Key Terms and Events: 19th and 20th Century History
Key Terms of the 19th and 20th Centuries
Economic and Political Concepts
Imperialism: An economic policy linked to industrialization, the extension of capitalism, and the expansion of multinational corporations in industrialized countries.
Arms Race: Military escalation between different countries to acquire more and better military assets, generally in anticipation of a possible conflict.
Colonialism: Ideology and political practice under which industrialized countries believe they have the right and duty to conquer territories for non-industrial raw materials and to civilize these regions of the planet.
Metropolis: A state that owned and administered a colonial center, thus forming a colonial empire.
Colony: A territory subjected politically, militarily, and economically to a metropolis. The settlement focuses its economy on providing raw materials for the metropolis.
Racism: A current of thought prevalent in the 19th and early 20th centuries that defended the existence and superiority of some races over others.
War and Revolution
War of Attrition: A concept of warfare in which soldiers endure long periods of entrenchment with practically no possibility of progress.
Bolsheviks: A militant sector of the Russian Socialist Party led by Lenin, who aimed to put into practice the ideas of Karl Marx. Since 1918, they changed their name to Communists.
White Russians: Russians opposed to the revolutionary process. They faced the Bolsheviks with the support of liberal powers (USA, UK, France, Japan), who saw the Revolution as a threat.
Economic Terms
Five-Year Plan: Economic development planning over a period of five years, implemented in Communist countries.
Crash: An abrupt and sudden drop in the value of large IPOs, often followed by a major economic crisis.
Cycle: The cycle of a capitalist or market economy, alternating between periods of economic crisis and phases of depression.
Economic Speculation: When economic activity begins to revolve not around the normal or actual value of a product but around the value it is believed to be able to reach.
Political Systems and Conflicts
Dictatorship: A political regime that, through the use of force or violence, concentrates all power in one person or party and represses human rights and freedoms.
Paramilitary: Groups that, without being part of an army, are organized militarily, have a military aesthetic, and are linked to political violence.
Coup d’état: When an individual or group seizes power quickly through weapons to establish a dictatorship.
Timeline of World War I
- War of Movement: 1914
- Trench Warfare: 1915-1916
- Crisis and Turning Point: 1917
- Final Offensives and End of War: 1918
Alliances During World War I
Triple Entente: United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Portugal, Serbia, Russian Empire (Romania, Greece, Italy)
Triple Alliance: German Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire (Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria)
Allies (WWII): United Kingdom, Poland, France, USA
Axis (WWII): Germany, Italy, Japan
The Great Depression
Causes
- Stock Market Crash
- High dependence on bank loans: Europe was beginning to recover from the post-war crisis through loans from American banks. When the crisis started in America, it spread to Europe.
- In the U.S.: Citizens’ consumption was based on easy credit provided by banks.
- Industrial and agricultural overproduction
- Capital investment in the stock market and not in productive sectors: Available money was invested in the speculative economy rather than the real economy.
Consequences
- In the U.S.: The crisis affected farmers and ruined much of their businesses. Many U.S. banks went bankrupt due to a lack of funds. This led to the arrest and doomed millions of people to poverty.
- In Europe: Europe’s recovery was fueled by U.S. credit. When the crisis arrived, the repatriation of this capital began. European companies slumped, and unemployment rose for millions of people.
- The rest of the world: Colonies and countries engaged in the sale of raw materials suffered a brutal decline since industrialized countries produced less and therefore bought fewer raw materials.