World War Two and the Decline of Europe essays

World War Two and the Decline of Europe essays Europe will never be like America. Europe is a product of history. America is a product of philosophy. Margaret Thatcher (1925 - ) In the year nineteen hundred, the center of world power inarguably resided in Europe. In fact, for many centuries, many European countries were the heads of vast empires, spanning the globe (and reaping her spoils)for, although spread to the ends of the earth, European nations held firm control of their colonial territories (and the wealth they acquired through them), and enjoyed an influence over the majority of the world's population. World War II changed all of that, and would go on to impact the future of the Western world. What took the nations of Europe centuries to acquire through war, conquest, and treaty, proved to topple exponentially faster than its rise, and the close of the Second World War heralded the end of, not only "the age of empires," but of the age of European supremacy in the world. In fact, by the end of 1990, just forty-five years later, Europe would be virtually unrecognizable from its former self. Physically, the Second World War had a staggering effect on the infrastructure of countless cities. From bombed out buildings, to mined fields, to decimated bridges, roads and vital systems, Europe had to Socially, the toll of untold human suffering weighed down an entire generation with its painfor, unlike the vast number of American war dead, the majority of those killed in Europe were civilianmillions of men, women, and childrenlost to the horrors of the holocaust, horrific bombing Economically, the impact of the War on Europe was immense. Before the War, Europe was one of the richest continents on the earth. Aft ...