HIST 2063 — U.S. History in the Twentieth Century
The cataclysm of World War I produced international economic catastrophe, masked initially in America by an emerging consumer economy and the Jazz Age. Economic depression produced a climate in which the government became the insurer of general prosperity. World War II ended the Great Depression, produced the modern middle-class but also began a period of prolonged international competition with the Soviet Union. Despite prevailing over communism, the United States closed the century facing international uncertainty and economic limits.