The international economy in the interwar years

The international economy which had grown up during the nineteenth century came to an end with the outbreak of war in 1914. Four years of armed conflict involving all the great industrial nations left a legacy of problems to the international economy that were never completely solved in the economic reconstruction that followed the end of the war. Consequently, the postwar international economic system was ill-prepared to withstand the shock of a worldwide depression in the early 1930s, and a rapid break-up of the world economy inevitably followed. Five more years of war were to elapse before another attempt at restoring the international economy could be undertaken.