1929–1941

The Great Depression ripped apart the treaty agreements so carefully built during the 1920s to preserve world peace, for the pacts had utterly depended on a smoothly working economic system. The collapse of 1929 not only destroyed the political arrangements, but it created such chaos and disillusionment that fascists and radical leftists replaced moderate governments in Germany, Spain, and Japan. Extremists did not grasp control in the United States, however. In a remarkable performance, Americans continued their allegiance to the traditional economic- political system, even though it was producing the most miserable and inhumane conditions in the nation’s history. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s foreign policy mirrored that moderation. But the United States started down the road to Pearl Harbor between 1929 and 1932. FDR was unable to find an exit from that road.