The 1920s boom was partially global - the U.S, France, and Great Britain boomed, along with non-belligerents like Venezuela. Weimar Germany had one of the worst economic collapses in history. Additionally, the Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian empires disintegrated, with widespread hardship (revolutions, civil war, economic problems) occurring during the early 20s and then subsequent trajectories defined by how stable and how market-friendly the successor states were.
See a pattern there? It's really awesome to win a war, particularly if it was never fought on your territory or you got reparations. It really sucks to lose a war. Over the short term (~10-20 years), this effect dwarfs the normal peacetime business cycle. Over the long term (~50-100 years), it's dwarfed by things like the political-economic system, technological development, alliances, population growth & demographics, etc, which tend to set up the winners of next war.
(The U.S. experienced a similar boom after the end of the Cold War in 1991.)
I agree that the US experienced a war related boom after WWI and WWII. I am simply saying the boom lasted as long as it did in large part from the green revolution. This didn’t just mean increased prosperity at home, but a continued stream of new markets opening up. China’s boom for example was delayed due to internal politics, but that just extended the same long term trend for even longer.
The boomer generation wasn’t shaped by a few good years, it was shaped by a lifetime of prosperity which is extremely unusual in historic terms. IT technology played a major role, but looking at the industrial revolution for comparison you find plenty of crashes even during a period of rapid growth.
See a pattern there? It's really awesome to win a war, particularly if it was never fought on your territory or you got reparations. It really sucks to lose a war. Over the short term (~10-20 years), this effect dwarfs the normal peacetime business cycle. Over the long term (~50-100 years), it's dwarfed by things like the political-economic system, technological development, alliances, population growth & demographics, etc, which tend to set up the winners of next war.
(The U.S. experienced a similar boom after the end of the Cold War in 1991.)