1) According to the text, what are the major themes of the 20th Century before WWI? “The twentieth century opened on a world dominated by the West.” It was during this period that profound progress and European power led the world affairs from the end of 19th century to world war, revolution, and economic collapse. Many themes created the turn of the 20th Century and made this period so globally powerful. Scientific discoveries and technological improvements in the early twentieth centuries became great necessities in both Europe and the United States.
New inventions and types of equipment were created, such as “x-rays”, cures for diseases, transportation, and weaponry. These are all technological and scientific breakthroughs that brought our society into a much more advanced level, which allowed us to become a powerful nation in the world. Economic trends followed right after having benefited from the discoveries. “By 1900 the rapid expansion of the Industrial Revolution, coupled with advances in transportation and communication, had created a worldwide economy.
” As their local resources and markets grew, industrialized Western nations began to pursue Imperialism. Imperialism seized economic control over parts of foreign countries to gain protected markets for their supplies. As a result, US and Western Europe became the nations that others depended on for the manufactured goods.
Most importantly, there were the social and political trends that were significant to the era. One social consequence of the industrialization was the creation of an urban working class, who worked in the old factories while the new ones appeared rapidly. This created social classes in the Western nations. People began to attend jobs such as engineers, business managers, and architects. Then there was the not so prosperous like business clerks, civil servants and so on.
During the time of urban working classes, many problems occurred such as “housing was cr…