ABSTRACT
Before 1914 depressions came and went but the fundamental tone of the economy was expansive and optimistic. A steady and often rapid increase of wealth was going on and, if world commodity prices tended on the whole downward, demand was rising. Between 1918 and 1939 the atmosphere was very different. Rich nations fumbled uncertainly and found it hard to preserve their wealth; poor nations grew poorer. All experienced heavy unemployment. The regularity and generality of prewar movements in the economy was broken up as nations sought to save themselves from common disasters by policies of withdrawal and insulation. The fragmentation of the old economic system is one of the few continuous trends to follow after 1930. Even when the international interdependence of economics is apparent, it is shown by the contagion of economic disaster, rather than by the sharing of growing wealth.
