9.7: Chapter Summary and Key Terms

Chapter Summary

The global catastrophe known as World War II was really the second act of The Great War, the grand crescendo from the 20-year Great Armistice and the disastrous results of Versailles. What was begun in 1914, the unraveling of the “Modern Era” with all its empires and social structures, was completed in 1945 with the collapse of the Axis orders and the transformation of the Allied victors. While the following decade is remembered as the crowning achievement of this Western Modern Age, in reality it played out more as the nostalgic, American fever dream achieved largely through pills, booze, and an unprecedented level of consumerism. The 1950s are popularly remembered as a sort of golden age (as evidenced in the show Happy Days), but the intellectual dissonance presented to the people of earth from the horrors of the Second World War, coupled with the undiagnosed disease of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), created a cocktail of mental health disorders that were dealt with by extreme escapism. The fear of instant annihilation via nuclear attack (especially after the Soviets achieved their first successful atomic test in 1949) was met with pathetically laughable “duck-and-cover” drills, where school children hid under their desks to protect themselves from atomic bombs. The atrocities of the Holocaust and the blatantly flawed racism that drove the murderous actions of the Nazis and others were downplayed in a white-dominated American society that still supported racial segregation. The domestic order of patriarchy, which dominated Western societies since the dawn of agriculture, was presented its most compelling challenge by the social disruptions of industrial war…yet, most of the “Rosie the Riveters” were displaced from their jobs to make way for the returning (male) veterans after 1945. It will take another 20 years until America, and in turn the world, is forced to reckon with these discrepancies under the weight of the 1960’s protests against the irrational brutality of the Vietnam War, Civil Rights oppressions, and hypocritical treatment of women. Still, the end of World War II  and the creation of the United Nations established the world order that has guided us into the 21st Century and successfully prevented another global war.

Key Terms

Blitzkrieg: A fast-moving ("lightning") warfare strategy used by German forces against Poland in 1939.

Fascism: a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.

Kamikaze: Japanese suicide pilots who loaded their planes with explosives and crashed them into American ships.

Operation Barbarossa: Codename for Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II. This led the USSR to join the Allies.

Pearl Harbor Attack: On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked US naval base Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

Holocaust: Between 1993 and 1945, approximately six million Jews were systematically and brutally murdered in Europe by the Nazis and their collaborators. Millions of non-Jews, including Roma and Sinti (Gypsies), Serbs, political dissidents, people with disabilities, homosexuals, and Jehova's Witnesses, were also persecuted by the Nazis.

Battle of Stalingrad: A 1942-1943 battle of World War II, in which German forces were defeated in their attempt to capture the city of Stalingrad in the Soviet Union thanks to harsh winter; turning point of war in Eastern Europe.