This Fleeting World

Our World: The Modern Era 79
Thought Experiment
In 1945, President Harry Truman decided to use the atomic bomb
to end World War II in the Pacific. Consider that ever since people
have debated Truman’s decision to use this most terrible weapon and
that more and more countries have “joined” the nuclear club. Now
imagine you could advise Truman, knowing what you know now.
Would you suggest other options? Do you think it is significant that
the United States remains the only country in the world to have used
nuclear weapons in combat?
aerial bombing of cities became, for the first time, a recognized weapon of
modern warfare. The extreme brutality of the war found its most potent
symbol in the systematic murder by Hitler’s Nazi Party of almost 6 million
Jews in what has come to be known as the “Holocaust.”
By the end of the war Europe no longer dominated the global economic
system. The new superpowers were the United States and the Soviet Union.
Each had its own allies and clients, and each represented a different path to
modernity. The size and power of the Communist bloc were enhanced by
the incorporation of much of eastern Europe and by the emergence in 1949
of a Communist-dominated China led by Mao Tse-tung (1893–1976). By
1950 almost one-third of the world’s population lived under Communist
governments. Throughout the period of the world wars, economic growth
was more rapid outside of Europe, particularly in the United States, the
Soviet Union, and Japan, but also in regions such as Latin America.
The emergence of powerful anti-colonial movements in southeastern
Asia, India, Africa, and elsewhere marked the beginning of the end of European
imperialism. In India the Indian National Congress, established
in 1885, became a powerful supporter of independence, and in Mohandas
Gandhi (1869–1948) it found an inspirational and creative leader whose
nonviolent protests forced Britain to grant independence to the newly created
states of India and Pakistan in 1947.
Despite the crises of the early twentieth century, socialist predictions
of the death of capitalism were premature. Technological innovation was
rapid throughout the period; the internal combustion engine entered mass