1940: fulcrum of the twentieth century?

Abstract

Reynolds' argument is that the fall of France in 1940 was decisive in shaping the pattern of international politics after the Second World War. By drawing the United States and the Soviet Union into the European war, the German victory in France accelerated the rise of the superpowers in the postwar world and the development of the global Cold War competition. For the continental powers it discredited the assertion of national sovereignty and provided the impetus for European integration, but it turned the trend of British policy away from involvement with France in continental affairs and towards a 'special relationship' with the United States. Reynolds argues that it took the Europeans nearly half a century-until the revolutions of 1989-to begin to recover their independence and self-confidence after the collapse of the old European order.