Research Paper on:
Capitalism and Europe in the 20th Century

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
up as the triumph of capitalism. The period between 1914 and 1945 brought much grief and heartache to the people of Europe, as it reflected a time of great  concern for the safety of both Europeans and their country. Among the adverse activities that occurred during that period include two world wars, Fascism, Nazism, Stalinist Totalitarianism, and the  Depression, all of which contributed to the death of more than sixty million people by means of murder, war and starvation (Kurth, 1995, p. 32). In the midst of  the World War I, Rosa Luxemburg wrote: "Capitalist society faces a dilemma -- either an advance to Socialism or a reversion to barbarism" (Rosenberg, 1995, p. 139). Thus was  the position facing Europe during the time of the twentieth century known as The Age of Catastrophe. Disaster after disaster followed one upon another through the middle nineteen forties  that had Europe scrambling for cover. It has been noted that "the great edifice of nineteenth-century civilization crumpled in the flames of world war" (Hobsbawm, 1995, p. 22), however  some critics contend that those very same disasters proved more of a "specific sociological content" (p. 139) rather than what some termed as barbarism.  Capitalism was at the forefront of crisis during this catastrophic period. Of the primary players that subjected Europe to such a dismal state, there was not one in  particular that stood out as more detrimental than the next; rather, as each one occurred -- often on the heels of one previous -- it created a catastrophic domino influence  upon an already damaged European system. Acting as a structural force for the twentieth century, the blood that was shed throughout the capitalism crisis proved to be "the hinge