THE 1930s: THE DECADE THAT CHANGED THE WORLD
Chris Danziger, tutor, Continuing Education Department, Oxford University, United Kingdom
Monday 19–Friday 23 January 9.15 am COURSE FEES R575; Staff and students R290
The 1930s was the transformational decade of the twentieth century. It gave us the defining images of depression, unemployment, fascism, international communism and militarism, leading to genocide and nuclear war. It started with the financial collapse triggered by the Wall Street crash and ended with the political collapse of the Second World War. No decade before or since has subjected the world to such stress. All the things that were taken for granted were uprooted and torn to pieces. Unemployment, inequality and deprivation caused outrage and helplessness. Everywhere governments were at a loss as to how to deal with events. Extremist parties and unlikely coalitions were often the result. Everywhere there was a search for scapegoats. Churchill called the 1930s ‘the gathering storm’; WH Auden called it ‘a low dishonest decade’. It ended in the most destructive war ever fought, with morality lessons which are becoming increasingly ambiguous today.
Lecture titles
- Wall Street crashes: the world trembles
- Democracy discredited: Germany, Italy
- International ideology on the march: Soviet Russia, the League of Nations
- Dress rehearsals: Spain, China, Abyssinia
- Armageddon: the war to end all wars
Recommended reading
Brendan, P. 2002. The Dark Valley. New York: Alfred Knopf. Conquest, R. 1968. The Great Terror. London: MacMillan.
Evans, R. 2004. The Coming of the Third Reich. United Kingdom: Penguin Books. Steinbeck, J. 1939. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Viking Press.
Ziegler, P. 2017. Between the Wars. London: Quercus Publishing.
T0 BOOK: https://www.webtickets.co.za/performance.aspx?itemid=1575285683