The First World War claimed a life every twenty-five seconds - for four years. But twenty years after the guns fell silent, they were again about their business - louder and more lethal than ever. Why? Why did the peace that people prayed and paid for last little more than twenty years? Why did tyrants rise to control the fate of continents? Why did a world that had survived a war collapse into an unprecedented depression?

Total Content Digital - Combat War

The peacemakers have gone home. America has rejected its president's peace settlement and withdrawn into its previous isolationist position. Europe wrestles with its debt, inflation destabilizes Germany, where extreme forces of both left and right create violence in the streets and in the body politic.

Just Like the Arabian Nights 1922 - 1925

These are the best of times for the US. Prohibition doesn't stop anyone from having a good time, the country is on wheels or listening to the radio, welcoming the talkies or investing in the stock market with reckless optimism. It's that brief spell they call the Jazz Age, the age of Charles Lindbergh and Babe Ruth.

Mussolini is Always Right 1925 - 1929

What had seemed to be an economic recovery is revealed to have been at best fragile and the world enters a global depression of unprecedented and unmeasurable savagery. Unemployment, hyperinflation and despair are everywhere and dictators arise. Old empires - Britain and France - come under pressure throughout the extended territories that they can barely afford to police.

Dancing on a Volcano 1929 - 1931

In different ways, in different places, new leaders take centre stage: Hitler in Germany, Roosevelt in the US. Militarism triumphs in Japan, which consolidates its invasion of China's north east. By the time the offices of president and chancellor have been combined into a single Fuhrer, Hitler has achieved absolute power in a one-party state without acting unconstitutionally.

I'm Alright 1932 - 1933

In the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic's repression, gulags, collectivization, and Five-Year plans are beginning to tally the human toll that will always be associated with Stalin's rule.

Everyone Trusts Him 1933 - 1936

The power in Europe has finally and fatally shifted - the resurgent Germany of the Third Reich is the dominant force. War rips Spain apart as a three year civil war of terrible brutality starts.

History Stopped 1936 - 1938

Little more than 20 years after the guns fell silent, they roar back into life. Hitler annexes all of Czechoslovakia. Britain and France respond with promises to Poland.

Impossible Peace

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