Setting the Stage
Introduced1918 and 1945 were not the same moment
- Hopes for greater self-government were largely unfulfilled following World War I.
- However, in the years following World War II, increasing anti-imperialist sentiment contributed to the dissolution of empires and the restructuring of states.
- The CED's however is the whole point: the same hopes existed in 1918 and were disappointed, and after 1945 they were not.
The CED's word however between 1918 and 1945 marks...
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Explaining the difference is the whole subtopic.
The balance of power moved
- Technological and economic gains experienced during World War II by the victorious nations shifted the global balance of power.
- Two of the victors emerged far stronger relative to everyone else, including the older imperial powers.
- So decolonisation and the Cold War have a shared cause: the war changed who was strong, not only who won.
Technological and economic gains by the victorious nations shifted the global balance of ____.
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The war changed who was strong, not only who won.
Why 1945 was different
- Imperial powers were exhausted; colonial populations had been mobilised twice for other people's wars.
- The new leading states did not have the same stake in preserving old European empires.
- And the interwar organisations of 7.5 — congresses, parties, unions — were ready to act.
Which condition made what possible?
Sort each element of the post-1945 context.
Select all the conditions this lesson gives for why 1945 differed.
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The telegraph belongs to unit 5.
The hopes of 1918 and 1945 were the same; the outcomes were not. The CED writes that self-government hopes were largely unfulfilled after the first war and that anti-imperialist sentiment contributed to the dissolution of empires after the second. Explaining the difference is the subtopic.
Decolonisation and the Cold War are treated as separate periods.
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The unit runs them side by side because they happened at once and interacted.
Two stories, one period
- This unit runs decolonisation and the Cold War side by side, because they happened at once and interacted.
- A new state choosing its economic model was making a Cold War decision as well as a domestic one.
- The Non-Aligned Movement of 8.2 exists precisely because those two things were tangled.
"Historical context" as a skill means naming...
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And then saying what each condition made possible.
Historical context, as a skill
- The objective is the historical context of the Cold War after 1945.
- Context is not background decoration: it is the set of conditions that made the following events possible.
- So an answer names conditions — exhausted empires, a shifted balance of power, mobilised colonial populations — and then says what each made possible.
A colonial soldier fights in Europe in 1916 and returns to a colony unchanged. His grandson fights in 1943 and returns to an empire that is bankrupt, to a world in which the strongest states have no interest in propping it up, and to a political party that has been organising for twenty years. Same claim, different conditions.
Hopes for greater self-government were largely unfulfilled after World War I; after World War II, increasing anti-imperialist sentiment contributed to the dissolution of empires and the restructuring of states. Technological and economic gains by the victorious nations shifted the global balance of power — the shared cause of both decolonisation and the Cold War.
Write from two superpowers in 1945
- In 1918 several European empires were still great powers.
- In 1945 the United States and the Soviet Union dominated.
What had changed about the balance of power?
Power moved from a European club to two superpowers.
Who dominated the balance of power in 1945?
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The two superpowers replaced the old European centre.