Imperialism to Cold War: Key 20th Century Impacts

Imperialism: The need of European states to obtain raw materials and new markets for their industrial production.

Imperialism and the Berlin Conference

The immediate consequence of the Berlin Conference was the acceleration of the race to gain positions on the African continent. The way that the Europeans divided up African territory had consequences that still remain. The different metropoles drew completely artificial borders in Africa, without taking into account the present cultures or the existing indigenous regions. Thus, 50 new countries were created without giving them any type of racial or cultural cohesion. In the long run, the coexistence of traditionally warring peoples within these artificial borders has led to serious confrontations, some directly promoted by the colonial powers. Before the meetings began, the Europeans only controlled 20% of Africa. In a few years, only two small African countries did not come under the rule of the various powers of Europe.

Treaty of Versailles and World War I Peace

The Treaty of Versailles was a peace agreement signed at the end of World War I by more than 50 countries, officially ending the state of war between Germany of the Second Reich and the Allies of World War I. The United States never ratified the Versailles treaty and made a separate peace treaty with Germany. Although the armistice of 11 November 1918 ended the actual fighting, it took six months of Allied negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude the peace treaty. Germany was not allowed to participate in the negotiations—it was forced to sign the final result.

The New Deal and U.S. Economic Reform

The New Deal included new constraints and safeguards on the banking industry and efforts to re-inflate the economy after prices had fallen sharply. New Deal programs included both laws passed by Congress as well as presidential executive orders during the first term of the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The Cold War: Tensions Between Superpowers

The Cold War was a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term cold war is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two superpowers, but they each supported opposing sides in major regional conflicts known as proxy wars. It followed the alliance and victory against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in 1945. Aside from nuclear arsenal development and conventional military deployment, the struggle for dominance was expressed via indirect means such as:

• psychological warfare
• propaganda campaigns
• espionage
• far-reaching embargoes
• rivalry at sports events
• technological competitions such as the Space Race