Inter-War Conflicts and the Home Front

This period was marked by turmoil in much of the world, as Europe struggled to recover from the devastation of the First World War. In North America especially the first half of this period was one of considerable prosperity (the Roaring Twenties), but this changed dramatically with the onset of the Great Depression in 1929. It was at this time that the Weimar Republic in Germany gave way to two episodes of political and economic turmoil, the first culminated with the German hyperinflation of 1923 and the failed Beer Hall Putsch of that same year. The second convulsion, brought on by the worldwide depression, resulted in the rise of Nazism. In Asia, Japan became an ever more assertive power, especially with regards to China.