Title: Rebuilding the world after the second world war | Second world war | The Guardian
Headings: Rebuilding the world after the second world war
Second world war
Rebuilding the world after the second world war
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New 'superpowers'
German de-Nazification
Common humanity
Empires crumble
Remembering the war

Content: The great European empires, which had controlled so much of the world, from Africa to Asia, were on their last legs and soon to disappear in the face of their own weakness and rising nationalist movements. We should not view the war as being responsible for all of this, however; the rise of the US and the Soviet Union and the weakening of the European empires had been happening long before 1939. The war acted as an accelerator. It also accelerated change in other ways: in science and technology, for example. The world got atomic weapons but it also got atomic power. Under the stimulus of war, governments poured resources into developing new medicines and technologies. Without the war, it would have taken us much longer, if ever, to enjoy the benefits of penicillin, microwaves, computers – the list goes on. In many countries, social change also speeded up.