United Nations

I think that Wilson's hopes for a more peaceful world through creation of a League of Nations was just ahead of its time. The United States was just too afraid of European conflict to actually get involved, and the Allied European nations were too scared of causing World War II to actually do anything about Germany's blatant disregard for its post-World War I treaties. However, this concept of a League of Nations wasn't a bad idea- it just didn't work in its time. The United Nations that developed after World War II was essentially the same thing as the League of Nations. The only difference was that it was part of a time that was better for such a concept. The United Nations kept a nuclear war from occuring, especially during events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis. In fact, if it wasn't for Wilson's creation of the League of Nations, the United States and Soviet Russia might not have been able to fix their problems, and a nuclear war could have started.

My Book Report

The book I did my book report on, Picturing the Bomb, was about the Atomic Bomb. (BIG surprise, right?) More specifically, the Manhattan Project. It was an in depth coverage of what happened at the testing facilities, with a lot of first-hand photographs of the secret military bases and other big Manhattan Project-relevant sites. The entire book is packed cover to cover of what life was like for the members of the Manhattan project, how the bomb developed, and one incredibly mind-blowing picture (the only known picture of the Atomic Bomb test at Trinity- in color). There's actually a lot more than simple science and military details of the building of the bomb in this book- it actually talks about the lives of scientists and their families living at Atomic Bomb testing grounds. It goes into every minute detail about the project, leaving no spare detail. It's really interesting getting some fresh perspective on this era of history, and the pictures really paint a vivid tale of their own.

The Great Depression: Would It Have Happened?

After World War I, the various countries of the world had a great imbalance of financial power. The United States was one country that had a riddiculous amount of money, especially compared to Europe. It was because of this imbalance of power and because of the poor economic system that was in the United States. The Depression, starting in the United States, soon spread to other countries due to the great amount of interdependency that was inherent of global trade.
Did World War I cause the Great Depression? It definately didn't help on the global scale. But what about in the United States? According to the text, the biggest problem in the states was the amount of reckless gambling on the stock market. After the crash in 1929, the amount of interdependency between countries, especially with the United States, caused the global market to shut down. Had World War I not occured, would the United States have had enough power globally to shut down the global economy? Would the United States have even been involved in such reckless spending? Another country could have been at the front of the economic world. Would that country have been the trigger for the Great Depression then? Or would there have been enough even distribution of resources that the failure of one country economically would just lead to its succession by another?