Since the founding of the United States, Germany and Italy have both become
national states; Great Britain amassed and then, particularly after World War II, lost
its worldwide empire, as did France. France itself went through profound national
crises, from the French Revolution to the founding of the Fourth Republic in 1956.
Japan did not become a modern state until the 1870s and the opening of Japan to
Western trade. Modernization and industrialization followed so quickly that by the
Russo-Japanese War of 1905 Japan was a major regional political and economic
power. It also became, almost instantly, a world naval power that would grow
stronger and more ambitious, which would ultimately lead to Japan’s involvement
in World War II. Japan’s growth as an industrial power was extremely rapid, but
its modern constitution is little more than sixty years old and was largely written
by the American occupiers of Japan after its defeat in World War II. Japan, France,
Germany, and other parts of Europe were utterly ruined after the war, and, with help
from the United States, were rebuilt. In just seventy years Germany evolved from
the unstable Weimer Republic; through the Nazi period; to the occupation period
at the end of World War II; and to two separate states, communist East Germany and social-democratic West Germany. These two parts of Germany were reunified
in 1990.