Radical Change
AS NEVER BEFORE, EVERYTHING CHANGED IN THE 1930S. Alongside archaic forms of rural life came the unequivocal signs of modernity: the first runabouts, the creation and development of a modern road system, the first motorways designed by the great Italian engineer Piero Puricelli, and the consolidation of an industrial system driven primarily by the iron and steel sector. Modern trams travelled along the same streets as horse-drawn carts, and Western society started experiencing the first pernicious effects of a nascent globalisation. The Wall Street Crash in New York, in October 1929, spread rapidly round the world, with terrible consequences for the democratic stability of great countries like Germany, Austria and Italy, putting millions out of work and creating poverty and desperation. The Second World War was still ten years away but increasingly dark clouds were looming on the horizon.