ΦThe phrase "the Roaring Twenties" was coined to describe the vitality and buzzing creativity of the decade after the First World War. But in reality, Europe never recovered its stability after the disasters of the war. When the major economic crisis known as the Great Depression struck in 1929, European democracies began to be replaced by totalitarian dictatorships. Adolf Hitler's (1889-1945) rise to power in Germany in 1933 opened the darkest chapter in the history of modern Europe. ░@Illusion of prosperity@
This highly stylized illustration of a sophisticated woman epitomizes the apparent prosperity of Europe in the 1920s. Yet this was largely an illusion. Despite some economic growth, fuelled by loans from the United States, unemployment remained high in Europe. The other side of the 1920s was epitomized by the General Strike in Britain in 1926, provoked by the refusal of mineworkers to accept wage cuts.
