This chapter contrasts the consequences of the First and Second World Wars. It starts by reviewing the cooperation among the Allies during and following the Second World War: Lend-Lease, the Bretton Woods System, GATT, and the Marshall Plan. These specific measures also created a general framework of cooperation and good feeling that contrasted sharply with the acrimonious residue of the First World War. International leadership, also called hegemony, passed from Europe to the United States, initiating “the American century”. The welfare state and macroeconomic management expanded. The chapter closes with a comparison of the two postwar experiences with those after the end of the Cold War around 1990, asking if the new globalization will have a backlash similar to the interwar years.
Keywords: Bretton Woods, Marshall Plan, hegemony, colonialism, welfare state, macroeconomic management, Cold War, globalization backlash, postwar settlements