World Wars and Competing Visions of Modernity, 1900–1945

Literally, "self-rule" [swa-RAJ]. Gandhi interpreted this term as meaning "direct democracy," while the Congress Party identified it with complete independence from Great Britain.

Military retreat undertaken by the Red Army in 1934-1935 of the Communist Party of China to evade the pursuit of the Guomindang (GMD) army. The Long March solidified the power of Mao Zedong, whose leadership during the retreat gained him the support of the members of the Communist party.

The condition of economic independence and self-sufficiency as state policy.

An international body of 58 states created as part of the Versailles Treaty and functioning between 1919 and 1946 that sought to ensure world peace.

The global economic crisis that followed the crash of the New York Stock Exchange on October 29, 1929, and resulted in massive unemployment and economic misery worldwide.

German supremacist-nationalist plan formulated in 1942 by Adolf Hitler and leading Nazis to annihilate Jews through factory-style mass extermination in concentration camps, resulting in the death of about 6 million Jews, or roughly two-thirds of European Jewry.

Mass murder and mass rape committed by Japanese soldiers against the residents of Nanjing during the Second Sino-Japanese War

The belief, based on the writings of Theodor Herzl, that European Jews- and by extension all Jews everywhere-were entitled to a national homeland corresponding to the territory of biblical Israel. It grew into a form of ethno-religious nationalism and ultimately led to the formation of the state of Israel in 1948.

Sometimes called an "organic state"; based on a philosophy of government that sees all sectors of society contributing in a systematic, orderly, and hierarchical fashion to the health of the state, the way that the parts of the body do to a human being.

Quasi-colonies created by the League of Nations, which mandated key territories of the defunct Ottoman Empire to Britain and France.

A type of warfare in which all the resources of the nation-including all or most of the civilian population-are marshaled for the war effort. As total war unfolded, all segments of society were increasingly seen as legitimate targets for the combatants.

The discredited idea of the hereditary breeding of better human beings by genetic control.

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