WWI and Anxiety

To the contrary, a decade after the end of the war, the Great Depression struck not only the nation but the world. The future looked bleak. The great strides of social, economic and technological progress which had been made before the war now seemed like a cruel illusion. The hope and optimism before the war had been shattered by that war, creating an "age of anxiety." Anxiety is the sense that nothing can be counted on, that something bad is going to happen, but it is not known what it is or when it will happen.

At the same time, the author makes clear, there were a few individuals in society who did not share the pre-World War I optimism about technological and other forms of progress, or even about "the rational human mind" (937) in general. This group of thinkers and artists believed life to be a much more irrational experience, and the horrors and violence of World War I seemed to bear out those thoughts.

The author goes on to chronicle the turbulent world of the period between the wars, in art, philosophy, religion, science, psychology, literature, music, movies, radio, politics and economics.

If there is a disappointment with this chapter, it is

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Some common words found in the essay are:
War Western, World War, , world war, period wars, politics economics, reader pursue, reader pursue subjects, pursue subjects, overview period, art science, deep subjects, science psychology, creative mind,
Approximate Word count = 1064
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page)

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