The pivotal changes that forged the modern world

The year was 1947, when the US was still struggling to find a solution to deal with both the post war devastation of Europe and its former ally the Soviet Union. In China the nationalist government still controlled the country, India and Pakistan were under British Imperial rule and the state of Israel did not exist. From chaos left by war how one world was shaped in a extremely short time. Within thirteen months the global political landscape have changed for better. The Marshall plan announcement in June 1947, signalled America’s willingness to invest substantial sums in aiding and reshaping Europe. And by doing so created a confrontation with Moscow which pushed back by blocking Berlin. In 1947, the Chinese Communists were victorious, the sub-continent divided into two new states as the British exited leaving behind bloody hostilities raging in Pakistan and India between Muslims and Hindus and Israel gained statehood in 1948.

 The Global devastation of the second world war bankrupted empires leaving power vacuums that left open to major changes from chaos.

 Fenby quoted Jawaharlal Nehru India’s first Prime Minister “Since I assumed charge of my office, I have done nothing but tried to keep people from killing each other or visited refugee camps and hospitals. The plans which I had drawn up for making India a prosperous and progressive country had to be relegated to the background. ”

Fenby also cites Jan Masaryk the Czech foreign secretary, on his 1947 trip to Moscow, ordered by Stalin, during which the Soviet leader ordered Czech leaders to refuse the Marshall Plan aid that the US was willing to give to central, western and eastern Europe. “ I went to Moscow as the foreign minister of an independent sovereign state, but returned as a lackey of the Soviet government.”

 Two years after the end of the second conflict to engulf the world in twenty years, and the defeat of the Axis forces of Germany, Italy and Japan and the unrolling of the Cold War between Joseph Stalin’s Russia and the Western powers under the leadership of Harry Truman as America played a global role for the first time. The British Empire began its demise and the fight of the millions and slaughter as Vietnam, Indonesia and other colonies around the world vied for freedom. The coming of apartheid to South Africa, the division of Korea, All these events forged the new global order.

 

 

 

 

 

Crucible: Thirteen Months that Forged Our World by Jonathan Fenby, Simon Schuster, £25, 596 pages.