(1) Removed "American" from "of American history." Books are written about the history of the Depression in Europe... Wikipedia is an international encyclopedia--has to be, since it's on the Internet!
(2) I cannot parse this sentence, so I can't fix it either: "It was an extended economic contraction that ended with the government induced World War II spending economic expansion." I also wonder how widely-agreed upon this explanation is.
(3) Finally--I'm no historian, so I'm just asking--was it the events in the U.S. that led to the worldwide depression? Is that widely-agreed upon as well?
--LMS
I would guess that events in the USA were probably the trigger for the depression, but not the real cause. The economic situation in most parts of the world was a real mess ever since the end of World War 1. The appearance of prosperity 1919-1929 was an illusion. Unemployment was high, a lot of people were poor, and most of the rich had money and shares that turned out to be either borrowed, embezzled, or worthless. The big crash was going to happen somewhere, and no matter where it happened it was going to spread.
Also, supposedly world war II ought not get the credit for ending the depression. The economy had already returned to pre-depression status a while before.
The Great Depression resulted in deflation, not hyperinflation--right? So says someone on sci.econ. --LMS
- Hyperinflation is when the paper money you hold becomes worthless, in the depression, money actually gained value, while the price of goods was depressed by deflation.
If that's true, then it should be in the article, shouldn't it? --LMS
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