Black & White.

This is coolbert:

War as that word understood comprised of three distinct phases: * What led up to the war. * The fighting of the war itself. * The aftermath of the war.

From the article by Professor Ian Kershaw in the BBC "History" magazine titled:

"HOW EUROPE ROSE FROM THE DEAD"

"While the First World War triggered 30 years of terrible violence the Second ushered in decades of peace. How can we explain the contrast?"

Europe in the several decades after the Great War chaotic, unstable, general prosperity elusive. Reasons for this as identified by Professor Kershaw to include:

1. "The first was an explosion of ethnic-racist nationalist conflict, especially in the eastern half of the continent."

2. "A second interrelated, strand of the comprehensive crisis was territorial revisionism." [those nation-states and the boundaries thereof as formed by the Versailles Treaty]

3. "Thirdly, there was the festering sore of class conflict."

4. "The fourth element was interwoven with the other three. This was the unprecedentedly deep and lasting crisis of capitalism that followed the First World War and fed into the Second."

That European situation for decades [and continuing to this day] in the aftermath of the Second World War far different. Marked improvement, conditions much more favorable for general prosperity, Reasons for this as identified by Professor Kershaw to include:

1. "First, the potential for further German aggression was eliminated."

2. "Secondly, Soviet domination of eastern Europe largely removed the sources of ethnic conflict."

3. "Thirdly, geopolitics had been completely transformed by the war." [United States and the Soviet Union were now the two top dogs, Europe relegated to a secondary position]

4. "Fourthly, in contrast to the searing crisis of capitalism of the interwar years . . . the take-off into sustained and spectacularly high levels of economic growth . . . provided the platform for political stability."

GENERAL AND OVERALL PROSPERITY IN THE UNITED STATES IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR FOR INSTANCE MOST REMARKABLE.

In 1939 only one American male in four able to own an automobile. By 1947 almost 100 % of American males able to own an automobile. General prosperity in Europe it might be mentioned for the most part relegated to that western part of the continent.

And thank you Professor Ian!

coolbert.