Despite winning WWI and showing off its power to the rest of the world, the United States limped into 1920. Exhausted by a year of violence at home, a crippling recession, and runaway inflation, voter turned to the Republicans. And Republicans turned to a man that would symbolize the modest aspirations of the age, Warren G. Harding. Despite not lasting long, he'd set the tone for the rest of the decade. 

Bibliography for this episode: 

1. Miller, Nathan New World Coming: The 1920s and the Making of Modern America Da Capo Press 2003

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The immediate aftermath of WWI would unleash one of the most harrowing years in America's history. The economic recession that immediately followed the end of the war helped spark violence and persecutions that rocked the country into 1920. 

Bibliography for this episode: 

1. McWhirter, Cameron Red Summer: The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of Black America St. Martin's Press 2011

Questions? Comments? Email me at [email protected]

By 1914 the United States was rich and confident, but also wise enough to stay out of WWI. The problem is though fights of that size have a tendency to drag nations into them, and America found itself involved after numerous German missteps. It would be a new situation for the country, as President Wilson assumed effective political leadership of the Entente, setting a vision for the post-war that his new allies had not expected.

Bibliography for this episode: 

1. Miller, Nathan New World Coming: The 1920s and the Making of Modern America Da Capo Press 2003

Questions? Comments? Email me at [email protected]

It's overview time once again and today I introduce the United States. It's main contribution to the failures of peace in the interwar period stem from its refusal to get entangled in European affairs. Which was a reluctance that had to do with internal conditions within the nation, and will be the focus of the first part of this series. 

Bibliography for this episode: 

1. LaFeber, Walter The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations Volume II: The American Search for Opportunity, 1865-1913 Cambridge University Press 1993

Questions? Comments? Email me at [email protected]

The horrors of modern war shocked sensibilities enough that by the 1920s there were active efforts to outlaw war entirely. The idea's proponents would face obstacles from disinterested governments and even conflicts among each other. But by decade's end the world had come together in agreement with their principals. 

Bibliography for this episode: 

1. Hathaway, Oona A. and Scott J. Shapiro The Internationalists: How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World Simon and Schuster 2017

Questions? Comments? Email me at [email protected]

In contrast to the Genoa Conference failing because it tried to do too much, the Locarno Treaties had much more success due to keeping its ambitions manageable. And those ambitions were to guarantee peace in Western Europe, as opposed to the world. Still, diplomacy being what it was in the 20s, there was still plenty keeping the Great Powers from achieving something that could last. 

Bibliography for this episode: 

1. Jacobson, Jon Locarno Diplomacy: Germany and the West, 1925-1929 Princeton University Press 1972

Questions? Comments? Email me at [email protected]

Bringing the focus back to European affairs, there was a lot of unfinished business left after the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. And that business seemed intractable, leading the British Prime Minister David Lloyd George to call a new conference to solve all the continent's woes. Its failure would signal the end of overblown meetings on the Paris model, as well as set the stage for the Ruhr crisis of the mid-20s. 

Bibliography for this episode: 

1. Fink, Carole The Genoa Conference: European Diplomacy, 1921-1922 Syracuse University Press 1993

Questions? Comments? Email me at [email protected]

A big point of contention during the 1920s was disarmament. The world public didn't want a repeat of WWI, and maintaining huge militaries was seen as a wasteful expense in times of economic crisis. And for once, the Great Powers of the world did something about it, meeting in Washington, DC to hash out an agreement to scale back navy sizes. 

Bibliography for this episode: 

1. Goldstein, Erik The Washington Conference, 1921-22: Naval Rivalry, East Asian Stability and the Road to Pearl Habor Frank Cass Publishers 1994

Questions? Comments? Email me at [email protected]

Today we start covering the broader international initiatives that attempted to consolidate the Versailles system after WWI. The one that carried the most promise in the imagination of the world's public, if not the world's leaders, was the League of Nations. A precursor to the United Nations, it would try what had never been done before: Create an independent international body that would mediate the disputes of its members and de-escalate conflicts before a war could break out. 

Bibliography for this episode: 

1. Henig, Ruth The Peace That Never Was: A History of the League of Nations Haus Publishing Ltd, 2019

Questions? Comments? Email me at [email protected]

Today is our conclusion to this season's miniseries on the Soviet Union. The final years of the 20s saw the USSR slip into paranoia over fears of foreign invasion and subversion at home. It would be the perfect conditions for Stalin to move against his enemies in the Communist leadership, which is to say everyone that didn't swear blind loyalty to him.

Bibliography for this episode: 

1. Kotkin, Stephen Stalin: Paradoxes of Power 1878-1928 Penguin Books 2015

Questions? Comments? Email me at [email protected]