to dispense funding into their debts, and led to the closing of major financial institutions which caused even more citizens to lose their money (Clements, Ch. 14, Sec. 4). The economic conditions that played out in Western Europe strongly resembled those in America, as people were being forced to starve, not provide for their family, and remain unemployed for a prolonged period of time. In addition, this sudden rise of poverty caused many people to actually lose their sanity, and thus falling victim to mental illnesses and actions such as suicide. Families in both hemispheres were choosing to have a lesser amount of children, or to stop having children altogether, as they feared the desperate economic conditions were never going to alleviate and thus would not make for fit conditions to raise a child in. While eventually the high rates of unemployment were alleviated later, or attempted to be alleviated, through social programs established in the New Deal, both Americans and Western Europeans affected by the Depression were dealt a hand of cards that was often too challenging to overcome.
